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

The Consolation Prize?

Let's Not Get Sentimental About Hillary Now

For different reasons, Kim, I, too, have been utterly mystified by the phenomenon of the Angry White Women, the "feminists" who appear to be upset by Hillary's defeat, and who interpret it as some sort of blow against women. Partly this is because, as I think I've said before, I've always thought Hillary an apalling role model for young women ("Lesson No. 1: Marry the right man"). More importantly though, the last few weeks of her campaign have been not so much feminist as pathological. Why did she keep going for so long, even after it was clear to everybody else that she would lose? Because she was fighting for all the young girls who want to grow up to be president? Or because she was trying to prove something about her odd marriage—or, more likely, prove something to her odd husband? It sure seemed to me that her unnecessarily prolonged campaign had a lot more to do with Hillary's psychological issues than the country's political issues.

Besides, as I hardly need to rehearse here, it was hardly the world's most enlightened campaign. The sly, subracist innuendoes; the whiskey-drinking and allusions to a childhood fondness for guns; the attempt to get the Democratic Party to change its rules after the fact. What was all that about? Are Hillary's feminists pleased that their champion stooped that low? I suppose it's nice that she's decided to be generous and magnanimous now, but it's a bit late: She's done a lot of damage to Obama, as well as to her party. And it's not at all clear to me that her campaign did any good for women in politics, let alone women in general. The next female presidential candidate is going to have to struggle pretty hard to prove that she's not as divisive a political figure as Hillary.

Thank You, Hillary

   Way to woman up.

Family Fight

Dahlia, thank you so much for your piece; finally, the scales are falling from my eyes. I have been, I must admit, a bit bemused by the rise of the Angry White Woman (AWW) this year. That older white women should support Hillary Clinton with passion did not surprise me, of course. That they should decry incidents of sexism made perfect sense. Even that they should turn angry when her frontrunner campaign began to fail was no great mystery. After all, I came of age, and launched my career, in the time of the Angry White Male. Pissed-off white folks are old hat to me.

What confused me was the tone of that anger—the way it was consistently and passionately framed in terms of shock and woundedness. The way the words betrayal and abandonment have been hurled about, with their insulting implications of what was owed and to whom, of what battles were fought and on who's behalf they were so launched.

I also didn't get how so many white women could be so shocked that sexism still exists. Such a level of insulation seems a privilege in itself. When I am stopped by a white cop for driving in a white neighborhood, I am not shocked. When my neighbor tells me confidentially I am the least ethnic black person he has ever met and how happy that makes him, I am not shocked. My mother, a seventysomething woman who grew up in Mississippi being stomped by black men and white folks—male and female—alike, is not shocked. My sister, who rose to become a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army and who says quite clearly that sexism is far worse than racism in the military, was not shocked by this discovery. How could she be? Growing up black in Memphis had well prepared her for discrimination of any stripe. (One example: the white female guidance counselor who told her not to bother applying for college because she could not possibly do the work even if she got in. Result: one B.A. plus two masters' degrees, including one from Harvard.)

But now I see why I have been confused: This whole thing has nothing to do with me. This is a family fight between older white women and their daughters, and me and my mother and my sisters are not even in the conversation. 

What a relief. Ya'll carry on.