Hillary Clinton says she pushed through pneumonia to continue working, against her doctor’s advice, because women are socialized to put their own needs aside on behalf of their work, families, and communities. In a Friday morning speech at the annual Black Women’s Agenda symposium in Washington, D.C., Clinton addressed the recent clamor over her health with sly humor, referencing the gendered expectations placed on women in general and black women in particular.
“I’m thrilled to be with you; I’m thrilled to be associated with you. I’m also thrilled to be back on the campaign trail,” Clinton said pointedly, to laughter from the crowd. “As the world knows, I was a little under the weather recently. The good news is, my pneumonia finally got some Republicans interested in women’s health.” Hey-o! Poking fun at GOP misogyny is an A-1 crowd-pleaser. She continued:
Now looking back, I know, I should have followed my doctor’s orders to rest, but my instinct was to push through it. That is what women do every single day. I felt no different. Life has shown us that we do have to work harder at the office while still bearing most of the responsibilities at home. That we always need to keep going because our families and our communities count on us. And I think it is more than fair to say that black women have an even tougher road. And you, your daughters, your granddaughters … leave the house every morning, put on that game face that we all practice, and enter a society that consistently challenges your worth. With the images you see, the lower pay that so many take home, that try to silence your voices and break your spirit. Yet you remain fierce in the face of these challenges.
People who care about things that matter and don’t want to dwell on things that don’t matter are rightly aggravated that any of us are still talking about Clinton, who inhabits a human body, getting sick. Medical records, after all, do not matter. It boggles the mind to consider the existence of a voter who is set on casting his or her presidential vote based on the candidate who is least likely to die first. And yet, some folks say they care.
Good on Clinton, then, for managing to make light of this opportunistic fixation on the fortitude of her immune system. Last week, she told Humans of New York a telling anecdote about learning to ignore sexist taunts from aspiring male lawyers during her college years, how she had to keep her focus and hide her emotions to make it in the overwhelmingly male field. Today’s speech neatly folds this pneumonia episode into her grander narrative of strength in the face of disproportionate scrutiny.
