Hillary Clinton as Feminist Icon

The Boston Globe paints Hillary Clinton as a feminist icon today in a front page article by Susan Milligan (“Clinton's struggle vexes feminists”). The article begins with this gag reflex test:

As Hillary Clinton struggles to regain her momentum in the presidential race, frustrated feminists are looking at what they see as the ultimate glass ceiling: A female candidate with a hyper-substantive career is now threatened with losing the nomination to a man whose charismatic style and powerful rhetoric are trumping her decades of experience.

Nowhere in the article is there any mention of the awkward point that during Hillary’s “decades of experience” her access to power derived exclusively from her husband until 2001 (Hillary won the US Senate nomination in 2000 after her husband-patron persuaded an elected woman candidate, NY Congresswoman Nita Lowey, to 'voluntarily' step aside and give up a nomination Lowey had earned through a self-made career in politics and a party primary election).

Eva Peron is this kind of feminist icon, but Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, and Angela Merkel are not. Some glass ceiling. Some feminist icon! The story has one delicious quote concerning Obama:

“If he were female, with his credentials, age, and track record, I don't think he'd be anywhere near the presidency of the United States,".

And if Hillary was merely a 2^nd term US Senator would she be a serious candidate? Apparently the Globe does not ask such impertinent questions to certified feminist spokeswomen.

Ha!