Speaking of Hillary Clinton: something you hear often from her supporters (not to mention Mrs. Clinton herself) is that “we need a woman in the White House”. The assumption seems to be (indeed, can only be) that a woman would somehow do the job differently than a man, simply by virtue of being a woman.
But wait: haven’t we been told by generations of angry feminists that there is no legitimate reason whatsoever to make any discrimination between men and women regarding the roles they assume in society and the workforce? That as far as such roles are concerned, we should assume males and females to be completely indistinguishable and interchangeable, and that anyone who imagines otherwise is a benighted and contemptible sexist?
Yes, of course we have. (Boy, have we ever.) So pick one, ladies. You don’t get to have it both ways.
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Being a woman, albeit not a feminist, from my intimate knowledge of, not only my own female mind, but a lifetime of observing a large pool of other female minds at work and play, I personally would opt for a man in charge as my personal preference. Let me clear it has nothing to do with a woman’s ability to do the job, but everything to do with how women interact with other people, especially other women.
I personally don’t care if that sounds “sexist”. Women like Hillary, who are used to being the queen bee, react very badly when challenged. And in my personal dealings with women, I have often observed grown women get into catty fights and switch sides several times in one day – they hate each other, they’re friends, etc., etc. Not sure what causes this, but there you have it – large numbers have dubious loyalty issues. I have also encountered a few ruthless women like Hillary, who will lie, cheat and maybe if challenged they might even kill, because once they get into this obsessive behavior pattern – they can’t stop themselves. I’m not a shrink – just encountered a few women like this. If you watch Hillary’s eyes lately as things get progressively worse for her campaign – imho, you can see she’s losing it.
Libertybelle
An interesting take…especially since my wife has said very similar. “Her eyes” is a dead on observation. I saw her taking “questions” from pesky reporters last night and each time her eyes would enlarge and almost roll back a bit before fixing a wide open icy stare back. A truly soulless woman. She needs to be hounded and pressed until the inner demon breaks free.
“Y’know, the thing about a shark, he’s got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes.”
Actually, what we been told is “There is no difference between men and women, except that men are wrong, and women are better.”
“There is no difference between men and women, except that men are wrong, and women are better.”
“There are people in Europe who, confounding together the different characteristics of the sexes, would make of man and woman beings not only equal but alike. They would give to both the same functions, impose on both the same duties, and grant to both the same rights; they would mix them in all things–their occupations, their pleasures, their business. It may readily be conceived, that by thus attempting to make one sex equal to the other, both are degraded; and from so preposterous a medley of the works of nature nothing could ever result but weak men and disorderly women” (Democracy In America, Vol 2, Book 3, Chapter XII)
The prescience of DeTocqueville continues to astound.
LB:
Indeed it does. Here’s another:
And here’s another of Tocqueville’s penetratingly prescient insights (as noted in this recent post):
LB,
Thank you for saying what many men would be reluctant to say. Because PC.
Henry…that and survival instinct.
It’s important to keep in mind that general statements about differences between men and women are about the distribution of traits; if you pick any aspect of cognition, behavior, or personality, there are going to be some men who exhibit feminine traits, and some women who exhibit masculine ones. (So when we vote for a president, we should examine the individual as best we can, so as to make a well-informed decision about whether that person’s particular, and unique, combination of characteristics are the ones we want in the Oval Office.)
But when people say “we need a woman in the White House”, they aren’t saying anything at all about any individual. What they are saying is that there is in fact a distinctly feminine distribution of traits that differs from what we’d generally expect to find in men, and that the prevalence of this distribution is so great that any woman we’d choose is likely to behave in this feminine way. And that is exactly opposite to the orthodoxy we are supposed to accept (on pain of serious social consequences!) when it comes to women in the sciences, as business executives, in the military, in family life, and so on.
This is a blatant and egregious double standard, and it needs to be called out.
OK, Robert. I admit it. I do take the “fury of a woman scorned” seriously.
This one’s for Robert:
[img]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-n-mUsdz5Y4U/VVytLp1FEAI/AAAAAAAC3KU/_WkHSmxL8fg/s1600/Toons%2BM20%2B%25284%2529.jpg[/img]
Henry, if there was an instruction book, I would end up with just the Cliff’s Notes version.
But when people say “we need a woman in the White House”, they aren’t saying anything at all about any individual. What they are saying is that there is in fact a distinctly feminine distribution of traits that differs from what we’d generally expect to find in men, and that the prevalence of this distribution is so great that any woman we’d choose is likely to behave in this feminine way.
Malcolm, In your usual concise analytical approach, you have refined wayyyyyy too much on them (being those left-wing ideologues who will vote based on skin color or sex alone). The goal is to more to, as Hillary opines frequently, to “crash through that glass ceiling”.
The concern is not the merits of the “woman” or even”specific feminine traits” – the concern is scoring a win in their ideological battle to demolish, what they consider the evil, male patriarchy that they believe has held women down. They don’t care about merits or even a common standard for both male and females in their battles. There’s is more a Machiavellian/Alinsky view – “the ends justify the means”.
Libertybelle,
You’re absolutely right. The Left doesn’t care about its inconsistencies and hypocrisies, and there is very little use in pointing them out (although I’m sure I will continue doing so). This is a culture war, and their aim is to conquer, subjugate, and destroy the enemy — namely, traditional Western civilization, and those of us who seek to preserve it.
When it comes to the Clintons, though, even the characterization just above is too charitable. For them the only aim is power. Any pieties they may utter about social justice are just a sop to their base.
Mal, I rarely comment on topics other than music, but this discussion raises the question in my mind of how many people would vote for Hillary based on “brand recognition”? What I mean is that we have a long history of politicians that have made politics their family business where a president’s son or relative (wife in Clinton’s case) is voted into office, too. We have the Bush clan, the Kennedys, two Cuomos and even going back to John Adams.
I worry that an unqualified person like Hillary (and many others) are voted in to office based on name recognition only. That could be even more of a driving force than her just being a woman.
I mean, don’t we all think that it is cool that Wolfgang Van Halen plays in Val Halen now? But, I have heard that Michael Anthony is the nicest, most solid guy around. Powerful stuff.
Ron! Nice to hear from you, my friend.
You are quite right that the Clintons depend heavily on brand recognition. After all, there are lots of women the Democrats might choose from, but for some reason Hillary is still the heir presumptive. Why? It obviously can’t be because of her charm, or a reputation for integrity, or principled consistency, or ethical rectitude, or achievements in statecraft, or good-heartedness, or honesty, or forthrightness, or spellbinding oratory, or even a pleasing voice or baseline competency. So it must be something else, and that something else most certainly includes tenacious brand-loyalty on the part of certain voters. (It also includes dependable support from some very powerful individuals and groups, due to decades of venality: she has been lavishly paid for, and these folks want her to have the power to give them their money’s worth.)
A far less destructive solution for our nation would be for Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush to become members of Van Halen.
I should add also, Ron, that there have been a great many families in every civilization that have been clusters of eminent careers, and not always in the same field. To some extent this is of course due to name recognition, upbringing, and nepotism, but it is also due in large part to heritability of advantageous traits.
Name recognition is very persuasive, for sure. Even more so is branding, as in “Democrat” and most certainly “Liberal”, which latter has become a felonious misnomer.
Recall the now famous quote of one of our nation’s most astute politicians, LBJ: