Hillary’s Tough Love
Score one for Hillary Clinton.
We’ve had our share of differences with the secretary of State over the course of her two decades in the national spotlight.
But occasionally, it seems, she gets it exactly right.
In a Marie Claire magazine interview, Clinton responds to an article by former staffer Anne Marie Slaughter, the first female director of policy planning at the State Department.
Slaughter’s piece In the July/August issue of The Atlantic, “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All,” explains how she left her highprofile post the previous year because “juggling highlevel government work with the needs of two teenage boys was not possible.”
In Marie Claire, Clinton’s response is blunt: Suck it up.
“Some women are not comfortable working at the pace and intensity you have to work at in these jobs . . . Other women don’t break a sweat,” she said.
“They have four or five, six kids. They’re highly
organized, they have very supportive networks.”
So, despite once complaining about a “vast rightwing conspiracy” attacking her and Bill, the former first lady today seemingly has little patience for victimhood — genderbased or otherwise.
“I can’t stand whining,” she says flatly.
“I can’t stand the kind of paralysis that some people fall into because they’re not happy with the choices they’ve made. You live in a time when there are endless choices . . . Money certainly helps, and having that kind of financial privilege goes a long way, but you don’t even have to have money for it. But you have to work on yourself . . . Do something!” Bully for her. Four years ago, Hillary Clinton became something of a role model to young women during a historic run for the presidency that fell just short. Her words in this interview, frankly, offer valuable advice to young Americans of all backgrounds.
And of both genders.