Like Hillary Clinton? Shh! Don’t Tell Anyone!

4 min readJul 28, 2016

This story feels impossible to write, because every goddamn day it’s something else, up to and now including treachery on the part of the GOP nominee. (I cannot bring myself to string the word presidential in connection with said candidate.) Because m̶o̶c̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶d̶i̶s̶a̶b̶i̶l̶i̶t̶i̶e̶s̶.̶ ̶j̶o̶u̶r̶n̶a̶l̶i̶s̶t̶ ̶a̶b̶u̶s̶e̶.̶ ̶p̶l̶a̶g̶i̶a̶r̶i̶s̶m̶ ̶a̶p̶p̶r̶o̶v̶a̶l̶.̶ treason. About now, Hill should be looking like the princess in shining armor. But still, no.

In the months leading up to the DNC, I was invited to join 4 secret Hillary Facebook fan groups, and another that was anti-Bernie. Because the hostility toward expressing admiration for Hillary or any thoughts against St. Bernie was real, I joined ‘em all. But I was troubled by the idea that everything about hating Hillary seemed so directly linked to the fact that she was LWF (leading while female).

This morning I saw a great story on Vox about Hillary’s likability problem, which boiled down to this: she doesn’t mansplain. The article actually attributed her problem to the fact that she’s a listener, but that just points out how deeply people want leaders who mansplain. And that kinda cuts women out of the picture, because a lady-mansplainer just isn’t tolerated. Yet I believe women can be heard on their own terms, we just have to encourage mindful participation.

WTF is that supposed to mean?

Throwing in the word mindful sounds boring, so I’ll take a quick detour first. Because it’s possible you, like me, in all this hubbub missed a pretty big story.

“Mom broadcasts daughter’s beating on Facebook,” went the CNN headline.

In my mind’s eye I pictured a super sleuth mom videotaping a horrific scene as a call for help, though I couldn’t help but wonder how she could stand on the sidelines. Naturally I clicked. Holy cow, was I wrong.

Apparently the mom was doing the beating. Again, I thought, wow, good for that girl who secretly got this on tape! Again, totally wrong.

Mom made the tape. On purpose. With pride. We know cause at the end of the tape she tells us, asks us to make it viral, then purses her lips and adjusts her hair.

In this fucked up version of UnReal meets Cinderella, this lady apparently thought that her daughter had embarrassed her by... HAVING SEX! That’s right, a 16-year-old girl had the nerve to have sex! At least that’s what mom extrapolated from the fact that the teen had posted some photos of her boyfriend in a towel.

Pro tip: publicly shaming a child is shameful.

Mom claims she wanted to teach the girl how powerfully social media can turn against a person. Seems unnecessary, I can’t imagine this young woman has a problem imagining a thing could viciously turn against her.

So I flocked to check out the Twitrage, only to find stuff like this:

Of course there were many sane responses.

But this is what I’m talking about.

Feminism’s Ongoing Problem

Though this story is largely about bad parenting, I’m looking at the feminist angle.

A woman who enjoys sex is like a woman who enjoys leadership. Both are about power and control.

Would this woman have dealt with a son in the same way? How would I have felt about that video? My answer surprised me. I would’ve loved a mom publicly shaming her son (minus the bat) for posting suggestive pics of his girlfriend, because of course the mom would be acting in defense of the girlfriend. It’s just too ludicrous to think otherwise. And if she was mad about her son being sexually active? I’d dismiss her as the freaky weirdo she clearly must be.

And that’s my own, real-life, day-in/day-out hypocrisy, as a woman-card holding, Planned Parenthood supporting, lifelong-even-when-it-was-a-dirty-word feminist. I can 100 percent imagine that a female needs to be protected in this case, but not her male counterpart. Considering this does not change how I feel about this behavior, but it’s something I will remember in the future so I don’t so readily look for someone to blame the way that in this case my first thought was to blame a man.

This is what informs Hillary Clinton’s “perception problem.” It’s sleepy thinking. In the same way we have different attitudes about male and female sexuality, we are accustomed to seeing men in charge. Shifting that paradigm is YUGE. It takes a minute. And this is where the mindful part comes in. Because equality is not go-to for the human brain, but we can get there by paying attention.

Take stock of where you are in the shift and think about the reasons. If you’re a progressive and love progressive policies but feel antipathy toward Hillary, is it possible that it’s gender-based about it? Can you imagine if a man was doing the same thing as some Hillary thing that you find yourself not liking? How did you feel about Bill?