> This has been an extended discussion, and I haven't had the time to follow
> most of it, so maybe the issue I'm about to raise has already come up.
>
> Most of the comments have dealt with structural racism in the context of
> the
> Obama campaign. Has it been suggested that the stronger element to date in
> the Democratic primaries has been the "structural sexism" which has
> damaged
> Clinton? The WSJ article I posted yesterday shows there is a certain
> cohort
> of older white males who will never vote for a black man, but as I've
> noted
> previously, Obama's professional and mixed race background has, if
> anything,
> been an asset rather than a liability.
>
> Hillary's gender has not been an asset beyond her older female peers.
> There
> are other reasons for the hostility to her, but I think in Clinton's case
> gender has figured more heavily than race has with Obama in shaping
> voters'
> perceptions, even though they are both of the same class and there are
> only
> nuances of political difference between them. Racial epithets may be have
> been driven underground, but "witch" still seems to be an accepted part of
> the public discourse in attacking Clinton. Given the often savage
> gleefulness surrounding her fall, I've become more persuaded than I once
> was
> of the sexism which has dogged her campaign.
>
> My wife, for example, asked me the other day to imagine that Barak was a
> smart young freshman female Senator? Did I believe a similar groundswell
> for
> HER candidacy would have arisen at all layers of the Democratic Party and
> beyond?
>
> Class backgrounds being equal, race hasn't prevented Obama from sprinting
> to
> the head of the pack; as a women, he would never have gotten out of the
> starting blocks. Even a hip young WHITE female Senator, fresh out of the
> Illinois state house, would have almost certainly ended up jostling with
> Kucinich at the back of the pack. Unless, that is, she had powerful family
> or party connections, as a small number of other female leaders have had,
> in
> which case, like Clinton, she would have perhaps stood an outside chance
> of
> gaining power.
>
>
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