The XX Factor: Slate women blog about politics, etc...

Feminism Means Never Having To Say "I'm Toast"

Emily asked a good question yesterday about the proper feminist reading of Hillary Clinton’s weird new Bartleby phase—wherein she is all but mathematically eliminated; superdelegates are running screaming for the exits; the office furniture is being carted out onto the moving vans; and yet still she soldiers on, undaunted, because real women “don’t give up in difficult situations.”

I suppose you can call all this “feminism.” But, as my husband pointed out this morning, if the inability to concede error or defeat—even in light of irrefutable, empirical evidence and in the face of spiraling support and tanking morale—is feminism, George Bush must be the feminist icon of the ages.