Did women reject Hillary?

On the campaign trail Barack Obama said that Hillary Clinton was the most qualified candidate to ever run for president of the United States. Obama also said that neither himself nor Bill Clinton were more qualified than Hillary when they ran for president. Hillary, of course, was the first woman nominated by a major political party as its flag-bearer and, having won the popular vote (most votes) but lost the Electoral College (the one that really counts), it’s fair to say that she came within inches of becoming the first female president of the United States. Analyses have pointed to two elements of surprise in this election. First, of course, is the election of Trump, an element that this writer dealt with in this column last week. Second, the analysis around the issue of gender and how women did not pay allegiance to Hillary Clinton. It was repeatedly said that women rejected Hillary. This is true and false and it can be explained. For starters, let the record show that Hillary carried the overall women vote by a margin of 12 percentage points (54% to Trump’s 42%), per CNN’s exist polls, a margin that was buoyed by black women. When gender is disaggregated by race, black women showed up for Hillary at a staggering rate of 94 percent. By comparison, 53 percent of white women voted for Trump against 43 percent who voted for Hillary. Consequently, it’s more appropriate to say that white women – not all women – rejected Hillary. However, this should not discredit the underlying sentiment that had women turned out as a movement to vote for the first female president Hillary Clinton would today be the president-elect. Moreover, the fact that black men voted for Hillary at a rate of 80 percent and that the overall black vote stood at 88 percent suggests that gender was not the reason black women voted for Hillary. Trump was accused of running a racist and misogynist campaign. However, the effects of race showed in the election results more than those of gender. Weren’t women excited to elect the first female president of the United States, if not to punish Trump for the misogyny? If you like shortcuts, here’s one. Hillary was always a corrupt and defective figure who was unable to rally fellow women, to inspire them into a movement to wrestle for political power. Here’s the road less taken. Hillary could have possessed the Virgin Mary kind of purity and Barack Obama’s oratorical gifts and such a movement would not have emerged. Here’s why. First, this was no season for inspirational politics. As Americans discovered that Obama was the goose that laid the golden egg, they were not in the mood for cool-aid. On the contrary, the American scene was ripe for the opposite of inspirational politics, as Trump proved. Secondly, and more importantly, power remains masculine. To gain power – any leadership, really – women have had to take on masculine traits to justify themselves as worthy of power and the leadership it exercises. The traits of masculine socialisation that presumably makes men strong leaders include testosterone induced bouts of a machismo of toughness, combativeness, and the like – in short, a disposition to domination and violence. Traits of feminine socialisation such as sensitivity and empathy apparently make women vulnerable and undesirable as leaders. It beats reason why domination is better than empathy. But here’s the paradox. As women leaders assume masculine traits in order to be perceived as measuring up to the task, they are still expected to be able to appeal to their unique experiences as women and to mobilise women into a sort of group consciousness around these experiences. A man simply needs to be masculine. A woman must be masculine and feminine – this she must be at once. Without much of a choice women who seek leadership always go where the power is: they masculinise. As a general rule, however, because power and politics are masculinised, women stay away, and are said – and say to themselves – not to like politics. Every woman has a mole by her side Were women to mobilise around their unique experiences, against whom would such mobilisation target? This informs the strategic error of feminism whose language tends to suggest mobilisation targeted against men when it ought to be one forwomen – against no one. Consequently, a zero-sum struggle for power emerges. As is the behaviour of any status quo, men instinctively resist without even realising it. Unfortunate for women, gender is not a potent vehicle for fighting back. As political categories, gender and youth tend to behave the same way – to their detriment. As a non-permanent transit point, youth forms a weak basis for developing group consciousness that leads to political power. Similarly, the ties that bind women lack the emotive force found in ‘permanent’ categories like race and ethnicity where group consciousness stands ready formobilisation for goals that include accessing political power. For one thing, women are an infiltrated group. Almost every woman has a mole by her side: her husband. Moreover, feminist discourse creates moles out of men where it ought to create allies – however unlikely the alliance. Even unmarried women cannot be relied upon to develop group consciousness due to – like the youth – the temporariness of their status: sooner or later they, too, will have a mole by their side. So, blame Hillary if you like. America will have a female president. However, it will not be because of the women vote. Not until society – there and elsewhere – imagines a new, less masculinised, politics. Until then, to expect women to vote as a group is to ignore the basic tenets of group consciousness.

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Did women reject Hillary?