Garance's post is a very smart, feminist take on this, and I think there's a lot to it.

I would say that the substantive point of the people critizing Hillary Clinton here is correct-- if you are the frontrunner in the Presidential race, your opponents are going to attack, and it's not because of your gender, it's because you are the frontrunner. Nobody ganged up on Liddy Dole in the 2000 debates.

I think Clinton probably tried this because it worked for her once, in 2000, when Lazio attacked her in a debate and she managed to get the conversation changed from the substance of the attack to the fact that he was invading the personal space of a woman by walking over to her podium.

The other thing I would note about this is that this goes against one of the main rationales of her candidacy, which is that she is really tough and knows how to fight back against Republican attacks. This, indeed, is her big selling point to liberals, and what allows her to get a lot of liberal support despite her conservative politics.

But "fighting back" is the antithesis of what she was doing on this issue. Rather, she was complaining that what they were doing was unfair to her. And that, of course, is exactly what the netroots and other base Democrats associate with the supine pose of the party over the past 7 years.

Who's to say that this particular dog-whistle isn't working, even now that her competitors have "caught on?" Isn't a standard theme of the 'secondary conversation' the notion that when women speak-out against discrimination or gender-based mistreatment or inequality, they are shouted down and not believed by men? One could argue that rank-and-file women voters are going to take one glance at the headlines and soundbites from the last few days and will sympathetically see a woman standing-up for herself and being shouted down by men, regardless of the substantive issues involved.

The next week's worth of polling will be very revealing. If Clinton's support among women increases, even a little bit, you'll see much of the criticism against Clinton trimmed, or presented in a very different way.

" Isn't a standard theme of the 'secondary conversation' the notion that when women speak-out against discrimination or gender-based mistreatment or inequality, they are shouted down and not believed by men?"

Well, in that case, then HRC's fans have no right to start crying wolf on this.
Enough reaching all ready; you'll look like Plastic Man.

(And you know it).

Cable news shows are chock full of male gender cards being played 24/7!

Chris Bowers has a great take on the male gender card.

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2196

This is a very good post.

Hillary isn't playing the gender card. But Chris Matthews, Barack Obama, John Edwards and everyone else making an issue of it are. She said her opponents were "piling on," which they were. But she never said it was because she was a woman; it's because she's beating them handily, and they're desperate. And, at Wellesley, she merely stated the obvious -- that she is a woman playing on a man's field, and winning. The "gender card" issue says more about those talking about it -- and their antiquated views and expectations of women -- than about Hillary.

I think that making this election about gender on any level is a huge mistake. After a certain number of years, gender *just doesn't play in women's heads* the same way you think it does, even with structural inequalities, which anyone would have to to be insane to ignore.

But, that's part of my complaint. This endless gender analysis *is ignoring* a lot of structural inequalities. And, in this election, *it seems designed* by right wing Republicans and right wing Democats (and the their paymasters) to distract our attention from bread and butter issues and the war-- the things that most people say they're concerned about. They've been doing this for a while now.

This is just another version of James Dobson's little check list-- the one that didn't allow anyone at their debate to check off healthcare or economic inequality, etc as their most important issue.

Why is that? Aside from *tax policy,* what is the difference between these two parties other than Giuliani is macho and HRC is having this "secondary conversation" in the backs of some people's heads?

This isn't extremely pernicious? And, who thinks Democrats can win this kind of battle? If it were that easy, we'd all be Queens.

There's no doubt about it, people like Chris Matthews and Tim Russert are sexist pigs, and Matthews in particular is downright weird about women. Russert in particular shouldn't be allowed to serve as a moderator, he's too desparate to play gotcha with Hillary.

But the fact remains that Hillary's the most hawkish of the major candidates, and the most friendly of the major candidates to large corporations, and it is not sexist to point that out and hope that we can do better.

Both front runners (Clinton and Guiliani) are suffering from a downturn in social mood that began in mid-October. As Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say, "it's always something." The specifics of the "something" are less important than the fact that the "alternatives" to the frontrunners (at least on the Democratic side) are starting to get improved press.

I don't expect it to last.

Perhaps GFR is under the impression anyone cares what she has to say about this after her infamous 'only sexist assholes oppose Hillary, and that's the only reason people oppose her' posts.

GFR just doesn't have any real credibility on this.

suzyqueue,

It's not necessary for her to have explicitly said, "The all-boys club were piling on me because I'm a woman." for her to have been playing the gender card. If Barack Obama had gone to a black college after the Iowa debate and said something about the 'all-white club' piling on him he wouldn't have explicitly have said it was because he was black either, but that would have been the implication. Everyone would have recognized it as such. But for some reason lots of people want to give Hillary Clinton a pass for doing the same thing.

Up till just recently the media has been very gentle with Sen. Clinton. Now, when she gets a small taste of adversity, she immediately goes into victim mode. And she claims to be the toughest most experienced candidate who will be best able to defeat the Republican attack machine...

Not if her first response to being seriously challenged is to break out the gender card she isn't.

Remember, she's the one who chose to make it about her gender. She's the one who chose to portray it as the 'all-boys club' piling on the lone female candidate. It's not necessary for her to have come right out and speak the words "because I'm a woman." She could have just complained about her fellow candidates piling on, or better yet, she could have shown a little more toughness and not complained at all. Barack Obama never whined about them all piling on him at the Iowa debate. Too bad she doesn't have that kind of class.

GFR,
This is the best and clearest presentation on the topic I've seen so far. I also recommend people mosey on over and read Digby's take on it. the responses here remind all of us just how hard it is for a factual, critical, honest analysis to make any headway against the partisan stupidity arrayed against professional women in general and hillary clinton in particular. despite having had it demonstrated over and over that "the gender card" accusation started with her opponents and the press and that clinton is *at most* responding to it and trying to use it, mystylplx continues to manufacture outrage that clinton is "making it about her gender."
Read a llittle more widely, mystylplx, and do a little critical thinking and you will see that *its always about gender* and whether it is romney pretending to shoot stuff, or bush clearing brush and brushing off his incoherence as being "just a guy" we are always treated to candidates *acting out their gender* in ways they think will sell to the voter. If Clinton thought that being a woman and marketing some aspects of her gender worked for her that would not be *illegitimate* it would be * politics as usual*. It seems to really be pissing off commenters and posters that implicitly HRC's campaign is relying on the fact that 51 percent of the population is women and to them *having a woman run on her gender* is no big whoop. We're here, we're female, and we're not going to pretend that acting like a guy is the only legitimate route to power. And please stop with this myth that barack obama didn't "whine" about them all piling on him at the Iowa debate. If he used a certain strategy its still a strategy. Its not purity of purpose. Believe me, if the african american vote in this country were 51 percent of the population you can bet Obama would have played the race card. Its just *more dangerous* for him to act out blackness than it is for Hillary to act out as female because he needs more white voters than he does black ones.

aimai

"If Clinton thought that being a woman and marketing some aspects of her gender worked for her that would not be *illegitimate* it would be * politics as usual*. "

And she has done exactly that before now at and no one complained. But that's not what she did this time--this time she's playing to the 'woman as victim' stereotype in an effort to excuse away a poor debate performance, and it's backfiring on her. She can't claim to be the toughest of the candidates, the one who is most capable of dealing with the Republican attack machine, and then turn around and immediately go into victim mode as soon as she's seriously challenged for the first time in this campaign.

It doesn't work.

This post is very good. Thanks for writing it.

"Believe me, if the african american vote in this country were 51 percent of the population you can bet Obama would have played the race card. Its just *more dangerous* for him to act out blackness than it is for Hillary to act out as female because he needs more white voters than he does black ones."

Actually, what's pissing me off is that people keep assuming that 51% of the population gives Hillary a big enough buffer to rely on some amorphous "gender (sympathy) vote" because, of course, all women think exactly alike. I don't doubt that this election can turn into a gender referendum, but I very seriously doubt Democrats can win it.

And, while I might be able to happily content myself with my Republican tax forms, I fail to see what people interested in women's issues get from losing.

I do see what professional genderists get out of it, but maybe it's time to call you gals out on that.

chatter like "ugh, me and 23 guys around the table -- again" is a huge part of the secondary conversation

I sense class bias..

Reality check. Most women - women who work in run-of-the-mill office cubicles, in schools or hospitals, in warehouses, or are stay at home mothers - do not have this kind of chatter.

The only women who regularly have that particular "secondary conversation" are women who have made enough of a career to have made it up to the level of upper middle management. It's up there that you get that kind of obnoxious male dominance.

Now it's easy to sympathise, but you have to wonder how large an elector group this is. It should by definition be a relatively small group - if it were a large group, it would no longer be just the 1 woman facing 23 men at the work meeting. We're talking a completely upper middle class perspective here.

Now political reporters, columnists and pundits of course make up part of that class. So I guess it's only kind of human that to some extent thats the frame of reference they see everything from. But does anybody else find it incredibly annoying how the DC and NYC pundits just... self-evidently report on everything, on the campaigns, whether they are good or bad, how they work or come across, etc etc, from their own narrow metropolitan, upper middle class cultural perspective?

And just seem to take it as, like, the natural measuring stick for any analysis? Without even a second thought, it seems? (Yes of course "all-female groups" will typically talk about how they were again faced by 23 guys at the latest office consultation meeting... what do you mean most women are not actually ever in such meetings?

You're reporters, people! Sure it's sort of interesting to know what the "secondary conversation" is like among the Ally McBeal demographic. But we hear quite a lot about that already, just like we hear quite too much from the perspective of sophisticated male middle class metropolitan professionals.

I for one would finally like to hear a lot more about what the "secondary conversation" is like among secretaries in Tampa, auto workers in Detroit, farmers in Lincoln, unemployed in Buffalo, techies in Silicon Valley. I mean, imagine! How different campaign reporting would be like, how differently Obama or Hillary or Edwards would have looked, how differently topics would be prioritized, if the pundits actually somehow reflected or reported the thoughts and feelings and reactions of regular people?

I'm sure female auto workers in Detroit or techies in Silicon Valley would just have no idea what it's like to be the only woman in a group setting. Obviously only Garance Franke-Ruta has ever experienced such a unique thing.

while African-Americans are a minority in the general election, and a tiny minority in Iowa (2 percent of caucus-goers)

But even if blacks were a majority of the caucus, Obama would still be f*cked because Hillary LEADS Obama among African American voters.

The Democratic primary is OVER. Do you understand? Every attack by Obama, and even more so Edwards because he no longer holds public office, simply harms the clout of these people.

That is why their criticisms are so muted. They understand what the punditocracy apparently does not. Hillary has already won.

"That is why their criticisms are so muted. They understand what the punditocracy apparently does not. Hillary has already won."

Muted? Hillary's fans claim it was a gang rape.

I don't get where she was "whining" about the piling-on. Seems to me she was bragging about their not having laid a glove on her despite the piling-on (whether or not that's an accurate assessment).

That may be playing the gender card, but it's playing it in the opposite direction than it's being portrayed.

Steve - I think you missed the point.. or got the point, but decided to play gotcha. Either, whatever.

Sure female auto workers in a Detroit factory also feel ill at ease being the one woman among 20 men. Somehow I dont think their talk is the "secondary conversation" GFR alluded to though.. its certainly hard to see the parallel with Hillary-in-a-debate.

Now being a woman in a corporate position, and having to stand your ground in meetings while an almost all-men set of fellow middle/upper managers criticize you - that would make you identify with Hillary. And I'm guessing that's an experience the minority of female pundits and political reporters are familiar with as well, so I suppose it would resonate..

But yeah, like I said - most women, who work in run-of-the-mill office cubicles, schools or hospitals or warehouses - for them that kind of setting would be pretty remote. And it's like these pundits, when they talk like this - they don't even have a second thought about how they're talking purely from their own pretty narrow cultural horizon.

And that's my broader gripe with reading all this punditry that's universally from this metropolitan, upper middle class perspective. Half the time, when you hear them speculate about how this or that candidate's latest move would play with "the voters", what they mean just seems to be "with people like me". But there arent a whole lot of people like them out here.

I mean, do you get the feeling that you're learning anything about what regular people, yeah those secretaries in Tampa, farmers in Lincoln, unemployed people in Buffalo, techies in Silicon Valley might think and feel about those politicians, or about the issues they're discussing, from these pundits?

I mean, imagine if the voices you hear in all this political commentary - reported or quoted or channeled - would for once NOT just be all from the materially well-off, culturally in the know DC/NYC set. How different the political talk would be, and the things you'd see all the discussion about.

I dunno. I know it sounds Maoist or something, but sometimes I really think it would be a good idea to oblige every political reporter to spend one month a year working as a nurse or shop clerk or sales rep. Would do a hell of a job getting punditry back in sync.

"I know it sounds Maoist or something, but sometimes I really think it would be a good idea to oblige every political reporter to spend one month a year working as a nurse or shop clerk or sales rep. Would do a hell of a job getting punditry back in sync."

Yeah, you know, I used to think that. People should go have their Barbara Ehrenreich experiences, all that. But now, I realize that's not going to be enough. Now I think we need to take it as it is and really drill down into the cesspools of the collective brain and figure out where this went off track, that this cultural nonsense is what American politics now consists in.

"I don't get where she was "whining" about the piling-on."

I don't know that Hillary whined about it, it's the people who have identified with her (probably mistakenly, which is the part I find sad) who think it was a gang rape. Think psychoanalytic projection. But no, I don't think most women would view it that way. I think they'd be incredulous. I don't think I even have the luxury of knowing anyone that fragile. (Which is why no one buys it and thinks they're nuts).

So, GFR is apparently arguing that women are too weak to engage in political debate as it currently exists? Men shout each0other down and call each other bad names all of the time, none of us start feinting and crying over it. Yet GFR here thinks that we need to treat women who engage in political debate differently than we treat men because they are too psychologically frail to take it.

And somehow, it's the rest of us that are engaging in evil gender stereo-types and keeping women down?

Exactly what does GFR think the stereo-type of women is

soullite as usual gets it wrong. Sure, "men shout at each other and calleach other bad names all of the time..." but actually we've just spent almost eight years watching the republican men go into pearl clutching *fainting* fits over it *every single time* a woman, or a black, or a democrat (almost by definition in the republican imaginary women or blacks or commies) says something difficult or mean. Didn't we see them go into hysterics adn make Dick Durbin apologize? Didn't we just see them try to *censure pete stark* for having the temerity to criticize bush? Didn't we see them, in fact, *censure* an independent political organization, move on, for *joking* about a *manly general's* name? I didn't see a one of them men say "oh, hell, politics is rough and tumble." On the contrary the men on the GOP side led the attack saying "sticks and stones, hell, *words* are the scariest thing evah!"

And let me repeat no one on "hillary's side" has likened anything to gang rape that is a complete fabrication by the unimaginative person who signs himself anonymous.

aimai

"And let me repeat no one on "hillary's side" has likened anything to gang rape that is a complete fabrication by the unimaginative person who signs himself anonymous."

I don't need that kind of imagination, aimai, when I have you to provide it for me. Perhaps this was a fugue moment, an hysterical episode, but is this not you?:

"The same thing happened to clinton with the "six guys against one girl" story. There is simply no culturally understood way to describe six guys and one woman that is not either "they all want sex with her" or "they don't all want sex with her" or "they are all attacking her" or "they are all supporting her." Those are the principle pre-existing story lines available to us as viewers and to the audience of pundits. Groups of men and one woman? sex or no sex, mommy or rape, those are pretty much the only stories avaiable."

I also think I saw this insinuation elsewhere on this august site. *You* are dragging out these story lines.

As for whatever garbage the Republicans have been spewing, have countless Americans not already decided that they're sick of it? This is why I have always been suspicious of all the money that flowed to Clinton and Obama. Why do we think the plutocracy floated these cultural candidacies? This kind of garbage will send scores of people running back to the Republican Party, to seek cover. Why, I have even known quite a few feminist women to seek shelter with men (middle aged ones, no less) from this kind of endless, endless, endless border line psychotic crap. It gets too tiring, living in The Crucible all the time, considering it's largely non-productive and even deeply pernicious.

But, if it runs Hillary Clinton off the farm, I guess we can take it, right?

The Politics of Identity Politics:

http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/11/4/115111/084#readmore

Its quite different to point out the major cultural story lines available to *all viewers* in viewing a scene than to assert that a particular set of viewers (women/hillary clinton supporters) *are* choosing that for their metaphor in analyzing the debate. I haven't seen any women calling it "gang rape" because actually no women I've talked to think she *lost*. The fact that the guys appeared to be ganging up on her is the gloss that the media put on the situation, whether its a pack of kids, a pack of dogs, a pack of rapists is something that individual viewers might or might not add to the imagery. At any rate, no women I know have said that it *was* a gang rape. Your point is pointless.

As for the rest of it, please, by all means blame the feminists if middle aged women run to the republican party. What a load of crap *that* argument is. Take responsibility for the racism and sexism and classism that informs most american voters and the underlying storyline the republicans have been peddling very sucessfully which is that *all* democrats are women and *all republican leaders are masculine and strong.* When you pay attention to the ways in which the race is and always has been gendered, with the democrats as the female/wussies you will understand how childish it is to protest that it is hillary clinton whose brigin' da wimminz and da sex into the discussion. We've been hearing about sex and women and victims and terrorists since George Bush strapped on a phony codpiece. Its just news when hillary clinton can be taken down by it.

aimai

"As for the rest of it, please, by all means blame the feminists if middle aged women run to the republican party. What a load of crap *that* argument is"

Uh huh. It's what 90% of America already believes.
What planet is it that you've been living on for the past 30 years?

(I mean, *other than* than the rape narrative planet you inhabit when you don't like how the conversation went).

@Anonymous:

Why don't you come out of hiding, Karl? Or is it Ann?

Aimai, I don't remember anyone referencing gang-rape when talking about this. would you like to reference something, or are you just blowing smoke?

Seriously aimai, half of your posts are just you screaming RAPE!!!!!!! so that you can try to shut other people up. Perhaps you'd like to develop an actual argument that will get accepted someplace other than the Den of the Biting beaver or Ampland.

The above post is mine.

Aimai, what is your point exactly? Are people attacking clinton for being female, or for being a Democrat? you don't seem capable of making up your mind on that one.

I'm sorry that the Democrats are personally weak and pathetic people, that they don't attack back the way they should. That's a beef you need to take up with them, and with the leaders of their allied groups. I'm as mean and nasty as they come, and would indeed like to see the rest of the party adopt these tactics as well. BECAUSE THEY ARE EFFECTIVE. Now, one hand you seem to be feinting that Democrats get mean, and then bitching that they don't.

Also, Hillary Clinton is a war mongering Neoconservative. I'm sorry if I lack any sympathy for her. The harm she will do this country by far outweighs anything else. I don't see you making endless paragraphs about the OTHER candidates. you never rush to John Edwards defense every time GFR gets a bug up her ass about him. I don't see you referncing the millions of gay jokes Republicans make about him. So stop pretending this is a moral issue for you. This is about YOU trying to defend the candidate YOU like. Nothing else.

Great post by GFR!

I'm just curious if women running for high political office have gotten the amount of convoluted gender-related flak Hillary gets.

Gender, and race, and class, ARE political issues in the US, which all candidates need to address and besides affecting the lives of ordinary Americans they have impact on the careers of non-traditional candidates--those who aren't rich, white men. But if there's even a whiff of Hillary's noticing the fact that she is the first serious female candidate for the Presidency she gets hit with a barrage of canned conservative anti-feminist rhetoric: "playing the gender card," setting up as a victim, being a shrieking, cackling, strident feminist. Gender hovers over the whole campaign: Hillary has to prove her professionalism and toughness, but if she comes off as a tough, pragmatic professional politician she gets slammed from the left as a corrupt machine politician and neo-con warmonger who will just continue to do bad business as usual. Of course the right has a different take: whatever she does they regard her as a denizen of the far left.

No one thought it out of bounds to note that Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf got votes in Liberia by projecting the sort of maternal image that assured Liberians that she was going to promote peace and stability. No one worried that Lula was playing the class card when he represented himself, accurately, as a son of the working class with a 6th grade education who rose through the union movement. But if Hillary even hinted that her life and career were affected by being female, or that pundits, fellow candidates and the general public were taking her sex into consideration, all hell would break loose. So the strategy is brinksmanship: how close can her opponents skate to mentioning her gender, how subtle can THEY be in playing the gender card without being noticed to bait her into a response that THEY can represent as HER playing the gender card.

Here is the double-bind in excelcis, the same double-bind women face whenever they stray into male territory. Harrassment, hazing and insults--about thighs and cleavage, cackling and stridancy--pushing for a response that can be portrayed as female anger (hysterical woman), charges of victimization (politically correct feminazi), being unable to take the heat (weak woman) or being unable to take a joke (humorless feminist).

Sure, I'd rather have Edwards. But my fear is that if Hillary is nominated, which seems likely, the anyone-but-Hillary doctrine--anybody but strident, cackling, perfectly awful Hillary--will be so entrenched that she will lose. And then get trashed for selfishly running for president when she should have recognized she was unelectable.

"No one thought it out of bounds to note that Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf got votes in Liberia by projecting the sort of maternal image that assured Liberians that she was going to promote peace and stability."

You know, if HRC *were* doing that, I'd probably slobber all over her Cole Haans.

But, that's not what she's doing.

And so, all bets are off. (Where'd I put my Kalashnikov)...