A reader writes:
Oh Andrew! It's a good thing I am such a huge fan already. I have been a Dish reader for the last several years but didn't read your blog back in the 2008 campaign, so your responses regarding Hillary Clinton caught me off guard. If you want to know why you might turn off women readers, just watch that clip a few more times.
Why is it playing the victim card to point out that attacks are sexist in nature? How much do you have to put up with? Why does it have to remain unnamed? Even if Hillary "played the gender card," do you really think it was so terrible for Hillary to let Bill have his career ambition before hers? Married people have to make compromises. Parents have to make compromises. That doesn't mean she isn't a feminist!
Another is more upset:
I write this with a heavy heart. I've been a huge Dishhead for 10+ years, checking your blog multiple times a day and devouring all of your posts. I don't always agree with you, but I've enjoyed your perspective on a range of issues. That's why this is so hard. After watching your arrogant and dickish mansplaining on the Overtime part of Maher's show, I just don't think I can read you anymore.
Not all of the reaction was negative:
My feminist credentials go back to the early '70s and founding the Minnesota Women's Political Caucus, MN NOW, etc. Hillary and Elizabeth Edwards made unfeminist choices. As usual, this old very leftist feminist agrees with you completely.
Another asks:
Regarding Hillary Clinton's career being tied to her husband's, can you clarify what you mean?
Juggling careers can look quite different depending on whether spouses are in the same versus different professions. I know numerous dual-PhD couples who couldn't find a university/location ideal for both. Some decided to let one spouse's career take precedence. Others decided to first move/support one spouse's career and then later give the other spouse a shot (i.e., the chance to pick which university/city they'd move to, whose publications and travel should take precedence, etc.). For spouses in the exact same field, this was extraordinarily difficult and sometimes contributed to divorce.
It seems to me that the Clinton marriage is similar. Their bond was an interest in politics. Bill's career came first and now Hillary's takes precedence, with each supporting the other's ambitions.
Did his career help hers? Of course. When careers are closely aligned, the first person gives the other a leg up as well as a terrible hurdle to overcome (i.e. the perception that whoever sacrificed and went second was inferior or didn't have what it takes to build his/her own career). What we never find out is how much the person who went second was instrumental in the other spouse's success.
So is Hillary an undeserving person who hitched herself to her husband's rising star? Or the essential partner who agreed to go second?
Another adds:
Hillary Clinton did use nepotism to get the prominence she has. However, I fail to see why she should be more condemned for it than Bush Jr., or Mitt Romney or various Kennedys, or any number of other heirs of political families.
She shouldn't. But nepotism – especially when her prodigious talents required none of it – is not feminism.
The Dish 