To find Hillary Clinton likable, we must learn to view women as complex beings
Whether you realize it or not, you’ve spent your entire life being trained toempathize with white men. From Odysseus to Walter White, Hamlet to Bruce Wayne, James Bond to the vast majority of biopic protagonists, our art consistently makes the argument that imperfect, even outright villainous, men have an innate core of humanity. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Good art should teach us to empathize with complex people. The problem comes not from the existence of these stories about white men, but from thelack of stories about everyone else.
.. Clinton—like most women—tends to be far more popular when she’s in office than when she’s running for one.
.. But that’s not the case for male politicians. In fact, it’s often their flaws thatmake them likable. After all, on paper the idea of an old disheveled man yelling sounds downright unpleasant. But in practice Bernie Sanders is an utterly charming and refreshing political figure.
.. So why is Clinton critiqued for raising her voice like Sanders, speaking hard truths like Biden, and making an awkward Pokémon Go reference we almost certainly would have dubbed a “dad joke” had Kaine said it? Why do we find their flaws likable and Clinton’s flaws off-putting? Why isn’t she seen as America’s awkward aunt or nerdy stepmom?
.. I would argue it’s because we don’t yet have cultural touchstones for flawed but sympathetic women.
..We haven’t been taught to empathize with flawed women the way we have with flawed men.
.. she’s frequently asked why her complex female character isn’t more likable. And as Davis points out toVariety, that’s just not something we question about male antiheroes like Tony Soprano and Hannibal Lecter.
.. We sympathize with the self-centeredness of Louis C.K. on Louie but we can’t stand it in Hannah Horvath on Girls.
.. Joe Biden enjoys a far rosier public image than Clinton even though he shares many of her political flaws.
.. Clinton is warm and personable in intimate settings but more distant and awkward in large ones.
.. I was a senior in college. I wasn’t sure how well I’d do. And while we’re waiting for the exam to start, a group of men began to yell things like: ‘You don’t need to be here.’ And ‘There’s plenty else you can do.’ It turned into a real ‘pile on.’ One of them even said: ‘If you take my spot, I’ll get drafted, and I’ll go to Vietnam, and I’ll die.’ And they weren’t kidding around. It was intense. It got very personal. But I couldn’t respond. I couldn’t afford to get distracted because I didn’t want to mess up the test. So I just kept looking down, hoping that the proctor would walk in the room. I know that I can be perceived as aloof or cold or unemotional. But I had to learn as a young woman to control my emotions. And that’s a hard path to walk. Because you need to protect yourself, you need to keep steady, but at the same time you don’t want to seem ‘walled off.’
.. her public persona is a kind of self-preservation tactic born out of years of brutal misogyny
.. it transforms a dehumanizing flaw into a relatable one.
.. the group most likely to enthusiastically support Hillary Clinton are older women in the workforce.