Does the treatment of Hillary Clinton reflect some disturbing truths about the treatment of women around the world? According to this op-ed article from Colombia’s El Tiempo newspaper, ‘Unfortunately, at the beginning of the 21st Century, the stereotype that defines women alternatively as adorable, useless and emotionally unstable creatures; or as cold, distant, but competent manipulators, remains fully in force. … The important thing is that the two minorities [Blacks and women] settle their differences to achieve a common goal: to get the Republicans out of the White House.”
By Sergio Muñoz Bata
Translated By Douglas Myles Rasmussen
January 16, 2008
Colombia – El Tiempo – Original Article (Spanish)
For the first time in history, a woman or an African American has a chance of winning the presidency.
This isn’t the first time a woman or an African American has sought the presidential nomination of his or her party.
In 1872, suffragist Victoria Chaflin Woodhull launched her presidential candidacy to promote gender equality. A hundred years later, Shirley Chisholm , an African American woman, also unsuccessfully sought the nomination of the Democratic Party. In 1984 in his quixotic attempt to reach the White House, Jesse Jackson managed to win a few primaries.
What’s new about 2008 is that for the first time in United States history, a woman or an African American has a real chance of winning the presidency. And the confrontation between members of two minorities has generated a debate about their electability, the state of race relations in the country and the status of women and their access to positions of power. Republicans, whose conservatism is not in vain, chose the safest route and have put forward a fistful of White men.
As the writer Gloria Steinem has rightly noted, the competition between a Black man and a woman has shown that gender, even more than race, remains the most restrictive factor of life in the United States.
“Black men,” writes Steinem, “were granted the vote 50 years before women of any race could cast a ballot. And, in general, Black men have been able to ascend to positions of power, from the armed forces to the Boards of Directors of big corporations, much faster and in greater numbers than women.”
Unfortunately, at the beginning of the 21st Century, the stereotype that defines women alternatively as adorable, useless and emotionally unstable creatures; or as cold, distant, but competent manipulators, remains fully in force. Thus, it’s no accident that the women who have been able to triumph in politics on their own merits, such as Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher or Angela Merkel, have been characterized as “Iron Women.”
At the beginning of the campaign, Hillary was accused of being cold, calculating and manipulative; and even her intelligence was seen as more of a vice than a virtue.
Then, two campaign incidents brought about a change of heart. In the first, the eyes of the candidate became moist while answering a question about how she manages to combine her duties as a mother and wife with a political career WATCH . In the other, she reacted with anger at the attacks launched at her by her two closest competitors. In both cases she showed herself to be simply a human being.
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