Since 2016, sexual predators have won the presidency (Donald Trump), were appointed to the Supreme Court (Brett Kavanaugh), Roe v. Wade got overturned because of the aforementioned two sexual predators, the #MeToo movement peaked (and quite frankly, failed), bimbofication rose in prominence and somehow only has grown in popularity, the ACLU edited Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s quote about women to be more “inclusive,” and apparently, the careers women are allowed to have are OnlyFans star, podcaster, and (unpaid) Mommy Blogger.
As we all know, Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election and Hillary Clinton lost. Trump ran a racist, sexist, xenophobic campaign, and the electorate still (barely) picked him over the former Secretary of State, global feminist icon, one of the most prominent and powerful women in recent memory. And, I made up this whole quasi crackpot theory about how Hillary Clinton’s 2016 general election catalyzed the current regression in feminism that we’re experiencing so I thought I’d collect what I’ve said about it over the years into a single post.
First of all, I voted for Bernie Sanders in both the 2016 and 2020 Democratic primaries, and I’ll agree that HRC wasn’t the best political candidate in 2016 due to the decades of insane media barrage against her for the most insane things. But, whenever I read about how she was forced to get rid of her glasses and change her last name and wear makeup after she was told her image was hurting her husband’s political career and was demonized for having a career and accused of murder (???) more times than I can count, I’m like “Justice for my Grandma Hillary!!!”
From a material perspective, HRC losing the 2016 election allowed Donald Trump to become president, stack the federal judiciary including nominating 3 Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, which is probably the single most crushing blow to women’s liberation. Like I’ve said before, abortion (along with birth control, no-fault divorce, the right to open a bank account, and Title IX) is one of the main factors that brought about women’s liberation as we knew it from 1973 to 2022. Abortion saves women’s lives and women’s livelihoods and preserves our health, wealth, and happiness, there’s no argument there. Having or not having a child is the most expensive decision a woman will ever make, and Trump’s justices stripping away that right is a very obvious reason that Hillary Clinton’s loss is a major catalyst for this late-2010s feminist backlash we’re enduring. But it’s not the only reason.
HRC is one of the most widely reviled figures on the right and on the left (for many, mostly stupid reasons), and I think that a lot of women really internalized her loss as evidence that WOMEN, as a collective, just could not win if they aimed too high, to be equal to men when no other woman has been. If they were smart and accomplished and confident and convinced of these qualities (since like, say what you will about Hillary Rodham Clinton but she’s not remotely stupid), they would lose just like Hillary Clinton did. I think a lot of women, even if they disliked her, thought to themselves, “Maybe if we aren’t smart, if we aren’t openly ambitious, we won’t publicly lose in the same crushing way.” And of course, that mentality doesn’t save us.
I sometimes think I’m being dramatic for despising bimbofication and the whole “being deceptively dumb and hot” thing as much as I do, but it’s not solely about bimbofication, the TikTok trend. It’s about demonizing women who take pride in their work as evil capitalist #girlbosses (to say nothing about the men who are ambitious), the leftist cool girls who crow about how “math is for boys,” how any woman that even mentions the existence of sex-based oppression is automatically a TERF and therefore has nothing to say of value, which is incidentally how you get stuff about “abortion is identity politics” since it doesn’t affect anybody who isn’t female. See where I’m going with this?
I should note again that given I voted for him in two consecutive primaries, my issues with Bernie Sanders and many of his supporters aren’t ideological, they’re methodological. During the 2016 Democratic primary, it became accepted and moreover, actively encouraged to criticize Hillary Clinton from the left, and anybody that didn’t do so was raked through the coals. I, a Sanders-Clinton voter, who was doggedly pro-Clinton during the summer of 2016, know this very well.
Over and over, for months and months, even after he was mathematically eliminated and should have dropped out (since the 2016 primary was never numerically close!!!), Sanders, or more accurately his supporters who he didn’t shut down, branded Clinton the enemy of progressive politics: she waffled on health care (ignoring that she sacrificed her political capital before I was even born to bring about universal health care), she was the evil establishment™️ (which is why older Black people overwhelmingly preferred her to Sanders), was the tool of Wall Street (for giving a few anodyne speeches about how they should pay their taxes) and splintered the democratic vote by generation, and behavior encouraged the media’s emphasis on scandals that then further drove down Clinton’s approvals. Between the left-wing and right-wing propaganda machines, Hillary was blamed for every disaster this world has faced from mass incarceration (due to the Crime Bill that she didn’t vote for while Sanders did) to the earthquake in Haiti (unclear what’s the logic here), and the damage was done.
“Hillary is a monster war criminal and you’re asking us to support her/overlook her flaws because she’s a WOMAN can’t you see Bernie is the true progressive candidate” or “I’d vote for a woman just not THAT woman, I’d vote for [insert woman],” was a mantra I heard constantly when canvassing in 2016 and to this day. Through the preceding factors, Hillary became an avatar for every woman on the left, even more so than before although of course, she already was a lightning rod for media attention due to her decades in the public eye.
How many times have we seen posts like “I’m a feminist but women can be just as evil as men,” and “Neoliberal feminism (but really all feminism) is cringe”, and “[Agreeing with elementary feminist idea] makes you a TERF?” Answer: way too many times to count. This phenomenon was present before the 2016 election, but after Hillary Clinton’s loss, I think a lot of people, male and female, collectively decided that Hillary’s leaning into feminist identity politics** while being convinced of her own intelligence and capability was why she lost so the answer for Democrats to win more elections was to throw every remotely feminist idea under the bus.
It’s just interesting to me because women are over 50% of the population, they aren’t a statistical minority the way people of color or LGBT people are, and yet, I feel like my material rights and existence as a woman are constantly being derided and decimated in the way my existence as a person of color isn’t. There’s a real phenomenon of women being constantly gaslit into believing they’re overreacting at the nature of the patriarchy. People, both men and women, in addition to the media are like, don’t be silly, Republicans and the Supreme Court will NEVER take away the right to have a bank account or get an IUD or get an abortion, why are you fear-mongering? You’re so overdramatic! Oh wait, they already did the last thing and as Clarence Thomas explicitly wrote, they’re coming for the rest of it as well.
In 1996, at a commencement speech at her and Hillary Clinton’s alma mater, Wellesley College, Nora Ephron said:
Don't underestimate how much antagonism there is toward women and how many people wish we could turn the clock back. One of the things people always say to you if you get upset is, don't take it personally, but listen hard to what's going on and, please, I beg you, take it personally. Understand: Every attack on Hillary Clinton for not knowing her place is an attack on you. Underneath almost all those attacks are the words: Get back, get back to where you once belonged. When Elizabeth Dole pretends that she isn't serious about her career, that is an attack on you. The acquittal of O.J. Simpson is an attack on you. Any move to limit abortion rights is an attack on you—whether or not you believe in abortion. The fact that Clarence Thomas is sitting on the Supreme Court today is an attack on you.
And she’s right: we should take it seriously when people express their hatred for women since we’re getting nothing by pretending that this isn’t the case.
Anyways, needless to say, the last bit of this video made me cry.
**Don’t get me wrong, I think Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 because of being too far left on social issues, especially on immigration, compared to the electorate in swing states, but I don’t think the answer was to do what the Democratic Party did in the 2020 primary and attempt to go even further left on even more unpopular issues (#AbolishICE, #DefundThePolice, #GreenNewDeal, etc.) than “Women should have equal rights.” But I digress.
"Nora Ephron said: Don't underestimate how much antagonism there is toward women and how many people wish we could turn the clock back."
I'm wondering if a reverse psychology approach might work. Since for years right wingers have been telling American women that they have it best in the world, Feminism is not needed here, it's needed in places like Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia, etc, and that if western Feminists were serious they would be doing something for women in those countries instead of complaining about nothing in the USA... maybe it's time American women play to that. Like, campaigning on those ideas. "Yes! The USA is the greatest country on earth and the one of the only countries that have given women full freedom, liberty and autonomy! I am so grateful to be an American woman and I know that all Americans, regardless of race, class, gender or religion fully support American women! I know that the American electorate will not let American women down! I have faith in our great country, it's people, and our merciful God! God Bless America!"
Then once in, laws could be changed and ERA passed based on "American values".
I'm understanding this argument, summarized, as "Clinton's loss dealt psychic damage to All Women". This is a very common failing of the pro-Hilary people, an assumption that Hilary stands for all left-wing women, and that her values are their values. As we know, women have no unique viewpoints or beliefs of their own.
I do recall op-eds at the time stating that this was a major failing of her platform.
I also find it odd that you're bringing up that you voted for Sanders (a man) so frequently, something that nobody can verify. What kind of credibility are you expecting from this statement?