Clinton's Sexism Charges 'Insulting'

Past women icons wouldn't make such claims: Noonan
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted May 23, 2008 10:50 AM CDT
Clinton's Sexism Charges 'Insulting'
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., left, speaks with Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md. on Capitol Hill in Washington Thursday.    (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke)

Hillary Clinton’s claims of misogyny this week were cheap shots that history’s greatest women never would have uttered, Peggy Noonan writes in the Wall Street Journal . Suggesting that sexism is costing her the nomination is “insulting” and “manipulative”—it paints other candidates’ supporters as biased—it’s false, and ultimately, Noonan notes, it is “undermining of the position of women.”

It’s also “sissy” to make such arguments. “You want to say, 'Girl, butch up, you are playing in the leagues, they get bruised in the leagues,'” Noonan writes. The fact of the matter is that “being a woman helped Mrs. Clinton”—it gave her backers “the special oomph to be gotten from making history.” Yet women who made history—Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir—would ridicule her comments this week. (More Hillary Clinton stories.)

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