Maureen Dowd has left quite a turd floating in the NY Times editorial bowl.
She leads with this:
AFTER running as a man last time around, Hillary Clinton is now running as a woman.
Matthew Dowd, the former W. strategist who became an independent, says Hillary got it backward: She should have run as a woman in 2008, when she was beating back a feminized antiwar candidate. And she should have run as a man this time, when Americans feel beleaguered and scared and yearn for something “big and masculine and strong,” as Dowd put it.
Okay. First of all, awful gender stereotypes - Clinton as ‘masculine’ is an ugly and misogynistic trope, as is referring to Obama as ‘feminized’. And second… Another layer of awful gender stereotypes, with ‘feminine’ seen as weak, and ‘masculine’ seen as ‘strong’ and protective.
Despite the deafening dearth of excitement among younger women, Hillary has cast herself as Groundbreaking Granny.
Speaking as a young (albeit, male) Sanders supporter myself, it’s her conservative and incrementalist politics that disappoint me, not her age (obviously!) or gender. Also, going back up to the previous quote, her embrace of the security state. Young voters are just not as Afraid as older ones - and thus less in need of Dowd’s “big and masculine and strong” candidate.
She told Rachel Maddow she wouldn’t rule out an all-estrogen ticket by choosing a female running mate.
One thing that might make me excited about her candidacy again? Adding Warren to the ticket.
Also. An ‘all-estrogen’ ticket? That might not be a misogynistic comment, I guess. Can anyone find a single example ever of someone using the phrase “all-testosterone ticket” to refer to any of the hundreds of all-male tickets the country has had? (See also: Justice Ginsburg’s comment on how many female SCotUS justices are enough.)
From there the article descends into a bizarre and pretty incomprehensible dog-and-cat metaphor, in an attempt to appear slightly less misogynistic than it is. But the cat’s out of the bag.
It’s not that hard to find fault with Clinton - I do it all the time - but this article is just sick, and deserving of condemnation. Criticizing her policies is well within bounds, but Dowd doesn’t even try. The NYT should be embarrassed to publish this. Do they even /have/ an editor anymore?
...oh. Right. Stupid question.