goddessing

Sexism is the story of this election year. The fact that so many otherwise intelligent people are utterly insensible to the problem is an indicator of how deeply rooted it still is.

Dr. Violet Socks

My beloved still makes me nuts when she rants about how Nader voters are responsible for the fact that we haven't had eight years of Al Gore in the White House. When I trot my logic out on her -- responsible: all the people who voted for Bush, election fraud, legislating from the [Florida Supreme Court] bench (and, oh yes, all the Democrats who stayed home and didn't bother to vote or, worse yet, crossed party lines and voted for Bush) -- she concedes my points, but the "Blame Nader" meme recurs.

Generally speaking, her logical abilities are far superior to mine. It's just that her limbic brain, traumatized by the events that unfolded around Election 2000, holds onto this misconception that Nader and his supporters lost the White House to the Republicans in 2000. She's not alone in this.

She's a feminist, so she won't be joining the "Blame Hillary" bandwagon, which has already started warming up [1, 2, 3, 4].

But back to Dr. Sock's (and other's) notions about sexism, let's just set the record straight. We really can Blame Hillary for everything bad that's happening in the world. There's no need to limit Hillary-blaming to any problems that may or may not be occurring in the Democratic Party, or that may or may not crop up in the general election this fall.

The only thing, I think, which we can't blame Hillary for is something that some blamed Kerry for in 2004: premature capitulation.

So why is Hillary persevering? That's what I asked myself on Wednesday morning, when I found myself thinking like so many others that it was, finally, time to give it up.

Knowing that Hillary is the opposite of a fool, that in fact she is brilliant and savvy, I began trying to imagine why she was holding on. Eventually, I came up with these things: (1) she has the huevos to eschew premature capitulation; (2) she's not afraid to break the gender rules and hang in for a fight, like other (male) party hopefuls have done; (3) she's not being obtuse; she can do the math and can also analyse the weighty social and political implications of superdelegate decision-making in this unique situation; (4) she's got political (and personal) agendas which most of us can only guess at (and excuse me y'all, but all people running for elected office are by definition politicians and political beings, Obama included); (5) she just might be hanging on for the good of the party and the good of the country, even though the throngs see her hanging-on as just the opposite.

And it occurs to me that regardless of her intentions, her machinations might deliver us the Dream Ticket that many were clamoring for a few months ago.

Whatever the case, I continue to admire Clinton. She's waded through a river of sexism during this campaign, with grace. And whether or not she's on the ticket in the fall, she'll continue to work for the party and for the people.

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