Responses
Rosen, Ruth
Hillary Clinton is neither a saint nor a monster. Although I share Zelda Bronstein's distaste for feminist sycophancy, I think she fails to grasp—amid all the disappointments—what is genuinely...
...Her very effort, though badly bungled, mobilized formidable political and economic opposition...
...Afterward, Hillary Clinton became the lightning rod for the right...
...Silenced by relentless criticism in her own country, she gradually realized that she had to export her progressive agenda to other parts of the globe...
...The American media, however, ignored the substance of her speech and focused on the rain, the mud, and Chinese official interference...
...The insurance industry launched an enormously successful public relations and lobbying campaign...
...In Tanzania, she informed the press that women urgently needed better reproductive health care, as well as basic educational and vocational opportunities...
...The health care industry accounts for one-eighth of the nation's gross national product...
...We sent "fact sheets" to newspaper and magazine editors and television producers...
...Resign office...
...What, we ask ourselves, did she do, if anything, to prevent that fatal decision...
...In each country, the First Lady held meetings with highly educated powerful women leaders and used her visibility to publicize their concerns...
...Small enterprises, she argued, might free poor women from their dependence on welfare or abusive relationships...
...Sadly, these efforts received little attention and seemed to have escaped the attention of both Zelda Bronstein and Robert Scheer, whom she quotes...
...Although I share Zelda Bronstein's distaste for feminist sycophancy, I think she fails to grasp—amid all the disappointments—what is genuinely laudable about our First Lady...
...In short, the First Lady could not reverse Americans' growing distrust of government and their deepening distaste for helping the poor...
...In retrospect, it would have been easier to nationalize the railroad, automobile, and aviation industries than to redistribute 12 percent of the nation's wealth for health care reform...
...One hundred well-known feminist writers, scholars, and activists signed a petition against welfare cuts and raised the funds to publish it in national newspapers...
...In Zimbabwe, she publicized the threat of AIDS to women and the pandemic domestic violence women encounter in that country...
...Some of us founded a National Campaign for Media Fairness on Welfare...
...Bill and Hillary tried, but Harry and Louise won...
...When Hillary Rodham Clinton changes her hair style, reporters demand a political explanation and speculate on the symbolic meaning of her new coiffure...
...When the First Lady returned home, she called for American financial institutions to offer small loans to poor American women, whom banks usually reject...
...How then, shall we evaluate Hillary Clinton...
...Despite her progressive advocacy abroad, she has failed to protect poor women and children in her own country...
...Defying the moral relativism SUMMER • 1997 • 101 Arguments that supports patriarchal power, she endorsed the (controversial) universal right to call a custom— genital mutilation, sexual slavery, arranged marriage, rape, dowry deaths, or wife beating—a crime...
...She has been shadowed by serious scandals and allegations...
...Blaming Hillary Clinton for "losing" the battle for universal health care is as absurd as condemning Truman for "losing" China...
...But in the end, I believe that her most important legacy will be her persistent promotion of an expanded vision of democracy...
...The media, however, ensured that her message would be muted...
...The women rapidly pay back the loans, gain some economic independence, and raise their standard of living...
...In California, our singlepayer plan was overwhelmingly defeated by a well-financed campaign underwritten by the insurance industry...
...Yes, talk is cheap...
...we wrote columns and spoke out against the demonization of poor women...
...Although I, too, supported a single-payer plan, most Americans did not...
...It is difficult to predict Hillary Clinton's future place in history...
...Some of us staged marches and demonstrations...
...I agree that "organized" feminism failed poor women and children...
...The most comfortable and wealthy Americans, moreover, demonstrated little political will to tax themselves to pay for the health care of the poor...
...Don't be surprised if this simple yet elegant principle has a greater global impact than anything Bill Clinton will accomplish during his presidency...
...What few people grasp is how she has reinvented the role of First Lady, turning herself into an international activist who fights on the international stage for what she cannot—or will not—struggle for in her own country...
...Perhaps in 2000, but not in the middle of her husband's presidency...
...Still, progressive "unorganized feminists"—including the female pundits Bronstein has targeted— tried to mobilize public opinion years before the bill was signed...
...It was never hers to lose...
...Far from the White House, Hillary Clinton felt free to criticize the widespread poverty and violence that American women endure as well...
...But when the First Lady travels abroad, the American media trivialize her speeches and publish photographs that spotlight Hillary and Chelsea riding an elephant, watching hippos, or admiring floral displays...
...Few Americans recall her advocacy of these development programs...
...102 . DISSENT...
...When the president signed the so-called welfare reform legislation, the First Lady stood mute as her husband dismantled sixty years of guaranteed assistance to the poor...
...In her book It Takes a Village, and in every nation she has visited, Rodham Clinton has passionately argued that a democracy cannot succeed if it devalues women and children...
...Nor could she prevail against the awesome medical insurance industry...
...When she and her daughter visited India, the First Lady publicized the success of development programs that loan village women small sums of money with which to start their own cottage businesses...
...At the Fourth World Women's Conference at Beijing in 1995, Hillary Clinton gave a keynote speech that boldly defended women's rights as human rights...
...Last March, Hillary Clinton and Chelsea visited six African nations during a two-week "goodwill" tour...
...What, we ask, could she have done...
...With such few numbers, we failed to reverse the political climate that demonized poor women...
...We don't know the answer...
...We should have had a One Million Woman March in the capital...
...we placed welfare mothers on radio and television programs...
Vol. 44 • July 1997 • No. 3
