The Sexist Wall

Posted at 12:01 am on Tuesday, January 8, 2008, in Uncategorized, and tagged 2008.

Has Hillary Clinton, the one-time front-runner for the democratic nomination for president, hit the sexist wall (or ceiling) that has strongly existed in American politics? I’m afraid so.

Newsweek’s Howard Fineman may have put it best, albeit inadvertently, when he searched for (but ultimately couldn’t find) what has seemingly derailed the New York Senator’s campaign. “The national media of the day [1984] turned on [Gary] Hart; they are unlikely to do the same to Obama.” And why is that?

Fineman continued to state a number of reasons, none of which included the media over-hyping Clinton’s candidacy a year ago, only to be a major player in her Howard Deanesque collapse of the moment.

If I can be unapologetically honest for a moment, it is my opinion that the media and Washington elite adored the idea of a female president only until a male of equal radicality, in this case, an African-American, was able to take her place. It is the sexist thinking, why a woman, if a man can do the job.

I am not trying to take away from the positive attributes of Barack Obama, as I feel myself becoming more and more supportive of the now-presumptive nominee, but there is no legitimate reason to write off Hillary’s supposed fall from grace as anything but politics. And with politics, an arena that is largely still controlled by males, there is a distinct sexist component.

Hillary is the first female in the history of the United States that was widely considered, and still is, to be the next president of the United States. Unfortunately, it may have not been hers to take. Not in 2008.

Is there any other explanation?

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