Pen-Elayne on the Web

A Bitchy Bitchy Blonde Hairdo

I look around at all the Hillary-bashing and Martha-bashing and a lot of questions come to mind. The first is, of course, who's doing the bashing and why? The second is, who isn't doing the bashing and why not? And the last is, have or haven't we been down this "bash the bitchy blonde" road before - and how did it differ from what we're seeing now?

Okay, Hillary Clinton first. Now, I'm not saying you can't do a legitimate critique of the faults in her new book. I'm just seeing way too many (unsurprisingly, usually right-wing) pundits not really talking about the book at all but about why she wrote it or what it really means or simply spouting off their personal feelings against her. (I'm not the only one seeing this.) Or doing comedy bits that aren't funny as much as they're just plain mean and spiteful. And she's the bitch?

Now, things are and should be slightly different with Martha Stewart. She's not out selling a book, and I'm pretty sure she's not supporting the recent TV movie biopic; she's actually been indicted for a crime. So people are bitching not only about her personality and management style but about her illegal activities. So I consider her much fairer game than the junior Senator from NY.

Sure, Stewart's indictment is a political story to an extent, inasmuch as white male friends-of-Bush CEOs have been getting away with a lot worse. But I don't think the big deal is that Stewart and Clinton are female and equivalent guys aren't picked on, as some feminists might have it. I tend to be sensitive towards double standards, and I don't think this is one. Senator Clinton's husband (the "randy boy" to her "frigid female") is still on the hate-radar of too many conservatives looking for weapons of mass distraction. And asshole male CEOs who regularly parade before the public eye are subject to just as much scrutiny and ridicule as Martha, whether it be Ted Turner or Donald Trump or George Steinbrenner. I think it's mostly the schadenfreude factor. Martha Stewart and Senator Clinton are not only powerful women in the public eye, but they're celebrities - yes, in part because they hold positions usually reserved for men, but nonetheless not qualitatively different from any other celebs. Everything runs together in our infotainment-rich society, there's no line of dignity or irreproachability that seemed to exist in the past. Nowadays a celeb is a celeb is a celeb, whether they're best known originally for being public figures in politics or business or movies or reality shows. And we build them up in order to tear them down. Nothing new there, so nothing really to see, folks, move along.

Except you may just wish to observe, as I said above, who in power is doing the bashing and what their reasons for said bashing might be.

[Full disclosure: I have no use for Stewart personally, but I've more or less admired Senator Clinton for about a decade and will probably buy her book when it comes out in paperback.]