In terms of political style, Obama's and Clinton's gender roles have been reversed, writes QUENTIN FOTTRELL
NOBODY HAS been as hard on Hillary Clinton as other women. The US Democratic Primary has been broadly divided along lines of gender and race, with relatively very little between the two candidates policy-wise, and Clinton has come out the loser.
In last week's primary in Pennsylvania, 92 per cent of blacks voted for Barack Obama. White, working-class voters tend to go for Clinton, but only 57 per cent of women voted for her, not exactly the equivalent avalanche of support for the first real female contender.
Obama may be a greater unifying force, but women may also feel burnt by the likes of Margaret Thatcher, regarded by some feminists as an honorary man lacking compassion, or Benazir Bhutto, who failed to repeal the Hudood Ordinance laws, which confused rape and adultery.
In true female fashion, Clinton wants to talk. She wants to hold a debate with Obama before the Democratic primaries in Indiana and North Carolina on May 6th. In true blokeish fashion, he does not. But, in terms of political style, their male/female roles have been reversed. Obama was inept in a Pennsylvania bowling alley, and left his chips when he met locals in a diner - he must think of his figure after all - and his glowing speeches have embraced his feminine side far more than "HilRod". That is her own macho moniker.
Clinton has proved her mettle against John McCain by winning big swing states, but when she said last week that the US could "obliterate" Iran, she was clearly trying to publicly channel her inner HilRod. So much for the more women/less war theory.
To show she can whup the McCainiacs, she has based her political persona on traditional masculine strength - a construct based in physicality - rather than feminine goodness, which led her to fly by the seat of her pantsuit by dodging invisible bullets in Bosnia.
If Bill Clinton was actually the first black president - according to that 1998 Toni Morrison quote - then Hillary Clinton, without her sisterhood to back her, could become the first transgendered president, who is willing to go nuclear (literally!) to butch up.
Is it any wonder? Maureen Dowd in The New York Times last week called Clinton's roughing up of Obama in their last debate "the Attack of the 50-Foot Woman", and, when Clinton famously teared up, Dowd said she was "crying her way to the White House". The sisterhood never forgave her for standing by Bill's infidelities. "She won her Senate seat after being embarrassed by a man," Dowd wrote. "She pulled out New Hampshire and saved her presidential campaign after being embarrassed by another man."
While watching Clinton's Pennsylvania victory speech on TV, a friend mused: "I wonder if she would be more likely to make a bad decision once a month than a male president?" This remark came from a female friend. If it was a man who said that, he'd be lynched.
"Nobody is as hard on women as other women," another (again) female friend replied. Clinton herself once told The Wall Street Journal, "if somebody has a female boss for the first time . . . maybe they can't take out their hostility against her, so they turn it on me." That comment may be up there with Obama saying white disenfranchised Americans are "bitter", but Clinton has spawned many female-boss-from-hell articles by women - and it's not only politicians who are encouraged to leave their femininity and wombs at the door.
One woman I know of went back to her high-ranking job after her second child was born. Female colleagues asked: "both children are in a creche - full-time?" They acted impressed by her ovaries of steel, but she felt punished and judged, not congratulated.
Female solidarity was employed - alas, badly - by another politician, Cork North Central Labour TD Kathleen Lynch, when she wrote a letter for the parents of rapist Trevor Casey to say he came from a "respectable" family. (Like it matters.) She later said it would have been "cowardly to refuse" his mother's request. On the contrary, it would have taken courage. It was bad, given that she is a TD. But, considering the nature of the case and violence against women, it is almost worse that she is a woman.
I hope Clinton drops the overtly negative campaigning in Indiana, but it can't be easy being the first transgendered president, knocking back shots and skulling beers with the boys to echoes of "beat the bitch", a term coined by a female Republican.
She has run the gamut from tearful femme fatale to "HilRod" to chuckling, wide-eyed buccaneer, who still believes that with sheer stamina she can steal the election from under the nose of Obama, who runs scared of another televised tongue-lashing.
Obama dubbed Clinton "Annie Oakley" for her gun-toting memories of hunting with her grandfather, but she is more of a Calamity Jane, who warned frontiersmen that to offend her was to "court calamity", and who also had a well-documented tendency for exaggeration.
Clinton is called "Mentally 'illery" for her hearty, defensive laugh. But to quote that cross-dressing heroine Tootsie: "I'm not mentally ill, but proud, and lucky, and strong enough to be the woman that was the best part of my manhood, the best part of myself."