What glass ceiling has she shattered?
There are some who see the prospect of Hillary Clinton winning the U. S. presidency as a milestone for modern feminism and women in general. Yet Clinton’s decades- long march to the White House owes much of its success to her rapscallion, silvertongued husband, Bill Clinton. She did not storm the citadel of male power and privilege from the outside; she was escorted in under the banner of one of its most flamboyant high achievers. She came into politics by the back door of her mate’s male prowess. She may be the first female presidential nominee for a major party, but it’s hard to say she shattered glass ceilings. She has always had Bill’s key to the penthouse.
Bill Clinton was everywhere before her — always in front, opening every door, setting up the machinery for her advance and enabling her to reach a standing that she could never have achieved without him. The Hillary Clinton story is, in this case, A Handmaid’s Tale.
The true feminist icons were not enabled by men — they rose to the top on their merits and prowess alone. Consider the example of Golda Meir, who was elected prime minister of Israel nearly 50 years ago — before the advances of progressive thinking, before the societal push to get more women into public life. Meir was a pioneer, at a time when female heads of government were virtually unheard of.
Unlike Clinton, Meir did not start her political career from a lofty perch. She began as a school teacher, an occupation not known to be a speed elevator to political Olympus. She was a woman who led a warrior nation, the necessarily Spartan culture of emergent Israel, during some of its greatest tests, and whose status as a women was neither used as an shield to dismiss criticism, or to claim some sort of superior understanding. Meir was the Iron Lady before the more famous one was given the title.
Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher was also a true feminist. She did not ride on her husband’s coattails. She did not have all the resources of the fabled Old Boys club at her disposal. Nor did she have the equivalent of the Clinton Foundation ( Bill Clinton’s out- ofoffice power centre) to build her networks, flood her campaign with cash and supply eager personnel for her every effort.
No. It was just Thatcher and her handbag. And yet Margaret Thatcher was one of the greatest leaders Britain has ever had ( second only to Winston Churchill, if you ask me), in a country where chauvinism toward women — despite the lip service to the obligatory pieties — was as rich and deep as anywhere in the Western world. The ceilings crashed by Meir a nd Thatcher weren’t glass — they were reinforced concrete. But these two — and there are other examples — set real milestones and earned their status based on their own efforts, their own skills and their own daring.
Nonetheless, the pretence continues that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is a milestone for women in general. Yet her victory, which is now taken as a given by most of the U.S. media elite, will not send the message to young girls that if they work hard enough, they can become president of the United States. It will send the message that if they marry well enough, they can become president. Not exactly a feminist message.
It is arguable that, aside from the tumult inspired by Donald Trump’s singular presence — and that’s a Grand Canyon of an aside — what wind there is at Clin- ton’s back comes from the idea that her campaign can claim that it is historically significant. What U. S. President Barack Obama was for race, she is for women. The claim is empty — as I think the examples of Meir and Thatcher both exuberantly demonstrate. Yet it continues to provide some distinction for her otherwise undistinguished candidacy, and her utterly derivative career.
Bernie Sanders was a milestone candidate for the Democrats, but the Clinton machine was too much for him. Despite his mass rallies and the pulse of national enthusiasm he excited among the young and disaffected, he fell — and, it seems, has largely disappeared. Which leaves the field to the professional insiders of Clinton Inc., straining to find a reason beyond “it’s her turn,” to justify another run of politics as it has always been, and as it appears it will continue to be.
MEIR AND THATCHER PUNCHED THROUGH CONCRETE. HILLARY USED HER HUSBAND’S PENTHOUSE KEY.