Barbara Streisand: Sexism is Holding Hillary Clinton Back, She Should Judged “by her merits and extensive resume alone”


It takes someone particularly disconnected from reality to suggest that Hillary Clinton is somehow being unfairly attacked by the media. Barbara Streisand — the woman who stores her clothes in a fake shopping mall in her basement — is apparently disconnected enough from the real world to do just that.

Why is it that today even a woman as impressive as Hillary Clinton is judged not by her merits and extensive resume alone, but held to a pernicious double standard?

Twenty-two years ago, I had the honor of introducing Hillary Clinton at a Humanitarian Award dinner, given by The Elie Wiesel Foundation. I said of her then and it holds true today, “There is no one in this country who would deny the competence, intellect, stamina, warmth and courage of Hillary Rodham Clinton… But the criticism of Hillary Clinton has again demonstrated that the strong, competent woman is still a threatening figure in our culture. …A man who graduated high in his class at Yale Law School and made partnership in a top law firm would be celebrated. But a woman who accomplishes this is treated with suspicion… Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of the acclaimed biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, said of Hillary Clinton, ‘I don’t think there is a First Lady who has been treated as rudely and meanly except for Eleanor Roosevelt.’” Both of these women boldly risked the scorn of “those threatened by the image of a woman carrying the fight for social justice into the public arena.”

It seems that nothing much has changed. It’s been 24 years since I said in aspeech for Women in Film, “Men and women are clearly measured by a different yardstick. And that makes me angry. Of course, I’m not supposed to be angry. A woman should be soft-spoken, agreeable, ladylike, understated. In other words, stifled. Language gives us an insight into the way women are viewed in a male-dominated society.

A man is commanding, a woman is demanding.

He’s assertive – she’s aggressive.

He strategizes – she manipulates.

A man is forceful – a woman is pushy.

He shows leadership – she’s controlling.

A man is a perfectionist – a woman’s a pain in the ass.”

It’s been decades since those speeches, but there is still outright sexism in much of the commentary on Secretary Clinton’s campaign. The Women’s Media Center andMedia Matters have done wonderful work documenting the explicit – and more importantly since it’s often unseen – implicit sexism of the political and media punditry. After Hillary Clinton won five primaries on March 15th, Fox News’ Brit Hume tweeted, she’s shouting angrily in her victory speech… “What’s she mad at?” When MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough tweeted she should, “Smile. You just had a big night,” should we have been surprised? Hillary Clinton has a great smile and smiles often. So does Barack Obama. So does Bill Clinton. But no one would tell those two men to smile.

Newsflash for Ms. Streisand. Hillary is an aggressive, pushy, controlling, manipulative pain in the ass, and calling her out as such isn’t sexism, it’s the truth.

Source: Huffington Post

Photo: Twitter



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