You've Come A Long Way, Baby

So Can You Please Stop Calling Me 'Babe' Now?

Lets stop calling us “Baby” or "Babes" and please call us “Madam Senator” “Madam Speaker”, “Madam Secretary”, and maybe even “Madam President”
Let’s call babies “baby”- and OK, maybe the occasional Lover- but only if she is your lover.
We have come a long way, and people forty-ish stand on the shoulders of our mothers and sisters a decade and a generation older who made enormously needed strides for all women, but we still are apparently not all there yet.
We still are denied jobs, mortgages, equal pay and respect. We still are judged by a different standard and have to work harder to prove ourselves if we can even get the job to begin with . We still are assumed unqualified for certain jobs, passed over more frequently for partnerships, derided with comments, silent sufferers of sexual harassment and stereotypical objectifications, and our competence at times threatens the male ego which has unlimited capacity to sabotage.

Did you notice that the only Presidential candidate who is a woman is called by her first name and no one else is? Maybe that is so we don’t confuse her with the other Clinton. Or, maybe its because we insist that women are “Laura” “Condi” “Hillary” and not Bush, Rice and Clinton. Why don’t we call the men Barack, Johnny and Rudy baby?
Hillary, the one who didn’t just stand by her man like Tammy Wynette, stood by her man anyway. She has to suffer the nation wondering if it is out of strength or battered wife wimpiness. Maybe she just has unlimited capacity for forgiveness and loves her husband deeply. A decade or so ago, she announced she didn’t bake cookies as if to distance herself from a version of motherhood that didn’t look professional enough. Why she felt she had to do that means that there is still a perception that motherhood isn’t professional enough.

I can only imagine what the male cadre surrounding Hillary is telling her to become;
Soften up, lighten up, give us that belly laugh Terry McAuliffe keeps talking about but don’t let it sound too fake. Smile more, wear a pink shell under-sweater, soften the make up, wear pink lip gloss (forget the lip liner), tone down the platinum blonde with a few brown streaks. Can you see the men getting advice like: put a bit of brown through your grey hair, don’t put your hands on your hips, don’t sound so aggressive. Do you hear anyone commenting on Obama’s hairstyle?
The people who attack Hillary with irrational rage use terms like “aggressive” “angry” “mean” and “strident.” When people like John Edwards get fired up over the same issues, its righteous indignation.
Do you hear anyone saying John Edwards might just be too pretty to be President?

We have come a long way to have credible a female front runner Presidential candidate.
But we still are not there. We still have to ask if she would be the frontrunner candidate if her husband were not already a former two-term President.
Joe Biden characterizes the female Senator from Alaska’s remarks on the Foreign Relations Committee as “articulate” as if you could possibly be inarticulate and succeed in getting a whole State to send you to the Senate. Cynthia McKinney had to have press conferences on her change of hair style. And no one ever accused Bob Dole of riding on the skirt-tails of Libby, a former Cabinet Secretary Harvard educated attorney.

Hillary in her own right, could very well be, as some have concluded, smarter than Bill, have received better grades at Yale law school than Bill, received higher LSAT scores, made light-years more money in private law practice before Bill was president, and people will still accuse her of only being as highly viable a candidate because of her husband and his connections.

My advice to Madam Presidential Contender would be simple; Be Yourself. It’s great enough. Laugh when you want to and don’t force a fake laugh because someone told you to lighten up. Be angry when your ire is up and if they can’t handle it –tough. Be as kind as you are, as smart as you are as principled as you are and as driven as you are. There will always be men whose egos are threatened by smart, kind, principled, driven women.
But those are very small mean men. And we are a great, large, kind and wonderful country.

My advice to the rest of the country: Be Fair.

This time if Hillary trades on her husband's reputation, maybe later some husband will get to trade on his wife's. If there is a good woman behind every good man there can be a good man
secure enough to let his wife peddle in front once in a while. That way no one gets too tired to peddle where the bike needs to go.