Throughout history, when life has handed women lemons, a great many of us have chosen to suck on them. The resourceful among us, the survivors, squeezed them into a pitcher, added sugar and made lemonade (or limoncello, or medicinal salves, or exfoliates, etc.). But the gifted, those who achieved the most success facing life on their own terms, organized others and planted orchards, building communities around those orchards and other industries to support those communities.

As a 60s' feminist, I've never seen the "feminist" in Hillary Clinton or that she's been any kind of boon to women's issues. I know her record thoroughly and I believe that anyone who thinks she is a champion for women doesn't know her record. I also haven't understood "Hillary Clinton for President" as a feminist issue. I have never believed that having a woman as President just for the sake of having a woman as President would do anything for the plight of women generally. Having women high up in the empire of publishing doesn't seem to have done much in this regard. Joan Walsh is a good example of a dishonest broker working on Clinton's behalf, wanting a woman for President above all other considerations. Media has vouched for, vetted Hillary Clinton, without informing the public of her actual record (dismal).

What good is having a woman (Kay Bailey Hutchinson, for example) if she would govern as George W. Bush? Is the goal to have a woman as President or someone who is responsive to the needs and problems of all of the people and effective at getting them solved? I think if we don't recognize the difference, we become the epitome of the "silly female" stereotype.

"I also haven't understood "Hillary Clinton for President" as a feminist issue. I have never believed that having a woman as President just for the sake of having a woman as President would do anything for the plight of women generally."

The late Paul Tsongas, one of those old dead white males, was a liberal Democrat from liberal Massachusetts, but he said 30 years ago that the great political tugs of the last several decades were about the distribution of the golden eggs, and it is time we turned our attention to the health of the goose. Most of my life I have been hearing that people in other countries with lower wages were going to bury us - first Japan, then other countries in the far east and South America - and after all these years we are still surviving. The way we have done that is mostly by keeping the dead hand of government out of our business (not that we couldn’t have done better at that, but our competitors have done even worse). If we look at all the details, women have mostly caught up in the salary race, but people are still pushing for "comparable worth" so that wages and salaries for just about everybody would be established in Washington; with nurses making more money than mechanics and plumbers and even lots of engineers and managers, and school teachers not that far behind, and with few if any occupations that remain reserved for either males or females, most of us can see that an enormous new bureaucracy to run our business would hurt all of us far more than it would help.

Even in politics, there isn’t much that is a male or female issue. Does one gender want to keep the terrorists from killing us, and the other doesn’t care? Does one gender want to see higher gasoline prices, while the other is concerned about how we can survive and live well? Does one gender want to find ways to keep our streets safe, but the other would be perfectly happy to have the streets full of people who want to cut our throats for the $10 we might have in our pocketbook? We all have plenty to worry about, without going out of our way to fight with each other; there are enough people outside our country who want to hurt us, we don’t need to do their work for them.

Many things have changed, but many things remain the same...

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"What good is having a woman (Kay Bailey Hutchinson, for example) if she would govern as George W. Bush?"

I am so very glad to see this post, JMorgan.

Hillary Clinton is certainly not the feminist icon. However, I am not saying any woman who runs for office requires to be a 'feminist', I am saying she requires to be competent.

It is important I feel to note something in the You tube video that Joni posted there,

"If women were so anxious to have women in the congress- and there are so many great women candidates running- then why wouldnt congress be 52% female?"

Women in power does not guarantee improvement in gender issues or emancipation of women in general. There have been women in power in many developing countries, including India, and her neighbours, and I dont remember them doing all that much to improve the situation of women in their respective societies. There are women in power in many countries that perpetrate laws that harm their own gender.

On the other hand there have been men in power and in societies in general who have done more for women's rights than most women of their time. I give you the Bengali Renaissance as an example, a time when men in that society foought for women's rights when women didnt have the voice/power to.

So point is, it's not about gender, it's about the individual. And sooner women realize that the sooner they'll stop being judged for their gender. Obama fought in the race as a leader of people, not of blacks or men, and by doing that he served his race (races?) the best.

I'll put in another link (http://www.slate.com/id/21871­89/)