Why Hillary Clinton Would Not Get My Vote
Wendy Liu
January 22, 2008
Have you ever seen the Chinese movie "Raise the Red Lantern?" It was a story set in the 1920s´ China about a young woman married as the fourth wife to a wealthy man. Typical of a polygamy marriage, it showed the opulent façade of such an arrangement, the ceremonial raising of red lanterns at night, for instance, and the dark truth behind: jealousy, rivalry, misery and insanity among the wives.
A cruel form of oppression against women, such a marriage was hardest, however, on the first wife, the official wife. Usually picked for her comparable social and economic background, a first wife did enjoy certain status outwardly. But inside, she suffered silently as her husband kept adding newer and younger wives for beauty, lust, procreation or love, neglecting her. She never complained though for she knew what was required of her as a good woman: obeying and honoring her man, and in turn, saving her own status and dignity.
But how sad and humiliating that status and dignity!? Yet that is what I am reminded of when I see Hillary Clinton.
Not exactly a first wife in a polygamy marriage, but Hillary Clinton, as the First Lady of Arkansas and then the First Lady of the United States, was for many years in a position much like that of a first wife. Remember Dolly Kyle Browning, Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broaddrick and Monica Lewinsky with whom Bill Clinton had various relationships or experiences over the years?
As a member of the socalled sisterhood, I would have readily lent my sympathy to a Hillary distraught and pained over her husband´s string of affairs; I would have cheered her on if she had been so outraged by decades of her husband´s betrayal that she divorced him; I would have admired her if she had run for the Senate as truly just Hillary Rodham; and I would have seen her as a better presidential candidate if she had not often bragged about her eight years´ experience in the White House…
But no. Our First Lady, supposedly the symbol of women´s liberation and success in America, wronged for so long, chose to continue to be wronged by defending her husband´s wrong doings, finding excuses for him and standing by him even as she mocked that she was not some little woman standing by her man as the late Tammy Wynette had sang in her song. She then famously went on to blame her husband´s scandals on a "vast right-wing conspiracy." With that, Hillary Clinton saved herself the First Lady status, an indignified dignity, and more importantly, a big coattail to run political office on, as she is doing today.
Now, Hillary Clinton is asking for our votes, claiming that she has experience, has made changes, and being a woman presidential candidate, is the symbol of change. She even emphasized her gender by saying that she would bring experience as a daughter, as a mother, as a wife, as a sister.
Yes she has experience as a First Lady, as an activist for children´s welfare, and even as head of an American delegation to a World Conference on Women in China where she spoke against practices that abused women. Yes she is also a daughter, a mother, a sister and a wife. But what experience as a wife does she bring if not years upon years of accepting humiliation from a philandering husband and a marriage in a lie, and doing so for… status, just like an unhappy first wife in a polygamy marriage?! And worse, for in a polygamy marriage women weren´t free to choose and a husband openly took more wives.
It would be different if a private citizen talked about women´s equality while defending her husband´s abusive behavior towards women including her. But as a First Lady, a US senator and now a presidential candidate, Hillary´s contorted role as a wife has a larger, but unfortunate, significance in women´s lib as a whole.
Caitlin Flanagan, author and onetime children´s advocate, was right when she wrote recently in the Atlantic magazine, "…because Hillary long ago attached her ideals and political destiny to Bill Clinton´s, she also made herself complicit in all sorts of unsavory actions, including the way he treated vulnerable women."
Hillary Clinton got a little teary after coming up second behind Sen. Obama in Iowa. I wondered why. I wish she had shown true feelings, and true dignity, of a liberated woman years earlier, in Little Rock in the 1980s, or at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in the 1990s.
A cruel form of oppression against women, such a marriage was hardest, however, on the first wife, the official wife. Usually picked for her comparable social and economic background, a first wife did enjoy certain status outwardly. But inside, she suffered silently as her husband kept adding newer and younger wives for beauty, lust, procreation or love, neglecting her. She never complained though for she knew what was required of her as a good woman: obeying and honoring her man, and in turn, saving her own status and dignity.
But how sad and humiliating that status and dignity!? Yet that is what I am reminded of when I see Hillary Clinton.
Not exactly a first wife in a polygamy marriage, but Hillary Clinton, as the First Lady of Arkansas and then the First Lady of the United States, was for many years in a position much like that of a first wife. Remember Dolly Kyle Browning, Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broaddrick and Monica Lewinsky with whom Bill Clinton had various relationships or experiences over the years?
As a member of the socalled sisterhood, I would have readily lent my sympathy to a Hillary distraught and pained over her husband´s string of affairs; I would have cheered her on if she had been so outraged by decades of her husband´s betrayal that she divorced him; I would have admired her if she had run for the Senate as truly just Hillary Rodham; and I would have seen her as a better presidential candidate if she had not often bragged about her eight years´ experience in the White House…
But no. Our First Lady, supposedly the symbol of women´s liberation and success in America, wronged for so long, chose to continue to be wronged by defending her husband´s wrong doings, finding excuses for him and standing by him even as she mocked that she was not some little woman standing by her man as the late Tammy Wynette had sang in her song. She then famously went on to blame her husband´s scandals on a "vast right-wing conspiracy." With that, Hillary Clinton saved herself the First Lady status, an indignified dignity, and more importantly, a big coattail to run political office on, as she is doing today.
Now, Hillary Clinton is asking for our votes, claiming that she has experience, has made changes, and being a woman presidential candidate, is the symbol of change. She even emphasized her gender by saying that she would bring experience as a daughter, as a mother, as a wife, as a sister.
Yes she has experience as a First Lady, as an activist for children´s welfare, and even as head of an American delegation to a World Conference on Women in China where she spoke against practices that abused women. Yes she is also a daughter, a mother, a sister and a wife. But what experience as a wife does she bring if not years upon years of accepting humiliation from a philandering husband and a marriage in a lie, and doing so for… status, just like an unhappy first wife in a polygamy marriage?! And worse, for in a polygamy marriage women weren´t free to choose and a husband openly took more wives.
It would be different if a private citizen talked about women´s equality while defending her husband´s abusive behavior towards women including her. But as a First Lady, a US senator and now a presidential candidate, Hillary´s contorted role as a wife has a larger, but unfortunate, significance in women´s lib as a whole.
Caitlin Flanagan, author and onetime children´s advocate, was right when she wrote recently in the Atlantic magazine, "…because Hillary long ago attached her ideals and political destiny to Bill Clinton´s, she also made herself complicit in all sorts of unsavory actions, including the way he treated vulnerable women."
Hillary Clinton got a little teary after coming up second behind Sen. Obama in Iowa. I wondered why. I wish she had shown true feelings, and true dignity, of a liberated woman years earlier, in Little Rock in the 1980s, or at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in the 1990s.
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