A note here on terminology. Others might have a different view, but here’s how I see the distinction between sexism and misogyny. When a husband tells his wife, “I can’t quite explain why and I don’t even like admitting this, but I don’t want you to make more money than me, so please don’t take that amazing job offer,” that’s sexism. He could still love her deeply and be a great partner in countless ways. But he holds tight to an idea that even he knows isn’t fair about how successful a woman is allowed to be. Sexism is all the big and little ways that society draws a box around women and says, “You stay in there.” Don’t complain because nice girls don’t do that. Don’t try to be something women shouldn’t be. Don’t wear that, don’t go there, don’t think that, don’t earn too much. It’s not right somehow, we can’t explain why, stop asking.
We can all buy into sexism from time to time, often without even noticing it. Most of us try to keep an eye out for those moments and avoid them or, when we do misstep, apologize and do better next time.
Misogyny is something darker. It’s rage. Disgust. Hatred. It’s what happens when a woman turns down a guy at a bar and he switches from charming to scary. Or when a woman gets a job that a man wanted and instead of shaking her hand and wishing her well, he calls her a bitch and vows to do everything he can to make sure she fails.
Both sexism and misogyny are endemic in America. If you need convincing, just look at the YouTube comments or Twitter replies when a woman dares to voice a political opinion or even just share an anecdote from her own lived experience. People hiding in the shadows step forward just far enough to rip her apart.
Sexism in particular can be so pervasive, we stop seeing it. It reminds me of the opening anecdote from author David Foster Wallace’s 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College. Two young fish are swimming along. They meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how’s the water?” The two young fish swim on for a bit, until one looks at the other and asks, “What’s water?”
“In other words,” Wallace said, “the most obvious realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about.”
I’d say that sums up the problem of recognizing sexism—especially when it comes to politics—quite nicely.
It’s not easy to be a woman in politics. That’s an understatement. It can be excruciating, humiliating. The moment a woman steps forward and says, “I’m running for office,” it begins: the analysis of her face, her body, her voice, her demeanor; the diminishment of her stature, her ideas, her accomplishments, her integrity. It can be unbelievably cruel.
I hesitate to write this, because I know that women who should run for office might read it and say “no thanks,” and I passionately believe that the only way we’re going to get sexism out of politics is by getting more women into politics.
Still, I can’t think of a single woman in politics who doesn’t have stories to tell. Not one.
For the record, it hurts to be torn apart. It may seem like it doesn’t bother me to be called terrible names or have my looks mocked viciously, but it does. I’m used to it—I’ve grown what Eleanor Roosevelt said women in politics need: a skin as thick as a rhinoceros hide. Plus, I’ve always had a healthy self-esteem, thanks no doubt to my parents, who never once told me that I had to worry about being prettier or thinner. To them, I was great exactly how I was. I don’t know what magic they performed to make that stick in my head all these years—I wish I did, so that parents everywhere could learn the trick. All I know is, I’ve been far less plagued by self-doubt than a lot of women I know.
And yet… it hurts to be torn apart.
It didn’t start with running for office. When I got glasses in the fourth grade—way smaller than the Coke-bottle ones I wore later in life—I was dubbed “four-eyes.” It wasn’t the most original taunt, but it stung. In junior high, a few unkind schoolmates noticed the lack of ankles on my sturdy legs and did their best to embarrass me. I did talk to my mom about that one. She told me to ignore it, to rise above, to be better. That advice prepared me well for a barrage of insults later on.
At college, I was spared some of the hostility many young women face because I went to Wellesley. Being at a women’s college offered me the freedom to take risks, make mistakes, and even fail without making me question my fundamental worth. It also gave me opportunities to lead that I wouldn’t have had at a coed college at that time. But once I left Wellesley, things changed.
When my friend and I went to take the law school admissions test in 1968, we were among the only women in the room. We were waiting for the test to start when a group of young men started harassing us. “You don’t need to be here.” “Why don’t you go home and get married?” One said, “If you take my spot at law school, I’ll get drafted, and I’ll go to Vietnam, and I’ll die.” It was intense and personal. I just kept my eyes down, hoping the proctor would come to start the test, trying hard not to let them rattle me.
There was a professor at Harvard Law School who looked at me—a bright and eager college senior, recently offered admission—and said, “We don’t need any more women at Harvard.” That’s part of why I went to Yale.
When I started out as an attorney, I would take cases in small rural courthouses in Arkansas, and people would come to watch the “lady lawyer”—it was such a novelty. You could hear them commenting from the gallery on what I was wearing and how my hair looked. One time in the early 1980s, I was trying a case in Batesville, Arkansas, and in the middle of the trial, in walked six men in full camouflage. They came in and sat right behind the lawyers and just stared hard at me. As any woman who’s experienced that kind of staring knows, it was truly unnerving. Afterward the bailiff explained that it was deer season and these hunters had come into town from their camp for supplies. When they heard that a woman was trying a case in court, they had to see it for themselves.
I thought of that a few years later, when a woman doctor came to Arkansas from California to be an expert witness in a trial for my firm. She had short, spiky hair. My boss, the lead attorney on the case, told her to go buy a wig. Otherwise, he said, the jurors wouldn’t be able to hear what she had to say. They’d be too focused on how she didn’t look like a “normal” woman. I remember how taken aback she was at this request. I would have been too, not so long before, but by then I wasn’t. That saddened me. I’d become used to a narrower set of expectations.
Once Bill entered politics, the spotlight on me was glaring and often unkind. I’ve written about this before but it’s worth saying again: one of the reasons he lost the Governor’s race in 1980 was because I still went by my maiden name. Let that sink in for a moment and please imagine how it felt. I was naïve. I didn’t think anyone would care. Maybe people would even respect what it said about our marriage: that I wanted to preserve my pre-Bill identity, that I was proud of my parents and wanted to honor them, that Bill supported my choices. When he lost, and I heard over and over that my name—my name!—had played a part, I was heartsick that I might have inadvertently hurt my husband and let down his team. And I questioned whether there was room in public life for women like me, who might appear slightly unconventional but still had so much to offer.
So I added “Clinton” to Hillary Rodham. I asked my friends for hair, makeup, and clothing advice. That’s never come easily to me, and until then, I didn’t care. But if wearing contact lenses or changing my wardrobe would make people feel more comfortable around me, I’d try it.