Responses
Pollitt, Katha
Zelda Bronstein thinks I've been too easy on Hillary Rodham Clinton. Maybe that was so in 1992, when I published articles in Glamour and in the Nation that explored the extent to which criticism...
...After all, having attacked the National Organization for Women (NOW) for raising insufficient ruckus against the Personal Responsibility Act, Scheer wrote in the Nation that he felt "pretty good" about the reelection of Clinton, the man who signed it into law...
...Maybe Hillary should get a divorce and make us both happy...
...In academia spouses are often hired together, sometimes when only one is truly desired or needed, a practice that distorts hiring decisions and disadvantages single people of both sexes...
...To get in a lather about HRC's position in the administration strikes me as a good example of that "rectitude" Bronstein criticizes me for...
...Maybe that was so in 1992, when I published articles in Glamour and in the Nation that explored the extent to which criticism of HRC was motivated by sexism and/ or political conservatism...
...I wrote two preelection columns urging Nation readers not to vote for Clinton, and a post-inaugural column pointing out the folly of liberals who imagined Clinton would move to the left in his second term...
...Even so, I prefer her to Bronstein's other "feminist," Jean Bethke Elshtain, doughty crusader against divorce and gay marriage...
...What more does Zelda Bronstein want...
...Since those early days, however, I've criticized the First Lady in piece after piece...
...I have also written reams about the cooptation of the liberal feminist organizations (along with other social-justice groups, like the Children's Defense Fund, and labor unions) by their closeness to the Democratic party...
...I've castigated the Democratic women senators and representatives who were elected as women's champions and then, among other misdeeds, voted for welfare reform...
...About the issue of spouses getting power and plums through marriage: of course it's wrong, but so are inherited wealth, family connections, the old-boy network, and the fact that a Harvard degree opens more doors than one from Queens College...
...100 • DISSENT Arguments Naturally, I'm opposed to unqualified and incompetent people getting jobs because of their connections, marital or otherwise...
...Scheer and NOW, it seems to me, have the same politics: both stand to the left of Clinton and criticize his policies, while remaining captive to the lesser-of-two-evils idea...
...I've attacked EMILY's List and Donna Shalala (whom Bronstein rather uncritically calls a feminist, despite her despicable role in welfare reform...
...Lehrman's disapproval of women's obtaining power through their husbands' influence would carry more weight with me if it were part of a broader critique of social privilege...
...Bronstein's suggestion that I went after Kaus and not Karen Lehrman out of feminist solidarity makes me wonder how familiar she is with feminism (or journalism...
...I think all three men exemplify the discomfort with strong women and powerful women—in Kaus's case, maybe women, period—that percolates through criticism of the First Lady, and through the left and right critiques of liberal feminism, too...
...I'll get riled up about qualified and competent wives who get jobs through their husbands' influence as soon as husbands start losing promotions for having the unfair advantage of their wives' domestic labor, child-care services, and secretarial help...
...Should Hillary Clinton be the only Friend of Bill without a government post, the only member of the Arkansas business elite to stand idly by while jobs and perks and boodle are ladled out...
...and Robert Scheer, who wrote that both Clarence Thomas and Bob Packwood were the victims of "radical feminists...
...Indeed, if my Nation columns have had a theme for the last three years, it's been the dashing of liberal illusions (including a few of my own) about Hillary and Bill, the Democratic party, and the big liberal advocacy organizations...
...But then marriage itself disadvantages singles, as supporters of gay marriage point out, and gives men many privileges in the workplace (and women many disadvantages) that go mostly unremarked...
...So why would I avoid mentioning Lehrman, whose entire career, Bronstein seems not to realize, is based on attacking the women's movement as hopelessly p.c...
...There's a glee and a dismissiveness that goes beyond political differences—differences that sometimes, when the dust of rhetoric has settled, aren't even that big...
...Probably I just missed Lehrman's article...
...SUMMER • 1997 • 101...
...Why single out wives, except to ride prejudices about female incompetence, petticoat government, feminist cabals, and monstrous regiments of women about to take over...
...I disagree publicly with other feminists all the time—Naomi Wolf, Gloria Steinem, Susan Estrich, Ellen Goodman, and so on...
...It happens...
...Bronstein prefers the stands on Hillary Clinton taken by Mickey Kaus, perhaps the most influential basher of welfare mothers in the mainstream press...
...If Zelda Bronstein wants me to agree that marriage is an unfair, oppressive, and sexist institution, I'm there...
...I never, ever compared Hillary Clinton to Eleanor Roosevelt...
...Alexander Cockburn, who reprinted in his New York Press column Internet pornography featuring Hillary as a lesbian dominatrix...
...But twofer hirings are part of modern life...
Vol. 44 • July 1997 • No. 3
