BELOW THE BELT: HISTORY, LEGACY, AND THE SHAME OF MEDIA

Hillary Clinton’s campaign inspired millions of women across the
country, and the increased female voter turnout has helped many women
running for office – but will those women candidates now face a media
gauntlet that is more about their gender than their qualifications?

I understand NOW endorsing Hillary Clinton for no reason other than her gender. They are, after all, the National Organization for Women, not the National Organization for People Whose Politics I Agree With. But to continue blaming her gender for the fact that she lost after the last six months is dishonest self-victimization.

Clinton ran a close race; she lost relatively narrowly. The media dismissed her EXACTLY as they would have dismissed a man in her position. It is not her femininity that made people predict that she would lose; it was the fact that she spent most of the last six months behind in votes and behind in delegates. Before Iowa she was the media’s darling, and the fact that Barack Obama took over that position has entirely to do with their relative position in the race and nothing to do with either his skin color or her gender. (The decisions of a lot of the voters were doubtless affected by these things; both issues came up frequently in the news; but they did not affect the relative assessment of who stood where in the race)

I look forward to voting for a woman candidate for President, but I will do that only when there is a woman who I agree with running for office.

ETA: Ok, I just re-read the original statement, and it was probably not worth nearly as much anger as I threw at it just now. The real thing I’m upset about here is the fact that NOW doesn’t seem to be seeing the victory of a woman getting as far as Clinton did. They, like the Clinton campaign in general has been doing since she fell behind, have resorted to gender-based victim playing rather than taking an honest look at the race and the many other factors that have resulted in Obama winning.