Regency has a powerful post over at Alegre’s Corner. Click through and read the whole thing. A snippet:
For that woman, being good was exactly about knowing her stuff. It was about her knowing her issues and the issues of the common American so well she could debate them in the throes of death. Being good meant she had to have a thick resume and fine record of service. She had that. Her record was comparable to any of those around her and she knew that. She also knew she wasn’t nearly so inspirational as the others were capable of being; so she played the wonk instead. She couldn’t quite beat a man at his charismatic game, so she beat him on competence. Instead of checking her brain at the door, she brought it to the table. Funnily enough, somewhere along the way she learned how to be inspirational, too. That’s not something “good women” do.
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More and more, as the party moves incontrovertibly towards a fictitious realization of unity, Senator Clinton has become the face of all those ‘gracious women,’ women smart enough by a dozen measures to do the jobs of the men they bolster-and better. Senator Obama, the man for whom she was passed over, grows more uninspiring and lackluster by the day. He isn’t half the man he was expected to be-not a quarter of the ‘good man’ promised most certainly. Yet, Hillary Clinton, the junior Senator from New York, smiles and stands enthusiastically by, cheering him, playing the “good woman” to a tee.
All it took for her to be the “good woman” was for her to sit down and shut up like they’d always wanted. Accept that no matter infinitely qualified she was that she would never ever be better than any man, even one with only the basest qualifications. All it took was for her to clap at his victory like a trained seal, to allow him to hover over her shoulder as though she needed a ventriloquist to help her speak; to not flinch quite so obviously when the man who was rewarded the position she had earned touched her like he had every right and she had no right to refuse. The “good woman” had to pretend these things didn’t bother her to get through this latest injustice. She couldn’t accomplish anything by crying, no matter how much she’d earned the breakdown. She couldn’t win that way, the politician in her knew. “Good” men had assured that if they had their way, she couldn’t win at all, regardless of how she fought.
So, I find that this “good woman” has earned nothing for her fair play and I wonder why I should hope to be similarly rewarded for playing a comparable role. I like to be allowed the victories that I’ve earned. I like to see my accomplishments noted in historic record when they’re worth that much. If I’ve achieved greatness, I want my greatness; not to be told that I’ve earned it squarely but that it’s being awarded to a lesser being because I was good, just not that good. If being the “good woman,” the better woman, means always holding the inadequate man’s coat, I don’t need the title. I won’t carry his coat or his water; I won’t do his work and I won’t let him take the credit for mine.
