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

Edging Right Up on the Literary Cliché ...

Emily I don’t think anyone disputes that hideous instances of sexism have been stirred up in this campaign. Nor does anyone dispute that Ms. Clinton is entitled to address it, which she has done very deftly at times. The question is whether she’s entitled to reduce her entire failed campaign to sexism—which has the practical effect of splitting women into those-who-are-angry-about-sexism, and those who what? Think it’s acceptable? There’s one other practical effect that warrants mentioning, and that is that it reduces a complex, brilliant, and talented candidate to a big whomping cliché. My friend Susannah writes: “I find it increasingly unbearable to watch Hillary. It feels like she has become the archetype I find most painful to see in women—a high-maintenance, delusional, and "difficult" woman who feels entitled to do whatever she likes. ... Meanwhile, Obama is forced to tiptoe around essentially just humoring her. There is a pathetic "Yes, dear" quality to the way he is forced to react to her these days.”

This mirrors a sense I’ve had that we might have finally crossed the Hirshman line. Linda Hirshman argued persuasively that all powerful, ambitious women are at some point dismissed as “hysterical” or “insane.” Too true. The problem now is that when Clinton behaves irrationally, we can’t call her out for it because it would be sexist. If we can't call irrational behavior irrational because the character in question is a woman, then it’s a short hop from here to a Tennessee Williams play ...