When former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright claimed this past week that “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t support other women,” she insulted all women, reducing us to our gender and nothing else.
She was referring to Hillary Clinton, suggesting women should just vote for the former secretary of state because she is also a woman. I don’t recall her making any such statements in favor of Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, even when the former Hewlett-Packard CEO appeared to be rising in the polls.
Days earlier, feminist Gloria Steinem also took a shot at young women, particularly young women, when she declared they only supported Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders because they’re boy crazy.
“When you’re young, you’re thinking, ‘Where are the boys?’ The boys are with Bernie,” Steinem said.
I mean, wow. These two women are supposed to be bastions of female empowerment and this is what they say about fellow women? At least Steinem eventually apologized after a backlash.
Imagine a man saying that men should only support other men.
Women can support whomever they damn well please. We don’t have to support someone just because they have the same reproductive organs. We are more than our vaginas and uteruses. I know that’s a difficult concept to grasp in today’s age of identity politics, but many women care about issues that don’t have to do with their gender.
Not all women are concerned first and foremost with their ability to get an easy abortion. Not all women believe the government is the solution to every single issue we face in our lives. Not all women believe they are helpless victims of the patriarchy. And not all women think Hillary Clinton is the best candidate for the White House.
My colleague Noemie Emery listed of Clinton’s faults in her own column on Albright and Steinem’s comments: “Hillary’s undisguised hunger for money, her habit of lying and her husband Bill Clinton’s more than prurient interests” to name a few.
Clinton is a bad politician, and that has nothing to do with her gender. If she were a man (and a Republican) she would be caricatured as the epitome of political greed. She seeks money and power and will say and do anything to get it. She proclaims she’s for the working class while living a privileged lifestyle far away from the “little people.” She used her power and influence in government to help her friends get business deals and make more money. She laughs when people ask her to be transparent, and she conducted official business over personal emails that were vulnerable to hacking — and she shows no remorse or even that she grasps the gravity of what she did.
And that’s not to mention her professed desire to “listen and believe” sexual assault accusers while systematically tearing down the women who accused her husband and put her own political future in jeopardy.
Now we have two Clinton surrogates telling women how to vote — not because Clinton is a great candidate, but because she shares the same organs.
At least one Clinton backer has suggested Albright and Steinem be “kept away” from speaking for the campaign. They might lay low for a while, but I doubt they’ll go away.
Instead of demonizing opposition as somehow “anti-woman” for not supporting Clinton, perhaps these two ladies could accept the fact that different women want different things in life and are free to do and think as they please. And they shouldn’t be shamed for that.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
