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You are here: Home / Elections / I Can No Longer Rationally Discuss The Clinton Campaign / “The Self-Indulgence of It All”

“The Self-Indulgence of It All”

by Betty Cracker|  February 1, 201810:08 am| 133 Comments

This post is in: I Can No Longer Rationally Discuss The Clinton Campaign, Open Threads, Politics, Assholes, General Stupidity, Our Failed Media Experiment

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Shortly before Trump took the stage for his solo teleprompter recital this week (a performance watched by “the highest number in history,” he assures us this morning via Twitter, lying as usual), Hillary Clinton posted thoughts on Facebook about the way she handled a sexual harassment incident among staffers during her 2008 campaign. It’s worth a read.

To sum up, Clinton says if she had it to do over again, she’d fire the harasser. She describes the measures she took at the time and the thought processes behind them. She expresses support for the woman who came forward then and all the women who are standing up against sexual harassment today. She notes that the actions she took 10 years ago are similar to those taken by The Times in the Glenn Thrush case (i.e., consequences, not termination).

I found Clinton’s musings on the topic interesting because they were genuinely thoughtful, and also because of her long and complicated history and significance to millions of women in the US and around the world. Her post could serve as an excellent starting point for a debate about what we owe women who are harassed in the workplace, how to deal with offenders, what our goals should be as new social norms emerge, etc.

Because of who Hillary Clinton is, critiquing her actions then and now is fair game. Thoughtful analysis of these topics is welcome in comments and would be a service to readers of a major daily like The Post. This piece, published in yesterday’s Post about Clinton’s statement, ain’t that:

[Clinton] released a tepid response via Twitter the day the story broke and a more thorough one via Facebook days later. But it’s not clear whether either said enough. Does Clinton’s handling of this latest story exemplify a fatal flaw?

Opinion writers Christine Emba, Ruth Marcus, and Alyssa Rosenberg discuss.

It’s a 9th grade slam book that merits display in the Heathers Hall of Shame. Some excerpts below the fold, annotated in bold font:

Christine Emba: Was it really a statement, or more of a rambling letter to herself? It came across my screen this morning, and my first instinct was to roll my eyes at the self-indulgence of it all. [Emba would be a smoking ember if there were a God of Irony with smiting powers.]

Alyssa Rosenberg: Yes, there is SO MUCH going on there.

Christine Emba: When I read it, the first thing I noticed was that so much of it was about her — excusing herself, talking about how hard the decision was for her, bringing us into her personal debates about forgiveness and second chances. There was that hoary first line: “The most important work of my life has been to support and empower women,” but very little was about the woman in question. In the entire statement, “I” appears 37 times, and “Sorry” not even once… [The lazy-ass word search “I” trope again — shades of hack reviews of President Obama’s speeches. And FTR, Clinton’s Facebook post makes it clear there was “very little about the woman in question” because that woman wishes to remain in the background and not become the center of a media circus.]

Alyssa Rosenberg: And parts of it felt so inevitable, most notably the turn to blame the media. [Note: Clinton did NOT “blame the media,” but rather cited a contemporary case as an example of how sexual harassment issues are handled today. If she got some satisfaction from bringing up a recent scandal The Times would rather we all forget, well, for fuck’s sake, can anyone blame her?]

Christine Emba: The media has long been her scapegoat, and not without reason. [Understatement of the goddamned millennium!] But in this case, it was frustrating to see. because ultimately, this wasn’t about whether the media did something wrong — which they didn’t! — it was about what Hillary did (or, as it were, didn’t). And for all her discussion of her feelings and thought processes, she never fully owned up to it. Still!

Ruth Marcus: More important, reading the statement, I felt like: Haven’t I watched this movie before? The delay in responding — why oh why can’t she ever get it right the first time. The “in retrospect, I would have handled it differently” — definitely having some PTSD flashbacks to e-mails there.

Christine Emba: Completely true.

Alyssa Rosenberg: Right, Ruth! I’m burned out, and I don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere. [? actual size]

Ruth Marcus: For the record: Trump is terrible. He has done some terrible things where women are involved. I try to call him out all the time although, confession, some stuff slips through the cracks — e.g., the porn star thing I haven’t gotten around to writing about. But I write about Hillary and my frustrations with her — going back to the campaign — not because I hate her but because — like Alyssa before the Big Breakup — I like her so much and I am so disappointed by her seeming inability to change some drawbacks in the way she approaches things.

Alyssa Rosenberg: I hate that you even have to issue that disclaimer about Trump, Ruth! [? again, actual size]

Christine Emba: Yes. We can all agree on Trump’s manifold flaws, to the point that they become less worth discussing. Because there’s nothing to argue! Truly nothing new there. [This right here is why Trump is president, you criminally irresponsible fucking numpties!]

Christine Emba: But with Hillary, there is a sense of some sort of promise being thwarted. Although I personally wonder if that promise was ever truly there.

Alyssa Rosenberg: Well, and that’s kind of the big question, isn’t it?

Ruth Marcus: Everything now is seen through the lens of whether it’s good or bad for the Resistance. That’s not the way I think about things, and if I started to I would quit. I think it’s really important for writers, even opinion writers, to call out the people they agree with, maybe even especially.

Christine Emba: Holding those people accountable could make them better. ::cough:: HILLARY ::cough:: [How’d that work out in 2016, you worthless fucking hacks? Choke, don’t cough!]

If you suspect I’m cherry-picking to make The Posties’ conversation look like vapid, self-referential drivel from privileged, conceited twits, I invite you to read the whole thing. It’s all like that. And this trio of carping nitwits are among the least offensive crafters of our Beltway media narrative — much more often, it’s created by predatory, dickhead men. It’s infuriating.

At various times, I’ve found something to admire in things written by each of these women. But put all three in a room and drop the name “Hillary Clinton,” and they display all the judgment and insight of a pack of meth-addled spider monkeys. If this phenomenon were localized to Clinton, okay, maybe we can just take one fascist buffoon in the White House for the team and hope that all will be well in the future.

Sadly, I don’t think we’ll find it works that way.

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Reader Interactions

133Comments

  1. 1.

    Amir Khalid

    February 1, 2018 at 10:12 am

    Does Clinton’s handling of this latest story exemplify a fatal flaw?

    When I first saw this question, I wondered, “Fatal to what?”

  2. 2.

    Bobby Thomson

    February 1, 2018 at 10:12 am

    I’m old enough to remember when RNC finance chair Steve Wynn was exposed as a serial rapist.

  3. 3.

    KickBoxBanana

    February 1, 2018 at 10:13 am

    Some of you people amaze me. Rome is burning and you people still find time to muse about whether Hillary did enough. Whether she is pure and perfect enough.

  4. 4.

    Bobby Thomson

    February 1, 2018 at 10:13 am

    @Amir Khalid: fatal flaw is a horrible cliche. Lazy writing from a lazy writer.

  5. 5.

    bluefish

    February 1, 2018 at 10:13 am

    Rome is most definitely burning.

  6. 6.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 1, 2018 at 10:14 am

    Mainstream media otherwise known as R enablers needs to die, especially opinion columnists of the centrist persuasion.

  7. 7.

    low-tech cyclist

    February 1, 2018 at 10:15 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    When I first saw this question, I wondered, “Fatal to what?”

    It’s good news for Zombie John McCain, who will rise from the grave to use this scandal to defeat Hillary in 2020.

  8. 8.

    cosima

    February 1, 2018 at 10:16 am

    Why do women in power so often choose to shit all over other women?! I’m not talking about HIllary there, I’m talking about those women who were given the opportunity to effect positive change through meaningful discussion about an issue that resonates with nearly every grown woman EVER. How many women have made it to adulthood (or even f*cking adolescence) without being harassed, marginalised, abused, etc?

    We are fighting a monstrous power structure, in the government, workplace, EVERYWHERE, that marginalises women at best, and abuses them at worst, including killing them, and these witches are picking apart Hillary Clinton, who has done so much to elevate women.

    Please let these women be rightfully shat upon by millions upon millions of twitter users & letter-writers.

  9. 9.

    JMG

    February 1, 2018 at 10:20 am

    There really is a class of women journalists who have reached the top of their profession who seem to need to desperately reassure themselves they are better people than Hillary Clinton. If it wasn’t so infuriating, it’d be very very sad. Ruth Marcus is a terrible columnist BTW.

  10. 10.

    Barbara

    February 1, 2018 at 10:22 am

    @cosima: Misogyny often shows up as a form of self-loathing in the propensity to judge other women far more harshly than men. The number of journalists who do not have any apparent insight into this phenomenon is staggering. At this point, the question is: how is what Hillary Clinton did 10 years ago in any way relevant to the extent that it is now receiving a lot more press than some much more recent incidents by people who have ongoing engagement in their organization? The disproportionality of the reaction is another way of saying that they fully embody society’s double standard when it comes to judging women, as in, women are presumed to be incompetent unless they are perfect, and men have to fail over and over again before anybody finally decides that they have failed. I saw these WaPo stories and I ignored them, just as I am ignoring every news story about Hillary Clinton.

  11. 11.

    Rommie

    February 1, 2018 at 10:23 am

    Washington insiders, so desperate to prove their CDS was correct all along, and not about them, cling to any evidence shown like a floaty ring in a hurricane. YOU SEE, YOU SEE!

    Shaking my damn head…

  12. 12.

    japa21

    February 1, 2018 at 10:23 am

    @KickBoxBanana: With all due respect. STFU.

    ETA: This post is not about Clinton, nor does anybody here think she is perfect. It is about the media, which, BTW, is helping to make sure Rome keeps on burning.

  13. 13.

    Juice Box

    February 1, 2018 at 10:24 am

    @cosima: It’s such a big problem, but it’s also nuanced and complex and instead of being treated as that complex problem, it’s being used as a blunt club to hammer anyone who can be perceived as failing to hew exactly to one specific set of views.

    I would like to see some people go after a certain independent senator’s rape fantasy porn, though…..

  14. 14.

    Ridnik Chrome

    February 1, 2018 at 10:25 am

    @JMG:

    Ruth Marcus is a terrible columnist BTW.

    Isn’t she the same one who wrote that even-the-liberal-New-Republic hit piece about the Clintons’ proposed health care plan back in 1994?

  15. 15.

    McMullen

    February 1, 2018 at 10:29 am

    Women who don’t support other women are the reason women have trouble climbing the ladder. If she’s being dragged down by her fellows, the chances for success are slim.
    I am SO over criticism of Hillary in general. Has she been the most maligned woman in history?

  16. 16.

    schrodingers_cat

    February 1, 2018 at 10:30 am

    @Ridnik Chrome: No, I think it was Betsy something starting with an M.

  17. 17.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    February 1, 2018 at 10:30 am

    @cosima:

    Why do women in power so often choose to shit all over other women?!

    Do you really think the 1% mentality is linked to the male chromosome?

  18. 18.

    Mnemosyne

    February 1, 2018 at 10:31 am

    It was so obvious that Hillary was taking steps to protect the former staffer’s identity that I saw red when they whined that the staffer didn’t come forward.

    And we see yet another example of why the Hillary-hating left are not our friends. The finance chair of the RNC was exposed as an actual fucking rapist but they want to ignore that so they can whine that Hillary is not perfect.

  19. 19.

    WaterGirl

    February 1, 2018 at 10:31 am

    From my post on last night’s thread:

    Oh my god, it reads like a bunch of snotty mean girls gossiping in high school. I have pasted the whole thing (sue me!) because I don’t want to give them anymore clicks in case someone wants to read this crap. These 3 give women a bad name.

    Christine Emba: Oh, Hillary. What were you doing on Facebook?!

    Alyssa Rosenberg: My husband and Sonny Bunch, who writes a weekly column for Act Four, sent me that Facebook statement at the exact same time last night, and I practically screamed in frustration. Obviously, I’d just written a column about the events of the 2008 campaign, which Clinton was trying to contextualize, and so it’s always frustrating, as a writer, when a development breaks after you’ve published something.

    Christine Emba: Was it really a statement, or more of a rambling letter to herself? It came across my screen this morning, and my first instinct was to roll my eyes at the self-indulgence of it all.

    Alyssa Rosenberg: Yes, there is SO MUCH going on there.

    Christine Emba: When I read it, the first thing I noticed was that so much of it was about her — excusing herself, talking about how hard the decision was for her, bringing us into her personal debates about forgiveness and second chances. There was that hoary first line: “The most important work of my life has been to support and empower women,” but very little was about the woman in question. In the entire statement, “I” appears 37 times, and “Sorry” not even once.

    Alyssa Rosenberg: But there’s ultimately so much about the woman in question, who is never named, and is not directly quoted, but is marshalled as proof that Clinton’s decision-making process should not be questioned because she turned out okay.

    Christine Emba: Yes! I noticed that too, and it rather infuriated me.

    Alyssa Rosenberg: And parts of it felt so inevitable, most notably the turn to blame the media.

    Christine Emba: The media has long been her scapegoat, and not without reason. But in this case, it was frustrating to see. because ultimately, this wasn’t about whether the media did something wrong — which they didn’t! — it was about what Hillary did (or, as it were, didn’t). And for all her discussion of her feelings and thought processes, she never fully owned up to it. Still!

    Ruth Marcus: I saw it in real time last night too, and I guess my reaction was: Better late. Not perfect, but way way better than the initial statement, which expressed Hillary’s “dismay.”

    [Hillary Clinton: #MeToo, meet #SoWhat]

    Alyssa Rosenberg: Do you still feel that way this morning, Ruth? Because for me, I think I just feel intensely exhausted by the entire dynamic, which is both incredibly predictable and yet impossible to avoid.

    Ruth Marcus: Well, that wasn’t totally the way I felt, for reasons of the unnecessary and fundamentally misleading attack on the messenger (i.e. NYT). For the record, Glenn Thrush is not equal to (wish I knew where that symbol is on my keyboard) Burns Strider. Whatever happened in the Thrush case, it wasn’t someone who was his direct report; it wasn’t at his current employer.

    Alyssa Rosenberg: Right, and the women who are reporting on sexual harassment and assault at the New York Times are not Glenn Thrush’s boss!

    Alyssa Rosenberg: The fact that we’re even debating the nuances of the Times’s collective guilt or innocence is sort of the point to me. We can’t actually have a conversation about anything Hillary Clinton has said or done without litigating the past 26 years of national politics and media. And sometimes that’s for good reason! Sometimes those dynamics are actually in play! But a lot of the time, it ends up taking us very far away from the actual subject at hand.

    Ruth Marcus: More important, reading the statement, I felt like: Haven’t I watched this movie before? The delay in responding — why oh why can’t she ever get it right the first time. The “in retrospect, I would have handled it differently” — definitely having some PTSD flashbacks to e-mails there.

    Christine Emba: Completely true.

    Alyssa Rosenberg: Right, Ruth! I’m burned out, and I don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere.

    Ruth Marcus: And I don’t know about you guys, but I am just exhausted by the outpouring of why do you hate Hillary (I DON’T HATE HILLARY — I WANTED HER TO BE PRESIDENT, FOR GOODNESS’ SAKE) and the why are you writing about this because Trump is so much worse reaction to what I wrote over the weekend.

    Christine Emba: But Ruth, why *do* you hate Hillary? (I’m joking!!!)

    Christine Emba: I think that you were both more invested in Hillary and her narrative than I was. I think that she’s an interesting figure — obviously smart, strong, important — but this is another example of how it was always going to be a problem for her to move past years of complex narrative and allow new and interesting things to happen. And despite the fact that she’s a woman, and the first woman president would have been amazing, she is extremely flawed and not always as “pro-woman” as we would like to imagine.

    Ruth Marcus: For the record: Trump is terrible. He has done some terrible things where women are involved. I try to call him out all the time although, confession, some stuff slips through the cracks — e.g., the porn star thing I haven’t gotten around to writing about. But I write about Hillary and my frustrations with her — going back to the campaign — not because I hate her but because — like Alyssa before the Big Breakup — I like her so much and I am so disappointed by her seeming inability to change some drawbacks in the way she approaches things.

    [Hillary Clinton and I are done]

    Alyssa Rosenberg: I hate that you even have to issue that disclaimer about Trump, Ruth!

    Christine Emba: Yes. We can all agree on Trump’s manifold flaws, to the point that they become less worth discussing. Because there’s nothing to argue! Truly nothing new there.

    Christine Emba: But with Hillary, there is a sense of some sort of promise being thwarted. Although I personally wonder if that promise was ever truly there.

    Alyssa Rosenberg: Well, and that’s kind of the big question, isn’t it?

    Ruth Marcus: Everything now is seen through the lens of whether it’s good or bad for the Resistance. That’s not the way I think about things, and if I started to I would quit. I think it’s really important for writers, even opinion writers, to call out the people they agree with, maybe even especially.

    Christine Emba: Holding those people accountable could make them better. ::cough:: HILLARY ::cough::

    Alyssa Rosenberg: Right, and I think Clinton’s total resistance to even warranted criticism has made her much weaker as a public figure. It’s genuinely bizarre to me that so many of the people who have been writing to me in the past 24 hours cannot square the circle on the idea that criticism can be motivated by sincere investment and admiration.

    Ruth Marcus: As to the big question of the promise thwarted, let’s not forget (and maybe it wasn’t the best strategy for Hillary to be the one to instruct us not to forget) that she has been a life-long advocate for women and girls. That in her office, in the WH, Senate and State, even if she fell short on the Strider front, she did practice a lot of what she preached in terms of empowering women and accommodating their personal needs, for flexibility, etc.

    Alyssa Rosenberg: Right, of course!

    Christine Emba: That’s true! Maybe I’m being too harsh on her myself. I think this is so frustrating because it’s such an obvious lapse, coming out at a particularly touchy time.

    Alyssa Rosenberg: And a story that’s been lingering for ten years! That’s part of what bugs me about this, PURELY as strategy #metoo is an obvious thing. Sexual harassment has been a subject that’s persistently dogged your public life, and that almost brought down your husband’s presidency. How do you not prepare for something like this to come out?

    Christine Emba: Honestly, it sounds like she thought she had it covered.

    Alyssa Rosenberg: Right, and I think this is a pattern. Because the standards applied are often unfair, Clinton and her people have often acted as if they shouldn’t have to meet them, rather than accepting them as a political reality.

    Christine Emba: Or, because she’s a unique and politically privileged figure in her own right, she has acted as though the standards simply don’t apply to her. But they do, Hillary, they do!

    Alyssa Rosenberg: And I think this is a contradiction a lot of women in public life, including probably all three of us, have to live with. I both want to smash the patriarchy, but I also recognize that I *live* in the patriarchy. And so I have to conduct myself in such a way that my life is livable in the meantime. That doesn’t mean I accept the terms of the engagement, just that I know that life is long and I have to find ways to keep going and be effective, rather than refusing to cooperate in a way that denies me any efficacy at all. And while in a weird way I admire what seems to be Hillary Clinton’s inability to accept that bargain, it’s a choice that doesn’t really work if what you want to do is be in national politics.

    Christine Emba: Patriarchy aside, even: Some standards are unfair, but some standards — like how to deal with sexual harassment in an office you manage, and how to behave once it comes out that you’ve botched it — are wise and good.

    Alyssa Rosenberg: Right, and it’s not like anyone is guilty of presentism here! Clinton rejected the recommendation that she fire Strider ten years ago. She rejected the standard people were offering her *then*.

    Christine Emba: Not accepting unfair terms of engagement is fine. But not accepting that you’ve made a mistake is an entirely different beast.

  20. 20.

    MomSense

    February 1, 2018 at 10:31 am

    I’m old enough to remember when the trump campaign hired Roger Ailes after he was forced out of Fox after hundreds of sexual harassment incidents.

  21. 21.

    NorthLeft12

    February 1, 2018 at 10:32 am

    I can see the bar for Sec. Clinton is set high enough that their expectations were that she had to get it absolutely perfect the first time. Hilary gets absolutely no opportunity to reflect on and consider an action or decision.
    And the whole critique about the post being about herself is kind of confusing to me. I can’t read the post here at work, but I thought Sec. Clinton was using the post to describe her thought process as to why she took the action that she did, right? Not necessarily to defend herself [from what I am reading on BJ] but to reflect and eventually agree that she could have and should have done better. By not focusing on the victim, that means [to me at least] that she is not disputing or minimizing the victim’s story or pain.
    Lastly, this…..

    Yes. We can all agree on Trump’s manifold flaws, to the point that they become less worth discussing. Because there’s nothing to argue! Truly nothing new there.

    from Ms. Emba just about covers the entire media performance regarding Deadbeat Donald since forever. Thanks MSM.

  22. 22.

    tobie

    February 1, 2018 at 10:33 am

    @Ridnik Chrome: Ruth Marcus sums up the underlying current of all her work when she says,

    I think it’s really important for writers, even opinion writers, to call out the people they agree with, maybe even especially.

    I don’t know if she wrote about healthcare in 1994. I do know she loves to be the contrarian who, just when you expect a Dem to support a person or policy, says the exact opposite. She was ruthless in attacking Obama for pitching a “hissy fit” (her words) when his administration complained about Fox News coverage. And she literally outed a 16-year-old girl in Kansas who tweeted something about Sam Brownback and made the girl the poster child for incivility in political discourse. A friggin high school girl! Not Mitch McConnell! Not Newt Gingrich! Then and there I knew something wasn’t right in the head with Marcus.

  23. 23.

    Bobby Thomson

    February 1, 2018 at 10:34 am

    @JMG: Marcus has a terrible hit-miss ratio.

  24. 24.

    Brachiator

    February 1, 2018 at 10:34 am

    She notes that the actions she took 10 years ago are similar to those taken by The Times in the Glenn Thrush case (i.e., consequences, not termination).

    This is weak sauce. I guess I will have to read all this stuff.

    I don’t think that Hillary Clinton is an angel or a devil. But I am tired to my fucking bones of this bullshit that says let’s look at every bad thing that was done in the last 50 years and see if we can find a situation in which,using perfect triple hindsight, we can blame Hillary Clinton for something.

    There is something deeply repugnant about this insistence that Clinton must be forced to apologize for everything she has ever done while others, typically men, are never held responsible for the shit they have done, or the crimes they are currently committing.

  25. 25.

    cosima

    February 1, 2018 at 10:36 am

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Not at all. This is a post about women shitting on women, though. Personally, my work & life experience is that women are WORSE than men when they get to positions of power in regard to supporting and mentoring the women below them, or supporting their female peers. Its as though they feel that their position (rare as hen’s teeth to make it to a certain level) is threatened more by their female peers than their male peers.

    I worked for a long time in a large corporation, male-dominated, and have two daughters. I have a LOT of experience, first- and second-hand, in how horrible women can be to other women.

  26. 26.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    February 1, 2018 at 10:37 am

    @McMullen:

    I am SO over criticism of Hillary in general. Has she been the most maligned woman in history?

    Ya’, Hillary wasn’t the best politician in the world, but Christ on a pogo the micro examination of her is really over the top. The press wasn’t obsessing over Kerry, Romney and Gore a year after they lost their elections like this. Something else is going on to drive this Hillary obsession, maybe all these reporters have the hots for her or something equally stupid.

  27. 27.

    NorthLeft12

    February 1, 2018 at 10:38 am

    @Bobby Thomson: I am also cynical enough to know that Mr. Wynn will not be charged for any of those “alleged” rapes.

  28. 28.

    OzarkHillbilly

    February 1, 2018 at 10:39 am

    @Mnemosyne: The media is addicted to Both sides do it.

  29. 29.

    Ridnik Chrome

    February 1, 2018 at 10:40 am

    @schrodingers_cat: It was Betsy McCaughey. My bad.

  30. 30.

    Nicole

    February 1, 2018 at 10:42 am

    Thanks so much for this, Betty. The Slot (Jezebel) did a hit piece on it, too, and reading not just the article, but also the comments made me want to break things. Their take was Clinton tried to “bury” it during Trump’s SOTU.

    I fucking can’t even with these people. And it influences all of us, including people who should know better. A very smart, very feminist friend of mine (a woman) jumped on the, #metoo goes too far, look at Garrison Keillor bullshit, and no matter how many times I patiently said, “No one gets immediately fired for accidentally touching a woman’s back. There’s more to the story,” she kept arguing back with points I think she took directly from that dumb NYTimes op-ed on the end of flirting in the workplace. She has perfectly good critical thinking skills; the media is just that pervasive with the endless misogyny.

    I remember being a young whippersnapper in my 20s and listening to the media whine about how INAPPROPRIATE it was for Clinton to have made the speech she did at the UN (How dare she screw up her husband’s job by calling out China for human rights’ abuses!) and not one of the pearl-clutchers I read or heard discussed the merits of what she actually said. Probably because it’s hard to argue against “women’s rights are human rights” openly, because then people recognize what the person is trying to keep secret, namely that that person is a mean and bigoted asshole. Much like Molly Ivins talking about the water fountain, I had my Road to Damascus moment of “If they’ll lie to me about that, what else are they lying to me about?” And here I am, settling into middle age, and nothing has changed where the media and Clinton are concerned. UGH. I hate everything today. Except Hillary. I’m still with her.

  31. 31.

    Roger Moore

    February 1, 2018 at 10:43 am

    @cosima:

    Why do women in power so often choose to shit all over other women?

    Women wind up trashing each other because that’s what they’ve been taught to do. A huge part of the way the Patriarchy has succeeded as long as it has is by making solidarity as hard as possible. Men in position of power trash women, and to the extent they promote any women, they choose ones who follow their lead. Inculcating those values is how an unjust system perpetuates itself.

  32. 32.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 1, 2018 at 10:44 am

    they display all the judgment and insight of a pack of meth-addled spider monkeys.

    Among your finest-ever descriptive lines, Betty (although we have a wealth of them to choose from!)

  33. 33.

    cosima

    February 1, 2018 at 10:44 am

    @Barbara: Yes, this x1000. Are there only so many seats at the table available to women — as dictated by men — so they have to protect their seats via being vile to other women and keeping them down? Have they fully assimilated the position — espoused by men — that to praise another woman is to be a dirty horrible feminist? There’s nothing that can be done to fix the catty writers in this piece, but perhaps some will have daughters and suddenly find they’ve gotten it all wrong all this time. It’s my job to raise daughters who don’t buy into that shite, it will have to be a generational shift.

  34. 34.

    OzarkHillbilly

    February 1, 2018 at 10:46 am

    @cosima:

    I have a LOT of experience, first- and second-hand, in how horrible women can be to other women.

    My wife could write a book about it.

  35. 35.

    Ridnik Chrome

    February 1, 2018 at 10:46 am

    @McMullen:

    I am SO over criticism of Hillary in general. Has she been the most maligned woman in history?

    Definitely the most in US politics in the past fifty years. But she’s also been the most successful (yes, even taking 2016 into account). The first thing is related to the second.

  36. 36.

    JMG

    February 1, 2018 at 10:48 am

    I think there’s institutional selection at work here. These women would not have risen in their male-dominated places of employment if they weren’t like this.

  37. 37.

    cosima

    February 1, 2018 at 10:48 am

    @Roger Moore: Yes. And will require a generational shift. There’s a lot brewing right now that is attempting to right those wrongs, but it’s hard work undoing the damage wrought over thousands of years of patriarchy.

  38. 38.

    sherparick1

    February 1, 2018 at 10:49 am

    @Bobby Thomson: News Flash Ruth, Alyssa, and Christine! Hillary Clinton is a human being with a fair share of the flaws to which that species is prone. It should be noted that in this particular case the following happen.

    1. The woman who reported the incident was believed.

    2. The complainant was voluntarily reassigned so she did not have to work with the jerk.

    3. The man who committed the misconduct was considered for removal, and she made the decision to suspend him without pay and send him to counseling. For a first offense, this is pretty usual. This was a political campaign, so perhaps she should have just fired him, but its not as if she tolerated it and did nothing (compare this to the freaking state of Michigan and U.S. Gymnastics and close to 20 years of complaints about Larry Nasser for committing criminal sexual assault or Hollywood’s celebration of Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, and Harvey Weinstein as they openly preyed on young women and girls.

  39. 39.

    OzarkHillbilly

    February 1, 2018 at 10:50 am

    Doug Mataconis on Outside the Beltway’s 15th birthday:

    Old enough for Roy Moore to hit on us.

    I’ll show myself out.

  40. 40.

    germy

    February 1, 2018 at 10:51 am

    I thought the Derangement reached its fever pitch when Jeanine Pirro roamed the woods near Hillary’s house.

    I’m really confused what would have happened if Pirro had caught Clinton out on a hike. What exactly was the plan?

  41. 41.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 1, 2018 at 10:52 am

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Betsy McCaughey, probably.

  42. 42.

    trollhattan

    February 1, 2018 at 10:53 am

    Yes. We can all agree on Trump’s manifold flaws, to the point that they become less worth discussing. Because there’s nothing to argue! Truly nothing new there.

    It’s working, it’s fvcking working–Trump has worn us (in this case “us” being those trained and paid to keep watch and report to the rest of us) out with his shenanigans and there’s no reason to report on them anymore because “everybody knows” he’s awful, amirite?

    Well played, Mr president and Republicans, you’ve done it!

  43. 43.

    Baud

    February 1, 2018 at 10:54 am

    Thanks for highlighting this, Betty. It’s disgusting.

    And my Hillary Clinton litmus test continues to be infallible.

  44. 44.

    cosima

    February 1, 2018 at 10:57 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: And I’d read it if someone wrote about it. Maybe if women understood the driver(s) behind their behaviour they’d stop, or at least give some consideration to stopping.

    The amazing thing is that it starts so young. Raising two girls I’ve been amazed at how soon they begin to try to tear other girls down. That, at least, has had many books written about it (and movies made about it).

    Our Little Cosima is in secondary now, and she is in a band with a girl who is the ‘leader’ of the drummers (pipe band drumming). This girl regularly ‘forgets’ to tell Little C about practices, gives her the wrong music to practice, and then tells her that she’s not good enough to perform. That girl is 14, Little C is 12. And that sort of thing has been going on for years already…………….. The change has got to start at home — I’ve raised one girl to be an amazing supporter of women and women’s rights, and working on raising another. Change starts here.

  45. 45.

    low-tech cyclist

    February 1, 2018 at 10:57 am

    When David Broder died, Ruth Marcus inherited his mantle as the leading Bothsidesist at the WaPo, without relinquishing her previous role as #1 Civility Scold. IOW, one could count on Marcus to be both stupid and boring at the same time. So I haven’t read her stuff very much in recent years.

    But this crap is just awful. She needs to be kicked off of the WaPo op-ed page, and off of any other media perches she happens to occupy.

  46. 46.

    Brachiator

    February 1, 2018 at 11:04 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The media is addicted to Both sides do it.

    No. This is something else.
    It’s a special game of “let’s prove that Hillary is bad, bad, bad, worst person ever.”

  47. 47.

    J R in WV

    February 1, 2018 at 11:04 am

    Betty:

    When you say “It’s a 9th grade slam book that merits display in the Heathers Hall of Shame” – don’t you mean to say Hater’s Hall of Shame???

    Easy typo.

  48. 48.

    msdc

    February 1, 2018 at 11:06 am

    Oh, for Christ’s sake. Ruth Marcus:

    Trump is terrible. He has done some terrible things where women are involved. I try to call him out all the time although, confession, some stuff slips through the cracks — e.g., the porn star thing I haven’t gotten around to writing about. But I write about Hillary and my frustrations with her […]

    Hillary Clinton no longer holds public office and never will again. Donald Trump is the president of the United States. Maybe Ruth Marcus could get around to writing about his lies, scandals, and crimes if she weren’t so busy stomping on Hillary Clinton.

  49. 49.

    trollhattan

    February 1, 2018 at 11:07 am

    @cosima:
    With a newly minted 16YO I can attest it gets worse before it gets better. There may be some hard-wiring preventing them from “liking” person A and person B simultaneously due to everybody knowing A and B don’t get along, i.e., choose or be banished. This becomes orders of magnitude more complex as the headcount reaches, say, R.

    Anxiously awaiting matriculation at some university more than three hours’ drive distant.

  50. 50.

    aimai

    February 1, 2018 at 11:08 am

    @cosima: well–that’s it right there. Because the only reason they were permitted to write the piece is that as women they are forced to cover women’s issues. So they detest HRC and the women behind #MeToo at the same time that they owe their own prominence and ability to have any kind of platform to other women who took this shit and took it and took it and didn’t know what to do, or couldn’t be heard, or were heard and still left the field. In psychological terms these women simply can’t handle the cognitive dissonance of being forced to take on the topic of sexual abuse and failures of power within the context of covering HRC and because they are women. They are humiliated and empowered in the same moment and competing to please their bosses with the hottest take that will shift blame from bosses generally to HRC since their (male) bosses already hate her. In australia its called ‘tall poppy” syndrome, the tendency of people to cut the heads off the tallest poppy in competition with it. And in social work it is sometimes called “crab bucket politics” in which the crab which is trying to crawl out (HRC) to freedom is grabbed and pulled back by the others. ITs negative solidarity.

  51. 51.

    trollhattan

    February 1, 2018 at 11:10 am

    @J R in WV:
    You need to add this to your playlist. Makes a hellova double bill with “Mean Girls.”

  52. 52.

    caroline

    February 1, 2018 at 11:11 am

    @cosima:

    There can only be one.

    Seriously, though, there are a lot of contributors to the toxic culture you’re describing. Women are held to higher standards of dress, behavior and technical skill than their male colleagues. Women who are managers are also held more accountable for the behavior of their direct reports than men. Even in fairly progressive work places, women in charge often get treated more like the department mom than a manager. And because this is a work culture thing, both men and women buy into the idea that this is how things work at the office. So, in addition to the competition aspect of it, women expect more from their female subordinates than their male ones and they know that they will be judged more harshly than their male colleagues if their female subordinates don’t pass muster. It’s a vicious and intricate cycle.

  53. 53.

    cosima

    February 1, 2018 at 11:13 am

    @J R in WV: Heathers are girls who are awful to each other. From a movie named ‘Heathers’ about teenage girls who are awful.’ There are numerous movies & books about teenage girls being awful to each other, and then, crickets… As though those awful teenage girls who are horrible to other girls magically turn 18 and begin to treat other girls/women well. Ha! nope.

  54. 54.

    sherparick1

    February 1, 2018 at 11:14 am

    Meanwhile, in real world involving real people, there is this sad story.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/man-dies-lottery-win-1-million-age-52-three-weeks-after-donald-savastano-a8185566.html

    I don’t know what Mr. Savastano’s politics were or what he watched, but he fell into the demographic (white, male, over 40, non-college graduate, blue collar trade) that fell under the spell of talk radio and Fox News and still had no health insurance, meaning that the was not signing up on the exchanges. Was it because of the intense anti-ACA propaganda from the right wing media and politicians influenced him? Well, he won a million dollars so decided he could afford to pay for doctor and found out he he had Stage IV cancer. Lucky man. At least able to leave something behind to his family.

  55. 55.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 1, 2018 at 11:14 am

    @J R in WV:

    Not a typo. Betty was referring to the Winona Ryder movie Heathers from the 1980s, about a high school clique of mean girls. In the decades since, “Heathers” has become a generic term for females shitting on other females. Perfect reference.

  56. 56.

    Jeffro

    February 1, 2018 at 11:15 am

    Meanwhile…it all seems to be breaking through to some people (even the usually obnoxious Bret Stephens):

    What If Clinton Had Done All This?

    …Imagine that President Hillary Clinton had agreed to release a partisan Democratic intelligence memo over the objections of Republicans in Congress and her own top F.B.I. officials that disclosure could harm national security.

    Would conservative pundits and politicians:

    (a) Praise President Clinton for abandoning her old habits of secrecy and standing strong on the side of transparency in government?

    (b) Call for her impeachment on grounds that she had compromised national security for shamelessly self-serving political reasons?

    Imagine, next, that the Clinton campaign had named as a foreign policy adviser a little known figure with scanty business or academic credentials but with strongly pro-Putin views and curious links to senior Russian officials. Imagine that this same adviser later testified to Congress that the Clinton campaign had asked him to sign a nondisclosure agreement after a trip he took to Russia during the height of the campaign. Imagine also that senior Clinton campaign officials at first denied and later had their memories “refreshed” about knowing him.

    Would conservative pundits and politicians:

    (a) Agree with Clinton administration spokespersons that, while the campaign had named him as an adviser, he had no role in anything and that his links to Russia were purely incidental?

    (b) Agree with Democrats in Congress that the F.B.I. had no business whatsoever in surveilling him because a political dossier might have served as one basis of suspicion, and that his civil liberties had been seriously traduced?

    (c) Note that his presence on the campaign was of a piece with Clinton’s disastrous “reset” of relations with Russia under the Obama administration, and that it suggested a policy of appeasing the Kremlin at America’s expense?

    I know, right? It’s almost like people are realizing this is not only NOT. NORMAL., it’s NOT EVEN CLOSE.

    Here’s wrap-up:

    Imagine, finally, that after firing James Comey for insufficient loyalty, President Clinton had asked the deputy director of the F.B.I. how he had voted in the election in an Oval Office meeting. Imagine that after learning that he hadn’t voted, she unleashed a campaign of public invective and belittlement aimed at his wife for having once run for state office as a Republican. Imagine, in this same connection, that the effort to oust the deputy director was only a warm-up to getting rid of the deputy attorney general, a well-regarded, straight-shooting Democrat who had appointed the special counsel looking into Clinton’s Russia ties.

    Would conservative pundits and politicians:

    (a) Applaud President Clinton for taking a belated but necessary step to clean up a “politicized” Justice Department that had interfered against her at the end of the campaign, while also agreeing that the party affiliation of an F.B.I. official’s spouse is a legitimate basis to suspect the official of disloyalty and partisan motives?

    (b) Cast aspersions on the deputy attorney general for defending the work of the special counsel against the wishes of the president?

    (c) Accuse the president of obstructing justice by smearing and effectively ousting upstanding public servants whose only sin was to do their jobs to the best of their abilities while, in one case, being married to a woman with political ambitions?

    In this same alternative universe, I’d be writing columns calling for further investigations of a manifestly corrupt Clinton administration, and even raising the subject of impeachment. I know because I was there for the prequel, back in 1998. At least some of the conservatives who railed against Bill Clinton then could claim they were acting on principles that went beyond pure partisanship.

    These days, not so much.

    (yes of course he can go fuck himself for the ‘prequel’ comment…BUT STILL!)

    Every time some RWNJ, independent, “libertarian”, or low-info friend or relative of yours wants to talk about Hillary…be sure to ‘flip the script’ on them. Not to point out things Trumpov is doing, but to ask them how they’d feel if Hillz was doing all of this.

  57. 57.

    bemused

    February 1, 2018 at 11:16 am

    @cosima:

    True but up to parents to put kibosh on mean girl shit when they’re young. We’ve all worked with mean women who seem to spend more time trying to pit people against each other, causing trouble, backbiting than they spend at doing their jobs. Pretty pathetic when supposedly adult women even into their 60’s still haven’t grown out of that. One mean woman in your workplace is bad enough but get two or more who partner up to play games is really crappy. I’ve noticed that eventually it usually doesn’t end well for them if their bosses are on to them and get fed up.

  58. 58.

    Roger Moore

    February 1, 2018 at 11:21 am

    @sherparick1:
    I think this is the key takeaway. Demanding perfection is unreasonable and ultimately unnecessary. Serial harassers don’t survive for decades because they got let off easy the first time they were caught. They survive for decades because their offenses are ignored, covered up, or excused. As long as accusations of harassment are taken seriously, investigated seriously, and recorded so a harasser doesn’t get let off with an indefinite number of “first” offenses, serial harassers will get found out quickly, even if they aren’t destroyed for their first offense.

  59. 59.

    scav

    February 1, 2018 at 11:23 am

    @cosima: Knocking other women (or X) is an easy ploy for demonstrating that you’re not one of them, those stereotyped, threatening, charicatured others. You’re one of the safe ones, playing for ”the” team, on the inside, standing out as an individual against the amorphous blob (those others), worthy of being remembered and advanced. Consciously or subconsciously adopted, it works for personal advancement and with peers as well as superiors (also useful in for positioning for getting dates).

  60. 60.

    OzarkHillbilly

    February 1, 2018 at 11:26 am

    @Brachiator: I think it is Both Sides Do It because on one hand we have trump, a man who is found to be deeply embedded in criminal conspiracies every time anyone scratches at the surface of anything he has ever involved himself in, on the other hand we have the greatest evilest most geniusest monster in the history of womankind.

    trump has been credibly accused of multiple sexual assaults, ogled half naked teenage girls, engaged in multiple extramarital affairs, and bragged on tape of sexually assaulting women. Hillary once had an aide accused of inappropriate behavior, suspended him without pay, ordered counseling for him, but didn’t fire the guy. Oh, and her husband once got a blow job in the oval office from an intern. See? Both sides.

    Actually, it’s a habit. People have been bashing Hillary for over 25 years and they just.can’t.stop. Even if she is politically irrelevant, they just.can’t.stop. They’re addicted to it.

  61. 61.

    cosima

    February 1, 2018 at 11:27 am

    @aimai: That’s a fascinating analysis. And also depressing……….. I’ll have to discuss the tall poppy/crab theories with Little C. She’d find it fascinating as well (she thinks with a scientific brain — no time for illogical emotional stuff).

    @trollhattan: Yes, made it through our oldest daughter’s teen years by the skin of our teeth — she went to a private school, so it was epically horrible. We were overseas, so attending an local school wasn’t an option for her. Little C handles it better than our oldest did. So do I. But we are definitely not at a point, generationally, where girls are being raised to empower other girls — Little C is still the exception, not the rule, in her support of her fellow females.

  62. 62.

    trollhattan

    February 1, 2018 at 11:28 am

    Speaking of mean girls, this one seems to have an advanced degree.

  63. 63.

    rikyrah

    February 1, 2018 at 11:32 am

    The thing about this story that irks me to no end …

    They could have done, what, 100 fewer email stories in 2016 and did some on this.
    That they waited until AFTER the election to do this story?

    PHUCK THEM and the horse they rode in on.

  64. 64.

    laura

    February 1, 2018 at 11:33 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: I call it “Queen of the High School Girl’s Bathroom.”
    And have been experiencing same all my damn life. So. Done. With. It.

  65. 65.

    J R in WV

    February 1, 2018 at 11:34 am

    @trollhattan:

    Ah! OK, then. Not a movie buff, surely not a teen sociopath movie buff. Thanks for the update.

  66. 66.

    The Moar You Know

    February 1, 2018 at 11:35 am

    Personally, my work & life experience is that women are WORSE than men when they get to positions of power in regard to supporting and mentoring the women below them, or supporting their female peers.

    @cosima: I work for a woman-owned business, one that operates in an overwhelming male-dominated industry. It’s a great place to work – unless you’re a woman. Then it’s like fucking Game of Thrones in here. Fortunately we don’t have a lot of female employees. I feel bad for the few we have.

  67. 67.

    cosima

    February 1, 2018 at 11:41 am

    @The Moar You Know: That made me laugh — thanks, I need that, this issue is close for me, and depressing.

  68. 68.

    Betty Cracker

    February 1, 2018 at 11:42 am

    @aimai: We have a “Crab Bucket Politics” tag here on the blog. I should have used it because, as you pointed out, it applies.

  69. 69.

    Mnemosyne

    February 1, 2018 at 11:43 am

    @Baud:

    And my Hillary Clinton litmus test continues to be infallible.

    It really is quite handy, and a genuine time-saver when it comes to reading about politics. Nothing says “not serious” to me like gratuitous Hillary-bashing.

  70. 70.

    J R in WV

    February 1, 2018 at 11:44 am

    @cosima:

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    @trollhattan:

    Thanks to all~! Seriously! Educamated well on Heather…

  71. 71.

    Wild Cat

    February 1, 2018 at 11:47 am

    @KickBoxBanana: My anus is burning. Can you lend me the Preparation H you’re freebasing now?

  72. 72.

    tobie

    February 1, 2018 at 11:47 am

    If this Post dialogue gets your goat, send them a letter at [email protected]. I sent them the following not because I think they’ll print it but because I think papers need to get an avalanche of letters when they print a story or dialogue as irresponsible as this one.

    Here’s my letter:

    Dear Editors,

    Rarely have I read a dialogue more self-indulgent, more insipid, and more superficial than the one between Christine Emba, Ruth Marcus, and Alyssa Rosenberg printed in the Washington Post on January 31st. The three opinion writers seems to be utterly oblivious to their extraordinary privilege—a privilege that enables them to evaluate politics based on style points rather than substance. Ms. Emba’s comment, “We can all agree on Trump’s manifold flaws, to the point that they become less worth discussing. Because there’s nothing to argue! Truly nothing new there,” is telling in this regard, as is Ms. Marcus’ quip about “having some PTSD flashbacks.” Anyone who has suffered PTSD or had to deal with the consequences of the policies of this administration would not, indeed could not, be so glib.

    I, like many feminists, believe Hillary Clinton handled the Burns Strider case with the consummate professionalism she has demonstrated throughout her career. She took immediate steps to protect the accuser and punish the accused while respecting due process. In 2008, to believe a woman who reported an incident was already very forward looking. To dock a man’s pay and require that he seek counseling for a first-time offense was unheard of.

    It is a pity that the three opinion writers did not use the occasion of a public dialogue to discuss how sexual harassment accusations can be handled in the workplace. To do this, however, they would have had to have a serious interest in policy. Their dialogue shows they would rather use the occasion to discuss their disappointment that a female politician was not impeccable in her thoughts and conduct. If this is their standard, they should turn to theology. Human actions are always subject to the question, “Could things have been done otherwise?”

  73. 73.

    Citizen Alan

    February 1, 2018 at 11:51 am

    @cosima:

    perhaps some will have daughters and suddenly find they’ve gotten it all wrong all this time.

    Ruth Marcus has a daughter. She mentioned it in that editorial referred to above in which she publicly flamed a teenage girl for tweeting something mean about Sam Brownback, saying that she raised her own daughter better than that and her daughter would never act that way. I assume she means that she trained her daughter to act the way she would around a republican man, groveling at his feet like a cringing beaten dog. Vile disgusting woman and a disgrace to the Washington Post.

  74. 74.

    Mnemosyne

    February 1, 2018 at 11:57 am

    @cosima:

    This girl regularly ‘forgets’ to tell Little C about practices, gives her the wrong music to practice, and then tells her that she’s not good enough to perform.

    I think I may be able to see a spot where you could use your Mom Powers to thwart the brat. You may be able to start calling Brat’s mom and say, I just wanted to double-check the rehearsal time with you because I need to pick LC up afterwards (or whatever). Put the Brat in the position of either lying to her mom, too, or giving you the correct time.

    And you might be able to do a similar thing with the music. LC doesn’t remember what Brat asked her to practice — can you let me know?

    Basically, make it clear to Brat that you will double-check everything she tells LC until she knocks it off. But I don’t know if this is practical.

  75. 75.

    Citizen Alan

    February 1, 2018 at 11:59 am

    @msdc:

    I don’t believe for one second that Ruth Marcus voted for Hillary Clinton. I literally don’t believe it. I think she finds sexual pleasure in the fact that Hillary came so close to being the first woman president and lost out to a garbage person like Trump. She is a Democrat only to the extent she needs to be in order to constantly demand that Democrats surrender to Republicans on every issue.

  76. 76.

    Brachiator

    February 1, 2018 at 12:03 pm

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    trump has been credibly accused of multiple sexual assaults, ogled half naked teenage girls, engaged in multiple extramarital affairs, and bragged on tape of sexually assaulting women. Hillary once had an aide accused of inappropriate behavior, suspended him without pay, ordered counseling for him, but didn’t fire the guy. Oh, and her husband once got a blow job in the oval office from an intern. See? Both sides.

    This is not remotely “both sides.” There is much more to unpack here.
    Obviously, a lot of people who bring this stuff up reflexively want to defend Trump or deny that what he did was even important or relevant, while going on to bash Hillary. And some Hillary defenders want to bring this stuff up, or wallow in it, to somehow defend Clinton or to paint her as the forever aggrieved victim.

    But the greatest single difference between the examples you cite is that Trump is an active agent, who does bad things to people, while Clinton is an insufficiently pure enabler. Big difference. And one of the biggest reasons that her opponents bring stuff like this up is to try to prove that she is a hypocrite who does not actually support other women.

    It’s like someone saying, “Bob Jenkins raped five women and three boys. But over across town, Mary Willis didn’t shoot her cousin Andy when he asked Norma for a kiss. Damn, that Mary is just wicked.” This kind of shit is not “both sides.”

    Actually, it’s a habit. People have been bashing Hillary for over 25 years and they just.can’t.stop. Even if she is politically irrelevant, they just.can’t.stop. They’re addicted to it.

    Again, more is at work. It used to be that people hated Bill Clinton. Thought he was “slick” (and he probably was). Then it became hating Bill and Hillary. And part of this was because she was not simply a supportive political wife, but one of the first notable political wives who had political ambitions independent of her husband. This was, and is, intolerable to many people.

    And because she had the audacity to exercise those ambitions, and to run for president, her opponents have a deep need to try to keep attacking her, for as long as she lives. And of course, she is an easy focus of hatred for those who want to keep kicking the Democratic Party.

    But also note that people attack Hillary even more than they attack Obama who was, you know, actually president. And the attacks on Hillary always have a personal edge, they always seek to demonstrate her unworthiness and to prove that she failed to do something, she failed women, she failed America

    Meanwhile, whatever Trump’s faults were or whatever the man in the Hillary camp actually did, is dropped, forgotten about, not worth mentioning. The only thing left is Hillary, standing alone, having once again been shown to be somehow wrong, bad, unworthy.

    It ain’t both sides. But it is bullshit.

  77. 77.

    James E. Powell

    February 1, 2018 at 12:03 pm

    @cosima:

    Why do women in power so often choose to shit all over other women?

    I don’t know about shitting on other women, generally, but I do know that if you are a professional pundit, shitting on Hillary Clinton will get you applause from the right-wingers (who will still hate you), cheers from the perpetually indignant leftists, and knowing nods from most of the supposed liberals.

    Among Beltway Courtiers and Villagers in good standing hating on Hillary is required from membership, all the best people do it.

  78. 78.

    efgoldman

    February 1, 2018 at 12:06 pm

    My kid knows Allyssa fairly well (I’ve never met her); they’ve become casual friends. Frankly, we wouldn’t have expected her to spend an hour in a room with Marcus, without running away screaming. Altho the kid says she was always a bit of a contrarian

  79. 79.

    TenguPhule

    February 1, 2018 at 12:10 pm

    I look forward to the upcoming evisceration of Gillibrand in every election going forward for being worse then Ted Bundy under the media’s *Clinton Rules* of imposing 2018 standards on any and all prior behavior. Because guilt is presumed upon accusation for all Democrats in office. //

  80. 80.

    tobie

    February 1, 2018 at 12:10 pm

    @James E. Powell: The other person the Beltway media loves to hate is Nancy Pelosi. Democratic women are intolerable for them. Nikki Haley on the other hand is just peachy-keen. I don’t get this.

  81. 81.

    gvg

    February 1, 2018 at 12:11 pm

    Personally I think the Hillary bashing Hillary has endured over the last 30+ years of my life amount to the most intense sexual harassment I can imagine. It reminds me of the army of trolls that go after women who speak out about anything online. And that reminds me, in a lot of ways Hillary has been the whistleblower. Weren’t there some fairly recent stories that some women Congresswomen admitted they had been harassed by colleagues? I’ll be Hillary could tell some metoo stories that would shock everyone.
    I recall realizing that the 90’s attacks on her irritated me because they could have attacked my mom with those words. I also noticed how petty and ingrained some of the Hillary hate was even from supposedly liberal men, it was important for them to dis her “cankles” looks as if that was relevant to if she was right.
    I actually haven’t had many encounters with mean girls since Jr. High myself. Lucky I guess. I can see when some people haven’t got a clue though.

  82. 82.

    Barbara

    February 1, 2018 at 12:14 pm

    @cosima: There are women who feel intensely threatened by the success of other women because they either honestly believe there is a zero sum game at work that allows only so many women to be promoted or because their own position depends on them being the first or only woman in a position, and not, for instance, intrinsic merit. The latter is what I call impostor syndrome — that you have doubts about whether you actually deserve a promotion based on your merit. I ran into such a woman early in my career and it changed me forever in how I interact with other women. I am a lot more aware of this very pernicious phenomenon, and fortunately, have worked with and for other women who are too.

  83. 83.

    gene108

    February 1, 2018 at 12:15 pm

    Ruth Marcus: For the record: Trump is terrible. He has done some terrible things where women are involved. I try to call him out all the time although, confession, some stuff slips through the cracks — e.g., the porn star thing I haven’t gotten around to writing about.

    This is the quote that most annoys me in the whole piece. Yes, Trump is terrible, but why do I need to focus on him all the time, with my powerful media platform?

    I mean Hillary Clinton did a thing 10 years ago, which was not perfect, but was not terrible either, so let me correct her, in hindsight about what she should have done, and make it the news of the day.

    Her priorities are way, way out of whack.

    Someone needs to smack her with a clue-by-four.

    Edit: She prioritizes her critiques of Hillary and Trump, as if she was President and Trump’s just a failed real estate guy, with a reality T.V. show.

  84. 84.

    matt

    February 1, 2018 at 12:20 pm

    @gene108: The clue by four is to cancel your subscription

  85. 85.

    Tenar Arha

    February 1, 2018 at 12:22 pm

    @efgoldman: This makes me sad and nostalgic for the Horde. Nothing stands still….

    I expect nothing at all but agita from Marcus, I’m not familiar with Emba, but I’ve seriously lost respect for Rosenberg with her participation in this conversation. She did herself a major disservice because with all there is to for me to read, with this one moment she managed to damage her byline for me. (The news is infuriating enough, I’m really trying not to hate-read anyone for my daily doses of opinion or criticism anymore; it makes throwing my phones all too plausible).

  86. 86.

    Barbara

    February 1, 2018 at 12:23 pm

    @Roger Moore: In addition, there is research on the effect of publicly announcing that henceforth, people will be held to a higher standard for conduct as actually, you know, having that effect. So knowing that harassing behavior will not be tolerated when it is found to have occurred will, surprise surprise, actually deter a lot of people from engaging in it. Not everyone, of course, but many. What is so pernicious about some work cultures is that harassing behavior is not only overlooked or ignored, but in some cases, actually rewarded (not overtly, mind you, but in an informal way). If it not only is not rewarded but punished, people will find that most men won’t risk getting fired because harassment is not about the heart wanting what the heart wants. It’s about power and how to get it. If it doesn’t make someone powerful, they won’t do it.

  87. 87.

    kindness

    February 1, 2018 at 12:24 pm

    While I subscribe to the digital WaPo (they beat the NYT like a pinata), there are those over there that still have substantial Clinton Derangement Syndrome. Ruth is a prime culprit. People say she is a moderate but I don’t see that where Democratic candidates/policies are being discussed. She is a Republican apologist on the mold of Susan Collins.

  88. 88.

    cosima

    February 1, 2018 at 12:27 pm

    @tobie: That is an excellent letter. I’d add that they had/have a responsibility (!) to use their platforms to educate & effect positive change, and they did neither. Ten years from now someone will look back on that particular piece and note that those women were clearly part of the problem, not the solution — something for them to think about, putting themselves in HC’s shoes.

  89. 89.

    Cheryl Rofer

    February 1, 2018 at 12:29 pm

    Repeating what senior House intel Republican Mike Conaway told me Tuesday: The committee will release #NunesMemo. Will likely be done by publishing it in the Congressional Record. That can only be done when House is in session. House back for proforma session Friday afternoon.

    — Ryan Lucas (@relucasz) February 1, 2018

  90. 90.

    Barbara

    February 1, 2018 at 12:30 pm

    @kindness: I have no qualms with Marcus about one out of every 100 articles she writes. The percentage is low enough that I don’t usually read her. She had a recent one focused purely on Trump that was spot on.

  91. 91.

    BruceFromOhio

    February 1, 2018 at 12:31 pm

    @Nicole:

    Much like Molly Ivins talking about the water fountain, I had my Road to Damascus moment of “If they’ll lie to me about that, what else are they lying to me about?” And here I am, settling into middle age, and nothing has changed where the media and Clinton are concerned. UGH. I hate everything today. Except Hillary. I’m still with her.

    THIS x 16 jillion.

  92. 92.

    cosima

    February 1, 2018 at 12:33 pm

    @Mnemosyne: If only… the best that I could do was tell LC that if she wants to quit (she does) that she has to tell the teacher that oversees the pipe band what her reasons are. Because — to go along with the theme of this thread — LC may leave, but the problem remains, and it will be other girls who are bullied &/or marginalised by this girl. I’d hoped that LC talking to the teacher would bring about some change, that the teacher would put some rules in place, standards of behaviour, but that hasn’t happened. So, LC is looking at other bands. Unsurprisingly, one of those bands has horrible catty girls, but perfect drumming instructors/style/etc., and the other has wonderful girls, but difficult drumming instructor/style/etc. One might think (as the second instructor does) that drumming is drumming, but no, styles vary. So, I’m hoping LC will decide to go with the difficult drumming + nice peers.

  93. 93.

    Sab

    February 1, 2018 at 12:33 pm

    @sherparick1: Thanks for this.

    In my distant youth I had my own career and then I married a guy who had a couple of retail stores. He fell into a paralyzing depression, and to keep him from bankruptcy I jumped out of my career and in to manage his stores, which I had no experience. A big part of it was managing twentyish salesclerks.

    Interestingly they were pretty much team players, and not the backstabbing women I had met in my professional life. We occassionally hired young men. One guy my husband hired became a problem. He absolutely sucked at sales, and one of my best salesgirls said he had said such inappropriate things to her that she felt uncomfortable with working with him.

    I wimped out completely. I absolutely believed her. I changed his hours so they didn’t overlap.My other salespeople didn’t have a problem with him. I always felt he didn’t get due process, but she was really uncomfortable working with him. On the other hand, he really sucked at his job.

    Tiny companies don’t have the resources to deal with such issues in any way that improves the situation. He might have benefited from a sensible talking to, but my impression was he had rocks in his head, and I didn’t want them to be forced to confront each other.

    Story from an incompetent small business owner. I feel better that Hillary, much more competent than me, made a similar decision, and sort of has regrets.

  94. 94.

    Brachiator

    February 1, 2018 at 12:42 pm

    @Barbara:

    There are women who feel intensely threatened by the success of other women because …

    I suspect that a lot of women feel threatened by the success of other women for the same reasons that many men feel threatened by the success of other men. But some women seem to worry about it more.

    The latter is what I call impostor syndrome — that you have doubts about whether you actually deserve a promotion based on your merit.

    Shit, I know a lot of people, a lot of men, some women, whose promotions had nothing to do with merit. A lot of it was “White Person Syndrome,” promoting someone because they were the right race. Others worked family or social connections. They belonged to the right club, the right lodge, the right union, etc.

    Some people made the most of the opportunity and tried to work hard in the position. Others simply saw it as an opportunity to jump to the next level. I worked with one particularly slimy guy who worked his USC fraternity connections hard and got a special fellowship within my company. He also pressured a co-worker into doing a lot of the work that he was supposed to do himself. His biggest problem was that he not only was an imposter, he was incompetent, and when everything came crashing down, a lot of managers who had previously supported him were made to look like fools and had their own careers damaged.

  95. 95.

    stinger

    February 1, 2018 at 12:52 pm

    I don’t understand the source or nature or purpose of this article. The individuals involved claim to be “writers”, but it reads like a transcription of a real-time conversation. The point of writing is that the writer can be deliberative, can pause and rethink and perhaps rephrase. This article seems like three teenagers gossiping about a fourth one. Was it edited after it was created? Did someone actually think that the mutual back-patting and cough-Hillary-cough business comes across as the considered output of professional writers, or even of mature adults?

    I came of age during Vietnam and Watergate reporting, and the state of journalism nowadays is shameful in comparison. Every time a front pager or a valued commenter promotes the Post or the FYNYT, and I think perhaps I should subscribe, this kind of story comes along and I know I’m better off without them.

  96. 96.

    Nicole

    February 1, 2018 at 12:57 pm

    @tobie: Thanks. I sent an email. Not as eloquent as yours, but I have trouble writing eloquently when I’m spitting nails.

  97. 97.

    AnotherBruce

    February 1, 2018 at 1:00 pm

    @WaterGirl: If women could ever be accused of a circle jerk, this is it.

  98. 98.

    MisterForkbeard

    February 1, 2018 at 1:07 pm

    @Wild Cat: I almost feel like the “you” in that comment must have been directed at the press. Because it doesn’t make any sense at all to apply it to this blog.

  99. 99.

    Jeffro

    February 1, 2018 at 1:11 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: How about that? Evidence of obstruction of justice, right there in the Congressional record.

    Please proceed, Rep Nunes…

  100. 100.

    martian

    February 1, 2018 at 1:24 pm

    @sherparick1: This is what’s bizzare and yet totally predictable and maddening about the latest 2 minute hate on Hillary Clinton. In every way, her actions ten years ago were manifestly better than what’s been revealed *this year* to have been going on seemingly everywhere. The victim was believed and protected, the perpetrator was disciplined – how many media operations alone have been shown to have failed completely in this regard?

    Having reflected, Hillary thinks she could have done better ten years ago, and maybe that’s true. But tell me who the hell entangled with the rapists’ row revealed this year did better? In a fair world, Clinton would be held up as an example of at least trying to get it right.

  101. 101.

    cosima

    February 1, 2018 at 1:26 pm

    A thing of beauty: https://twitter.com/Maggie_Klaus/status/959085534193725440

    I could not help myself — had to click over to make sure these witches were getting scolded.

  102. 102.

    tobie

    February 1, 2018 at 1:33 pm

    @cosima: @Nicole: You folks are too kind. I’m still trying to figure out what I can do as a citizen activist and writing letters to the editor seems to one of many task. Good for you, Nicole, for sending in a letter! It is important for papers to know just how much they sometimes piss off their readers.

  103. 103.

    SiubhanDuinne

    February 1, 2018 at 1:34 pm

    Deleted because I totally misread/misinterpreted. Sorry!!

  104. 104.

    HeleninEire

    February 1, 2018 at 1:37 pm

    Hillary is asked to explain her own behavior and then they bitch about the number of fucking “I’s” in the fucking answer.

    Fuck them.

  105. 105.

    martian

    February 1, 2018 at 1:39 pm

    @tobie: Your letter is fantastic.

  106. 106.

    Brachiator

    February 1, 2018 at 1:44 pm

    @tobie:

    Their dialogue shows they would rather use the occasion to discuss their disappointment that a female politician was not impeccable in her thoughts and conduct. If this is their standard, they should turn to theology.

    Great letter, and this part gets to the heart of things.

    It is almost as though the three cease being journalists or pundits, and instead become instead stereotypically gossiping “mean girls,” commenting on trivial nonsense and dumping on Hillary Clinton personally instead of offering intelligent commentary about the issue of harassment.

  107. 107.

    ruemara

    February 1, 2018 at 1:44 pm

    @cosima: You are preaching the truth. I will avoid largely female work sites because I’ve had such bad experiences with them. Like, I have fought with men at work & I consider women more insidious.

  108. 108.

    Sab

    February 1, 2018 at 1:45 pm

    @Sab: If Steve in Atl was here he’d quote War and Peace against long posts. I thought War and Peace was a great and always entertaining novel. Long , but always worth it.

  109. 109.

    NorthLeft12

    February 1, 2018 at 1:47 pm

    @martian: Agree with your comments 100%. I guess I forgot that this was in reference to the Pres. primary in 2008…..for some reason I was thinking it was 2016.
    Sec. Clinton’s response was pretty outstanding for that time. Much better than pretty much any other organization then. I guess her only mistake is not going full Republican by admitting that in retrospect she might have done better. Never.Admit.Any.Mistakes.

  110. 110.

    Barbara

    February 1, 2018 at 1:49 pm

    @Brachiator: These are pretty well-documented phenomenon among female professionals. I remember being stunned when I read an interview with Madeline Allbright candidly talking about “impostor syndrome.” Not that I am discounting everything you say, but I wonder why you deem it so important to marginalize this observation specifically as it relates to women’s experience in the workplace.

  111. 111.

    Sab

    February 1, 2018 at 1:49 pm

    @ruemara: When I was a baby lawyer I was assigned a secretary who refused to work with women. I was hurt and furious at the time, but after 5 years on the job I decided she was entirely correct.

  112. 112.

    Miss Bianca

    February 1, 2018 at 1:55 pm

    @tobie: I like it! That’s certainly better than what I would come up with, which would be profoundly profanity-laced.

  113. 113.

    Miss Bianca

    February 1, 2018 at 1:59 pm

    @TenguPhule: That would be predictable, ironic, and infuriating all at the same time.

    @gvg: I think you’re on to something with the “sexual harrassment” angle, and I plan to use that line whenever I see someone indulging in gratuitous Hillary-bashing, if only to enjoy the pulpy sound of heads exploding.

  114. 114.

    VeniceRiley

    February 1, 2018 at 2:01 pm

    @Sab:

    In my distant youth I had my own career and then I married a guy who had a couple of retail stores. He fell into a paralyzing depression, and to keep him from bankruptcy I jumped out of my career and in to manage his stores, which I had no experience. A big part of it was managing twentyish salesclerks.

    Interestingly they were pretty much team players, and not the backstabbing women I had met in my professional life. We occassionally hired young men. One guy my husband hired became a problem. He absolutely sucked at sales, and one of my best salesgirls said he had said such inappropriate things to her that she felt uncomfortable with working with him.

    I wimped out completely. I absolutely believed her. I changed his hours so they didn’t overlap.My other salespeople didn’t have a problem with him. I always felt he didn’t get due process, but she was really uncomfortable working with him. On the other hand, he really sucked at his job.

    Tiny companies don’t have the resources to deal with such issues in any way that improves the situation. He might have benefited from a sensible talking to, but my impression was he had rocks in his head, and I didn’t want them to be forced to confront each other.

    Story from an incompetent small business owner. I feel better that Hillary, much more competent than me, made a similar decision, and sort of has regrets.

    Eleven “I” Wow. What the Mean Girls at WaPo would do to you, were you named Hillary!

  115. 115.

    Sab

    February 1, 2018 at 2:03 pm

    @ruemara: Men think fighting is normal, so they do it with gusto and no harm no foul. Women think fighting is unnatural, and destructive of everything they believe in. So guys are good at office politics and women are not so much.

    World visions are so different that I don’t know who is right. Guys seem nuts to me but I love my guy dearly.

  116. 116.

    Sab

    February 1, 2018 at 2:16 pm

    @VeniceRiley: But I ain’t named Hillary. Just been there, done that, and totally respect her decision. Mine would have been same as hers then. Not sure now. But I thought a lot and that’s what I came to. Might not have been my decision now. Older, wiser more political . But that’s what it was.

  117. 117.

    Mnemosyne

    February 1, 2018 at 2:21 pm

    @efgoldman:

    Altho the kid says she was always a bit of a contrarian.

    Honestly, I blame contrarians for a lot of the trouble we’re in now. We don’t need people to be frickin’ contrarians about white supremacy or misogyny. Sometimes the conventional wisdom is actually right.

  118. 118.

    Mnemosyne

    February 1, 2018 at 2:33 pm

    I’ve had good experiences and bad experiences having a woman boss, and have to say that the bad experiences were usually at places where she was one of the few women in management. If more than half of the managers are women and/or POC, it’s usually been a pretty comfortable place to work. My best boss at UCLA Medical Center was an Asian-American woman, and her two subordinates were a Hispanic man and a Filipino woman (Filipina? It felt weird to use the word by itself).

  119. 119.

    Juice Box

    February 1, 2018 at 2:34 pm

    @Sab: I was an engineer and I noticed the same thing. Women seem to be better team players, but not so great at resolving things when conflict arises; conflicts are quieter, but simmer along for years. Men let their egos get in the way of the team more frequently, but are better at shaking off conflict and moving on afterwards; their conflicts are louder, but quickly forgotten. We’re still socializing our children differently by gender. You really need to develop both skills.

  120. 120.

    martian

    February 1, 2018 at 2:39 pm

    @NorthLeft12: Since the lead in on this opinion piece talked about the continuing post-mortem of the 2016 campaign, I think it would be easy to be confused! And they followed by saying Hillary chose not to fire someone who then went on to harass other women, leaving out that Clinton actually disciplined the guy at all. The set up was bad faith all over, in my opinion. They began as they meant to go on. Honestly, though, if Hillary had gone full Republican, refused any blame, and claimed that, in fact, her response to the situation was the best of all possible worlds, they just would have torn her down from another direction.

    Apologizing shows weakness and spurs attacks. Not apologizing shows arrogance and spurs attacks. Dems aren’t allowed a path to victory – it’s Kobayashi Maru all day long if you’re a Democrat.

  121. 121.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    February 1, 2018 at 3:09 pm

    @tobie: Being a woman is OK with the villagers IF you sport an (R) after your name.

  122. 122.

    Brachiator

    February 1, 2018 at 3:12 pm

    @Barbara:

    These are pretty well-documented phenomenon among female professionals.

    A lot of stuff is documented that later turns out to be just part of a larger story.

    I remember being stunned when I read an interview with Madeline Allbright candidly talking about “impostor syndrome.” Not that I am discounting everything you say, but I wonder why you deem it so important to marginalize this observation specifically as it relates to women’s experience in the workplace.

    Oddly enough, I think that the “observation” that women are sometimes especially vicious to other women is somewhat sexist and stereotypical.

    But to be clear. I do not, could not deny the reality of an particular woman’s experience. But if I am playing junior social scientist, I would try to observe all the social dynamics at play.

    And in my personal experience I have to laugh a bit at the notion of “Imposter Syndrome” in the light of so many men and women who happily except promotions despite their lack of accomplishment simply because of their race or social connection. And hell, as far as I can tell, our current president of the United States and every freaking member of his cabinet and 99% of his staff is a freaking imposter, and just don’t care. Men and women both.

  123. 123.

    Ruviana

    February 1, 2018 at 3:16 pm

    @MisterForkbeard: it’s an old old thread but WildCat was responding to the latest iteration of Shomi (KickboxBanana).

  124. 124.

    Barbara

    February 1, 2018 at 3:26 pm

    @Brachiator: I think you have totally missed the point, which is the fact that highly qualified women feel that they are not sufficiently qualified, even when by objective standards, they are clearly qualified, especially when you consider the number of people who are actually promoted because of non-merit based selection criteria. Studies among job applicants show that men consider themselves qualified to apply for a job if they meet even a few of the posted criteria related to skills and experience, whereas women tend to think that if they don’t meet most of the criteria they should not apply. This phenomenon goes beyond actual skill sets or favoritism in the work place. It pertains to how men and women are socialized to value themselves and their abilities and to take chances in the workplace. Feel free to marginalize it if you wish but I think women should understand this because it permeates their experience in the work place and it might help them adopt more rewarding strategies for advancement.

  125. 125.

    Brachiator

    February 1, 2018 at 4:33 pm

    @Barbara:

    I think you have totally missed the point, which is the fact that highly qualified women feel that they are not sufficiently qualified, even when by objective standards, they are clearly qualified, especially when you consider the number of people who are actually promoted because of non-merit based selection criteria. Studies among job applicants show that men consider themselves qualified to apply for a job if they meet even a few of the posted criteria related to skills and experience, whereas women tend to think that if they don’t meet most of the criteria they should not apply.

    Thanks for outlining the issue very well here.

    Feel free to marginalize it if you wish but I think women should understand this because it permeates their experience in the work place and it might help them adopt more rewarding strategies for advancement.

    I disagree with some of your points, and agree with others. This is not the same thing as marginalizing women.

  126. 126.

    Mnemosyne

    February 1, 2018 at 4:35 pm

    @Brachiator:

    And in my personal experience I have to laugh a bit at the notion of “Imposter Syndrome” in the light of so many men and women who happily except promotions despite their lack of accomplishment simply because of their race or social connection.

    That’s Dunning-Kruger, though. The manifestly unqualified assume that they’re qualified while the people who have the credentials second-guess themselves.

  127. 127.

    Barbara

    February 1, 2018 at 4:47 pm

    @Brachiator: Not marginalizing women, per se, but saying “yeah but everybody faces xyz” is a way of discounting the way women in particular might experience work related issues that is different from men’s experience.

  128. 128.

    Brachiator

    February 1, 2018 at 4:49 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    And in my personal experience I have to laugh a bit at the notion of “Imposter Syndrome” in the light of so many men and women who happily except promotions despite their lack of accomplishment simply because of their race or social connection.

    That’s Dunning-Kruger, though. The manifestly unqualified assume that they’re qualified while the people who have the credentials second-guess themselves.

    No. A lot of women and nonwhite people know that they are being fucked over.

    I looked at the Wikipedia site on Imposter Syndrome and found this, for example.

    A study by Queena Hoang suggested as example people of color may experience impostor syndrome as a result of suspecting they were given their position by affirmative action.

    This is big bullshit. In the history of the US, jobs and scholarships used to regularly set aside for white boys and white men. And white folks (men and women) use every trick in the book to get jobs without regard to their actual accomplishments, and then turn around and whine about a person of color not being qualified and not deserving a break.

    Again, as I say, there is more to the social dynamics of this phenomenon, and the class and racial dynamics are being overlooked. In a country such as the UK, for example, class dynamics as well as ethnic issues, have got to weigh heavily in this as well.

  129. 129.

    Mnemosyne

    February 1, 2018 at 5:50 pm

    @Brachiator:

    And white folks (men and women) use every trick in the book to get jobs without regard to their actual accomplishments, and then turn around and whine about a person of color not being qualified and not deserving a break.

    And one of the tricks our society uses is to convince women and POC themselves that it’s true and they don’t deserve the positions they achieve.

    You are discounting the effect that society’s messages have on people’s own internal messages. People with imposter syndrome feel that way because they’re constantly being bombarded with messages telling them that they must be imposters if they got to the position they have.

    I’m not sure why you think that imposter syndrome is something outside of the messages that our society sends rather than being an integral part of it, but you’ve basically got it 180 degrees backwards. Imposter syndrome exists because of what our society tells women and POC, not in spite of it.

  130. 130.

    Brachiator

    February 1, 2018 at 5:51 pm

    @Barbara:

    Not marginalizing women, per se, but saying “yeah but everybody faces xyz” is a way of discounting the way women in particular might experience work related issues that is different from men’s experience.

    That is not quite what I said, or what I was trying to say. I do not think that trying to place this into a different context is the same thing as discounting women’s experience, but I think that I understand your concerns and cautions. I appreciate your taking the time to explicate the issues so clearly.

  131. 131.

    Raoul

    February 1, 2018 at 7:04 pm

    Something is FUBAR with F*book – if I click on ‘show more’ to try to read her full post, it opens a duplicate of her page, but without expanding the thing she wrote. So I can’t read it. Fuck you, F*book.

  132. 132.

    Brachiator

    February 1, 2018 at 7:38 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    And white folks (men and women) use every trick in the book to get jobs without regard to their actual accomplishments, and then turn around and whine about a person of color not being qualified and not deserving a break.

    And one of the tricks our society uses is to convince women and POC themselves that it’s true and they don’t deserve the positions they achieve.

    I don’t believe this is the case with the vast majority of black people and affirmative action. But I do think that a lot of white people think this about black people and affirmative action.

    Black folk know when white people are trying to fuck them over. And they know that white people’s messages are bullshit.

  133. 133.

    Mnemosyne

    February 1, 2018 at 9:27 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Consciously? Sure. But current psychology is showing that stereotype threat can affect people on a subconscious level. A Black woman can know consciously that she worked hard to get into a managerial position, but stereotype threat and imposter syndrome will whisper in her ear that she’s wrong. Constantly.

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