The XX Factor: What women really think.

The Consolation Prize?

Lessons Hillary Taught Me

I spent the day of Hillary's concession speech at a college reunion with one of my oldest friends, and we were talking about the ways, negative and positive, in which Hillary's campaign has served as a role model for our (suddenly!) 41-year-old selves. One take-away from watching her over the last 16 months, we decided, was a motto that might have saved her campaign and could serve most women I know in good stead in our professional and personal lives: Don't Be a Victim. She was always at her best as a candidate when she lightly mocked gender conventions (like that moment in the New Hampshire debate when she deflected a moronic question about her popularity ratings with a wry "Well, that hurts my feelings.") When she actually did showcase her own hurt feelings (with the "pile-on" complaint, for example, or with any and all attempts to win the race-vs.-gender sweepstakes of oppression), she came off as the girl trying to get out of gym class because of her period. But to say that HRC should have toned down the whining is not to say she should have campaigned more like a man. I thought the much-derided tears-in-a-diner moment was a legitimate expression of exhaustion-driven vulnerability, and I hope Slate's Tim Noah is right that the diner sob (really, it was more of a sniffle) represents a turning point in the politics of weeping. With the pitiless mill we put them through, I'm impressed all presidential candidates, male and female, don't regularly crumble into sniveling heaps.

But my friend and I also agreed that, for all the delusionality of the late stage of her campaign, there was something perversely admirable about Hillary's refusal to quit, her blithe disregard for the fact that a great demographic swath of our nation hates her guts. Wanting to please, to be seen as personable and reasonable and—in all senses of the word—attractive, remains a constant in female professional and personal life. Ours is a culture that views the openly expressed desires of older women as risible and grotesque (witness the subplot of the new Adam Sandler comedy, You Don't Mess with the Zohan, in which we're encouraged to laugh at the sex-starved grannies who line up to get their hair, and themselves, done by Sandler's randy Israeli stylist/hero.) As I watched the supposedly comic ecstasy of Zohan's clients on the eve of the Montana and South Dakota primaries, I couldn't help thinking, there's Hillary's base. What's so funny about what they want?

Let's Not Get Sentimental About Hillary Now

For different reasons, Kim, I, too, have been utterly mystified by the phenomenon of the Angry White Women, the "feminists" who appear to be upset by Hillary's defeat, and who interpret it as some sort of blow against women. Partly this is because, as I think I've said before, I've always thought Hillary an apalling role model for young women ("Lesson No. 1: Marry the right man"). More importantly though, the last few weeks of her campaign have been not so much feminist as pathological. Why did she keep going for so long, even after it was clear to everybody else that she would lose? Because she was fighting for all the young girls who want to grow up to be president? Or because she was trying to prove something about her odd marriage—or, more likely, prove something to her odd husband? It sure seemed to me that her unnecessarily prolonged campaign had a lot more to do with Hillary's psychological issues than the country's political issues.

Besides, as I hardly need to rehearse here, it was hardly the world's most enlightened campaign. The sly, subracist innuendoes; the whiskey-drinking and allusions to a childhood fondness for guns; the attempt to get the Democratic Party to change its rules after the fact. What was all that about? Are Hillary's feminists pleased that their champion stooped that low? I suppose it's nice that she's decided to be generous and magnanimous now, but it's a bit late: She's done a lot of damage to Obama, as well as to her party. And it's not at all clear to me that her campaign did any good for women in politics, let alone women in general. The next female presidential candidate is going to have to struggle pretty hard to prove that she's not as divisive a political figure as Hillary.

Feed Your Anger

Post-Feminist at Last

It is tempting to believe that Hillary seemed so relaxed, and confident, and generous this afternoon because she has finally accepted her place. And that place is, once again, second to a giant of male charisma. But this would be insulting, and also not true. I think she projected such calm certainty in her bowing out speech because she is at her best out of combat. When the white shirt is out, she can put her demons to rest and, for the most part, let go of the enemies-under-every-rock view that seems to always darken her mood.

If this had been her hello instead of her goodbye I might have felt more enthusiasm for her, or at least affection. She opened on a historic note, mentioning the little girls who now understand that "we can be whatever we want to be." She placed her candidacy in a string of civil rights victories. She mentioned the 50—50!—women who have orbited the Earth.* It's not merely that she cheerfully checked the boxes all the sour pundits drew for her—enthusiastic, repeated endorsements of Obama, calls for Democratic unity. It's that she finally accepted her role as a pathbreaker for women, and not the victim of constant attacks.

Yes, there were some uh-oh moments. The digression about "barriers" and "biases" that went on a little too long. The weird metaphor of her supporters as 18 million shards of glass chipping off the glass ceiling. But for the most part, she hit the notes Meghan was complaining had been missing from her candidacy.  

Yes, the female Hillary and Obama supporters will be fighting it out for some time. But with this graceful exit, she allowed the larger conversation to move on. After her speech I was listening to conservative talk radio—in this case the talk show hosted by Richard Land, the enlightened Southern Baptist leader. He is obviously no Obama supporter but he could not help but describe his nomination as the symbol of the greatness of America, and how far we have come. This could stem from conservatives' reluctance to hit hard at a black man (as Peggy Noonas argues) Or it could be genuine. Either way, it can't be bad for the Democrats.

Read more XX Factor posts about Hillary's exit.

 *Correction, June 9: The post originally said that 50 women had orbited space.

Thank You, Hillary

   Way to woman up.

Family Fight

Dahlia, thank you so much for your piece; finally, the scales are falling from my eyes. I have been, I must admit, a bit bemused by the rise of the Angry White Woman (AWW) this year. That older white women should support Hillary Clinton with passion did not surprise me, of course. That they should decry incidents of sexism made perfect sense. Even that they should turn angry when her frontrunner campaign began to fail was no great mystery. After all, I came of age, and launched my career, in the time of the Angry White Male. Pissed-off white folks are old hat to me.

What confused me was the tone of that anger—the way it was consistently and passionately framed in terms of shock and woundedness. The way the words betrayal and abandonment have been hurled about, with their insulting implications of what was owed and to whom, of what battles were fought and on who's behalf they were so launched.

I also didn't get how so many white women could be so shocked that sexism still exists. Such a level of insulation seems a privilege in itself. When I am stopped by a white cop for driving in a white neighborhood, I am not shocked. When my neighbor tells me confidentially I am the least ethnic black person he has ever met and how happy that makes him, I am not shocked. My mother, a seventysomething woman who grew up in Mississippi being stomped by black men and white folks—male and female—alike, is not shocked. My sister, who rose to become a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army and who says quite clearly that sexism is far worse than racism in the military, was not shocked by this discovery. How could she be? Growing up black in Memphis had well prepared her for discrimination of any stripe. (One example: the white female guidance counselor who told her not to bother applying for college because she could not possibly do the work even if she got in. Result: one B.A. plus two masters' degrees, including one from Harvard.)

But now I see why I have been confused: This whole thing has nothing to do with me. This is a family fight between older white women and their daughters, and me and my mother and my sisters are not even in the conversation. 

What a relief. Ya'll carry on.