The Canadian Press
January 11, 2008
Beth Gorham
WASHINGTON - It got brief mention in news stories amid the high-stakes drama of the Democratic race: two men at a Hillary Clinton event holding signs saying "Iron My Shirt." They interrupted her speech with chants before they were hustled out of the rally Monday evening in Salem, N.H. You can bet it made the rounds at bus stops and coffee shops.
Whether or not the public display of sexism - after Clinton's much-debated tearing up earlier in the day - somehow helped her enlist women voters to beat Barack Obama in Tuesday's New Hampshire runoff is one thing.
But it's certainly a hint of the hurdles she faces because of her gender.
It's hard to imagine a snarly racial slur against Obama that wouldn't cause a national stir, observers say.
And some have noted a pervasive patter about Clinton's looks and wardrobe that seems to go largely unnoticed by the much of the media.
It's perhaps no surprise when right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh points to a particularly unflattering picture of Clinton on the campaign trail and poses this question to his listeners: "Will this country want to actually watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis?"
But a lengthy Washington Post article in July about a Clinton outfit that showed cleavage when she was on the Senate floor was a shocker.
There's a powerful reaction whenever Clinton has referred specifically to gender or tried to portray a more personal side in recent weeks.
It happened late last year when she referred to presidential politics as an "all-boys club." A few noted that half the population might find that to be a pretty apt description - but they were in the minority.
"It is now apparent that she is a bit inept," wrote a professor at Syracuse University.
"People who make charges of racism or sexism, whenever it is convenient to do so, make for awful leaders. They do not inspire confidence and they cannot be trusted."
Nowhere was a backlash more evident than in New Hampshire when Clinton had the emotional moment after a sympathetic woman asked her how she gets through each day being so upbeat.
One male columnist pointed out he can get more upset than she became simply over losing his car keys.
But there was a massive, almost hysterical, national debate about whether it was all an act or if it made Clinton unfit to sit in the Oval Office.
It resurrected "the oldest, dumbest canard about women: they're too emotional to hold power," wrote columnist Katha Pollitt at thenation.com.
And it all begs the question: is it harder for a woman to make it to the White House than a black man like Obama in a country that outwardly lays claim to new levels of cultural maturity?
"I don't think you can quantify and say one is tougher than another," said Maren Hesla of EMILY'S List, a pro-choice fundraising group backing Clinton by mobilizing women voters.
"Not for a second do I suggest that he doesn't have an extraordinary set of burdens. But they're different. And they both bring certain advantages."
"It's about how each of them take advantage of the opportunities."
Initially, said Hesla, Clinton's campaign options were limited. She had to prove she had the background and experience to become a strong commander-in-chief.
"She had to be strong enough and tough enough. She passed with flying colours. You don't hear anyone questioning that now."
But Hesla points out it's something the men don't have to do, including the former Tennessee senator and longtime character actor who entered the Republican race last fall.
"No one questions whether Fred Thompson is qualified."
On some level as a society, said Hesla, "we are more tolerant of sexism than racism, which has been a great national shame."
American feminist Gloria Steinem made the same point this week in a New York Times editorial looking at why the sex barrier isn't taken as seriously.
She noted that black men got the vote a half-century before women in the United States.
"The reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects 'only' the female half of the human race," she wrote.
"There is still no 'right' way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what."
One woman at a campaign event for Republican John McCain did, in fact, call Clinton a bitch, leading to at least some debate about why he didn't react.
Noted one male blogger this week: "We certainly don't feel driven to wipe away sexism's ugly stain the way we do with racism. And sometimes we seem almost surprised (embarrassed even) when the issue of gender bobs to the surface at all."
The gender issue has put Clinton between a rock and a hard place, said campaign adviser Scotty Greenwood.
"If she runs as a woman, she's playing the gender card. If he runs on his ethnicity, he's a uniter," she said.
"It's almost been an aside that she's a woman. That's the bind she's in. She's got to compete in a man's world."
Obama, who's not a child of the American racial wars and has never uttered the word 'black,' has still made his origins - a Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas who raised him - a cornerstone of his campaign story.
And he was quick to point out the historic nature of his Iowa win last week in a state where very few of the voters look like him.
For Clinton, embracing "the sisterhood" unabashedly would be a powerful thing, said Greenwood.
"Women have got to start to think of this as their election."
But that's clearly not going to work with everyone, including one woman blogger who weighed in after Clinton's teary moment in a Portsmouth coffee shop.
"Her performance wasn't good enough for a Golden Globe or an Oscar but it was nauseating enough for the gullible vote."
"The question now becomes how many times will the weepy bullied little lady act go down without coming back up and leaving a bad taste? Once was more than enough."