Go Fish: Clinton Undaunted by “Gender Card” Allegations
By NOW President Kim Gandy

With a widening six-point lead separating her from Republican frontrunner Rudy Giuliani, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton remains undaunted amidst media allegations that she has played the “gender card” during debates and public speaking engagements. Are Clinton’s opponents “piling on”? Of course they are — and they’d pile onto any candidate so far in the lead. Taking advantage of that fact isn’t playing the gender card, it’s playing the game.

Most notably slandered for comments made at her alma mater after the last debate, “In so many ways, this all-women’s college prepared me to compete in the all-boys’ club of presidential politics,” Clinton was attacked by pundits charging that the mere mention of the boys’ club was playing the victim. And when her campaign manager said, quite accurately, that the other candidates had “piled-on” Clinton at the last debate, the pundit-roar was deafening.

Clinton met her accusers with facts — not femininity. “I don’t think they’re piling on because I’m a woman. I think they’re piling on because I’m winning.” From the looks of the senator’s press coverage, it seems she has a point.

It should come as no surprise to the media or general public that a female candidate will bring her own perspective, grounded in her experiences as a woman in our society, to the Oval Office. Clinton, while not the first woman to run for U.S. president, is both the first female frontrunner for her party’s nomination and the first female presidential poll leader ever.

A frequent media magnet and target as a result of her success, Clinton’s road to the top has been paved with published gender stereotypes and broadcast sexist overtones. While journalists focused on other candidate’s views about the war in Iraq, healthcare, and immigration, Clinton’s initial press was dominated with clothing critiques, hair coverage, and home décor reports. The recent “gender card” dealt by the media to draw attention away from her solid policies, effective leadership, and groundbreaking success, is no exception.

On the Nov. 1 edition of MSNBC’s Tucker, I was asked by the host, Tucker Carlson, “What about being a woman . . . is going to make her [Clinton] a better president?” And while the idea of a female U.S. president means something very important to me and women everywhere, this obsession with Hillary’s anatomy largely misses the point. It is Clinton’s historic commitment to women’s equality and her stance on issues impacting freedom, opportunity and justice for all that will win her my vote.

Clinton’s commitment to saving the courts, preserving birth control, abortion rights and reproductive justice, improving the economic status of women and girls, promoting civil rights and ending racism, advancing health care for all, ending discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, stopping violence against women, and ending the Iraq War — not her possession of cleavage — led to NOW PAC’s public endorsement of her presidential bid.

While we at NOW are all in favor of increasing the coverage of women’s issues in the media, bulletins reporting that Hillary Rodham Clinton is a woman are not exactly what we had in mind. Clinton’s press coverage, while not unique, speaks to a much larger underlying issue at hand: sexist media stereotypes working to undermine one half of the world’s population. It’s not that we don’t see women in the media. Indeed, scantily clad, provocative images of women bombard us through the television and line the pages of today’s magazines. Yet when a woman of substance approaches the limelight, her coif draws more attention than her proposal for universal healthcare coverage!

As the debate rages on about whether Clinton can be “a grizzled veteran of rough and tough politics and then cry ‘No fair!’ when her male opponents fire a few jabs at her,” I invite you to remember our country’s once seeming distaste for political smear campaigns. The anonymous leaking of questionable allegations to de-legitimize a run for office, once looked upon unfavorably, are now acceptable means for defeating political adversaries. Come 2007, it’s enough to publicly state a candidate’s gender — apparently an insult in itself — and let the archetypal stereotypes about women fester in the heads of U.S. voters. What space for rebuttal is available to a female frontrunner whose chief complaint against her is what lies (or doesn’t) below the belt?

Ultimately, the only thing that scares Clinton’s opponents and the media more than her running for president is her closeness to actually winning it. As the press would tell it, the fullest expression of neutering our nation lies in the realization of a gender-balanced political process. But with or without the “gender card,” Clinton’s hand is trumping that of her closest opponents. No media manufactured scandal intended to diminish her lead can put a damper on the advocacy, excitement, or level of support surrounding her campaign.

And this brings us to the title of this week’s post — go fish. Senatorially seasoned, strong on diplomacy, issue driven, with a track record for results, Hillary’s a woman that is in it to win it. Sure the world of presidential politics has been a man’s domain in the past. But, given both the state of the nation and world affairs — can’t we at least consider shuffling the deck as an option?

This is one of the tamer images of the hundreds of doctored, anonymous and oddly vicious pics of Hillary Clinton on the Internet.