There’s this funny thing about Americans: We expect politicians to play politics, unless they are female politicians.
But we’re coming around.
We’re beginning to see that the steady drumbeats of Republican partisan attacks are baseless, that the steady drip of Russian-hacked emails on WikiLeaks points to nothing much more than campaign staff angst. We’re even starting to appreciate that the Clinton Foundation really does do good work.
Most of us have noticed that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s PolitiFact scorecard shows 74 percent of her fact-checked statements are in some category of true, while 71 percent of Republican nominee Donald Trump’s fact-checked statements are in some category of false.
And certainly, we can all pretty much agree that politicians twist truths to suit their needs – unless, of course, those politicians are women.
Take these statements from The Tennessean’s editorial endorsement Sunday – the one in which the paper endorsed no candidate but strongly endorsed voting.
“Democrat Hillary Clinton has a distinguished public service record as a First Lady, U.S. Senator and U.S. Secretary of State.
However, the personal email server scandal, her penchant for secrecy and her trustworthiness should give Americans pause.
Neither candidate has shown the necessary commitment to transparency.”
The Nashville newspaper also steered readers to six accompanying columns with endorsements (two each) for Clinton, Trump and Libertarian Gary Johnson.
One of the columns endorsing Clinton states:
“This election has exposed areas that she must address if she is to be successful as president, all related to trustworthiness and transparency.
She must better connect Americans with their government so they can regain trust in their institutions.
She must do more than past administrations, including the Obama Administration, to be a faithful champion of greater transparency “
The most stark phrase there is, “She must do more “
Certainly the writer didn’t mean it as a sexist remark. But certainly it is.
The sleeper attitude in that line has never been a surprise either to Clinton or to most other women.
Think back to 1992 when she was asked about the backlash she faced when she said she didn’t plan to be a White house window-dressing.
“I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies,” she said in a televised news clip as a reporter shoved a microphone in her face and asked her about the criticism that she planned to keep working. “But what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life.”
Even before there was an avenue for things to go viral, this went viral. Some stay-at-home wives and mothers felt put down. Some men were openly hostile. One guy in a man-on-the-street interview spoke straight to the camera: “I think she’s a very aggressive woman. Overly ambitious.”
Ah, yes. Ambition in uppity women should always be suspect, right?
The moment marked one of the first times Hillary Clinton had to sit down with a reporter and explain herself. It was reported that she “amended” her statement to include that she was not putting down women who chose to stay home.
But the moment also marked something else. It marked the beginning of the cottage industry that sprung up specifically to put uncalled for and unfair critical observation on Hillary Clinton. Today, she still suffers from a level of scrutiny not given to male candidates. Combine that with her three decades in politics and you get overflowing fodder for the right-wing echo-chamber attacks used to create labels like “untrustworthy” and “unfavorable.”
Jill Abramson, in theguardian.com, quoted Colin Diersing, a leader of Harvard’s Institute of Politics, as saying he thinks a gender-related double standard gets applied to Clinton.
“We expect purity from women candidates,” Diersing said in the piece, noting that when Clinton behaves like other politicians or changes positions, “it’s seen as dishonest.”
Of course, when male candidates do it, it’s just a flip-flop. Even President Barack Obama “evolved” on issues.
To be clear, Hillary’s sin is not just that, like Eve, she’s a woman.
She’s a liberal. And a Democrat.
She took on the health care industry. She moved on to win a seat in the U.S. Senate. She ran for president in 2008. Then she took on foreign politics, even Osama bin Laden.
Her history as a progressive and formidable crusader is exactly what has so motivated Republicans to try to destroy her. Thus all these years they have sought to reframe her every move, her every statement.
Now who’s untrustworthy?