The XX Factor: What women really think.

Lady Macbeth's Duffel

Emily, your passing reference to Lady Macbeth just now reminded me of something I’d been meaning to post for a while. A friend suggested yesterday that one of Hillary Clinton’s great weaknesses as a candidate is that—fair or not—she seems so completely familiar to us. Not just because she’s been around for years but because the characteristics for which she's inevitably criticized are themselves these centuries-old archetypes: the castrating shrew, the righteous scold, the manipulative weeper ... I liked these characters the first time, by the way, when Chaucer did them. We often talk about all that Clinton baggage, but we forget that she’s carrying Lady Macbeth's duffel bag as well.

No matter what people say about Obama, I very rarely hear about him in shopworn, centuries-old literary clichés. That may explain some of the media hagiography. She is such a familiar type and the folks who hate her can just repurpose the stuff they've hated about strong women for centuries.

Maybe this is a discussion better suited for Meghan or some of you more literary lionesses, but I can’t help but think that Hillary pushes buttons that light up at Sigmund Freud’s house.