Some of the criticism emerges from feminist naivete. Many obviously believe that a woman seeking the highest office in the land should draw on her feminine nurturing qualities, rather than play hardball with the boys. In this scenario, the war in Iraq is a woman's issue and women on the fringe can't understand why a female candidate could vote for a war, any war. "If she's such a passionate advocate for children, women and families, how could she countenance the ongoing killing of innocent Iraqi families, and of American soldiers who are also someone's children?" asks Susan Douglas in the magazine In These Times. "If it would be so revolutionary to have a female as president, why does she feel like the same old poll-driven opportunistic politician?"
The tough women who made it as heads of state, such as Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher, were never admired by leftist feminists. They seem to think that the "Iron Lady" should have stayed home to bake crumpets. Angela Merkel is not a feminist icon, either. The Europeans laugh at our gender politics. Segolene Royal, the Socialist runner-up in the recent French elections, says now that she's leaving the live-in partner with whom she has four children, but the Paris salon buzz is less about their personal relationship than that she wants to replace him as party chief. It's nothing personal.
Hillary's candidacy is a conflict between the kind of woman she is and the kind of leader she wants us to believe she would be. Nurture doesn't fit with nature, and her nature doesn't reflect a sense of wholeness or trustworthiness as a leader. All that unwashed laundry in the laundry hamper of her marriage doesn't help, either. While many feminists supported her as an outspoken first lady, they don't like the idea that the first woman president would be attached at the hip to the husband that, paradoxically, they like better than her.
She's come a long way, baby, but not far enough.