'Girls Don't Cry': Hazards Of 'Campaigning While Female' : NPR http:// .npr.org/templates/story/story.php"storyId$129938556 'Girls Don't Cry': Beware 'Campaigning While Female' by MAUREEN CORRIGAN September 21, 2010 text size A A A I thought I was awake and alert throughout the 2 8 presidential election. I faithfully read two major American newspapers each day( I was glued to news and talking-head analysis on TV and the Internet( and I li,e in -ashington. D.C.. after all. where politics is the hometown industry. 0ut reading Rebecca Traister1s superb new book about the election. called Big Girls Don‘t Cry, made Enlarge 7oe Raedle/Getty Images me feel retrospecti,ely dopey. like the 2stupid In a now famous moment during the 2 8 presidential sidekick2 in detecti,e fiction who dutifully takes in primaries. :illary Clinton fought back tears after an the details of a crime scene. but always fails to see undecided ,oter asked her how she managed to keep at it. day after day. Abo,e. Clinton responds to a reporter's the 0ig 3icture. question about that uncharacteristic display of emotion. The problem with the 2 8 presidential campaign was that there were so many head-snapping moments to take in. so many 2firsts.2 that e,en Traister. who was co,ering the campaign for Salon. admits to ha,ing felt dizzy and distracted. 5One of my fa,orite of these 2Say what62 moments in the book is the morning when Traister recalls being awakened by one of her colleagues with the news that 7ohn McCain had 2picked 3alin2 as his running mate. Traister. groggily coming to consciousness. asked. 2Michael 3alin628 0ut Big Girls Don‘t Cry is much more than an assemblage of these type of 2boys on the bus2 campaign anecdotes. As anyone who1s followed Traister1s sharp and li,ely essays in Salon knows. her particular 2beat2 is gender. -hat she does here is tease out the cultural narrati,es that came to wield so much power during the campaign and. finally. in the ,oting booth9 narrati,es about femininity and the demands of wife- and motherhood. as well as narrati,es about how women should 2play nice2 and let the other historically discriminated- against guy go first through the door of the -hite :ouse. Traister sur,eys a changed political landscape in 2 8 where women were key players. not only as candidates but also sometimes outspoken spouses of candidates. as well as reporters and pundits. She brings a historically informed perspecti,e to her reading of the cultural cur,eball that was Sarah 3alin and her Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election That Changed undoing – at least during the campaign ; by the tag team of Tina Fey and Everything For American Katie Couric. in addition to the sexist criticism lobbed at her e,en by her fellow Women 0y Rebecca Traister conser,ati,es. :ardco,er. AA6 pages Free 3ress 0ut far and away the longest and most eye-opening part of Traister1s book is Cist price9 D26 de,oted to :illary Clinton and her gender misad,entures in. as Traister wittily Read An Excerpt calls it. 2Campaigning -hile Female.2 Traister exca,ates the 0ill Clinton-era back story to many feminists1 reluctance to support :illary and chronicles the misogynist responses to her campaign not only by the usual Neanderthal suspects ; the guys who took to wearing the 2Iron My Shirts2 and 2Stop Mad Cow2 T-shirts – but also by liberal commentators like Chris Matthews. Keith Olbermann and Frank Rich. She was pilloried ; right and left – for her ,oice. her laugh. her age. her ankles and e,en a flash of her clea,age. 1 of 5 8/1,/2011 6:,5 P. 'Girls Don't Cry': Hazards Of 'Campaigning While Female' : NPR http:// .npr.org/templates/story/story.php"storyId$129938556 Traister charts the attitudinal shifts in the campaign9 how :illary. arguably misguided by her campaign manager. Mark 3enn. embraced a stiff-upper-lip 2gender free2 strategy early in her campaign that ironically ceded the more traditional womanly role of appealing to passions and ideals to 0arack Obama. particularly after he was endorsed by the nation1s emoter in chief. Oprah -infrey. :ere1s a snippet of how Traister astutely analyzes the gender dynamics at this point in the pre-New :ampshire Democratic primaries9 -here once :illar 1s competence had made her a prepared and inevitable presidential standard. it was now the thing that made her a particular kind of female archetype. Cike :arry 3otter1s :ermione Granger or Margaret from Dennis the Menace. :illary was being portrayed as the hand-in- the-air. know-it-all girl. grating and unpopular in her determination to prove herself. 0y broadcasting their disdain for Clinton. pundits like Dana Milbank and Chris Matthews and Roy Sekoff were affirming their own social worth9 nobody asked women like :illary to the dance. Simon J Schuster After that infamous moment in New :ampshire that Traister refers to as 2The Rebecca Traister is a regular contributor to Salon. Night of the Imaginary Tears.2 hordes of formerly skeptical women flocked She has also written for behind :illary. not. as Traister says. 2because she was a girl but because she Elle, The Nation and The was being treated like one2 ; jeered at by commentators for transforming from Ne. Yor/ Times. a so-called tight-ass into a 2basket case.2 There1s so much more to be learned and argued o,er in Big Girls Don‘t Cry, whose subtitle is9 2The Election that Changed E,erything for American -omen.2 Certainly one of the things that1s changed about presidential elections is the ,ery existence of books like this one. Girls. these days. can not only run for president( they can brilliantly analyze presidential campaigns. too. Excerpt: 'Big Girls Don't Cry' by RE0ECCA TRAISTER LANGUAGE ADVIS RY: This excerpt contains language that some readers may find offensi,e. :illary Clinton must ha,e been as aware as anyone that by entering the presidential race she was kicking off a long-awaited social experiment. In 22 years of American presidential politics there had been no serious female major party contenders. though women had been campaigning for the presidency since before they could ,ote. starting with Victoria -oodhull in 1872 and 0el,a Cockwood in 1884. In 1964 Maine1s Republican senator and former congresswoman Margaret Chase Smith became the first woman to ha,e her name placed in nomination and recei,e more than one ,ote at a major party con,ention. At the Cow 3alace arena in Daly City. California. Chase Smith came in just behind 0arry Goldwater. -illiam Scranton. Nelson Rockefeller and George Romney on the first ballot. taking 27 of 1.A 8 ,otes. Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election That Changed Eight years later. New Iork1s Democratic congresswoman Shirley Chisholm Everything For American became the first African American woman to run for the Democratic nomination. Women 0y Rebecca Traister and the first black major party candidate to run for the presidency 5Frederick :ardco,er. AA6 pages Douglass recei,ed one ,ote during the roll call at the Republican con,ention in Free 3ress 1888( the minister and ci,il rights leader Channing 3hillips1s name was placed in 2 of 5 8/1,/2011 6:,5 P. 'Girls Don't Cry': Hazards Of 'Campaigning While Female' : NPR http:// .npr.org/templates/story/story.php"storyId$129938556 Cist price9 D26 nomination at the 1968 Democratic con,ention8. Chisholm. who in 1969 became the first black woman to ser,e in Congress. was a founding member of the Congressional 0lack Caucus and the National -omen1s 3olitical Caucus and the honorary president of the newly formed National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Caws 5which became the National Abortion Rights Action Ceague. or NARAC8. Chisholm won a nonbinding preference primary in New 7ersey. though competitors George McGo,ern. Edmund Muskie. :ubert :umphrey and Eugene McCarthy were not on the ballot. :er run was more symbolic than realistic. and acti,ists who might otherwise ha,e backed her were anxious to curry fa,or with more powerful candidates. At a truly eccentric con,ention in Miami 0each. :umphrey released his black delegates to ,ote for Chisholm. helping her win 151.95 ,otes on the first ballot and ensuring that she would address the gathering at which McGo,ern and Thomas Eagleton recei,ed their party1s nomination. In 1984. when Minnesota Senator -alter Mondale chose another New Iork congresswoman. Geraldine Ferraro. to be his running mate. the idea was so exotic that Ferraro was treated more like a zoo animal than a politician. During a prenomination inter,iew. 0arbara -alters. a woman not known for her own professional timidity. noted that Ferraro had missed weekends with her kids because of her political career and wondered why she1d kept her maiden name. She also asked with wide-eyed incredulity. LVice president. okay. fine. 0ut do you think you1re equipped to be president6M After her place on the ticket was official Ferraro met equally disbelie,ing interrogators. including one who asked during the ,ice presidential debate. LDo you think... the So,iets might be tempted to take ad,antage of you simply because you are a woman6M :er ,ice-presidential competitor. George :. -. 0ush. offered in the same debate. LCet me help you with the difference. Mrs. Ferraro. between Iran and the embassy in Cebanon.M Cosing to 0ush and Ronald Reagan in spectacular fashion. Mondale and Ferraro walked away from the election ha,ing won only Minnesota and the District of Columbia.