Clinton isn’t a champion of women’s rights. She’s the embodiment of corporate feminism...

[Playinghardball]

Hillary Clinton’s Empowerment

>snip<

Such depictions have little basis in Clinton’s past performance. While she has indeed spoken about gender and sexual rights with considerable frequency, and while she may not share the overtly misogynistic and anti-LGBT views of most Republican politicians, as a policymaker she has consistently favored policies devastating to women and LGBT persons.

Why, then, does she continue to enjoy such support from self-identified feminists? Part of the answer surely lies in the barrage of sexist attacks that have targeted her and the understandable desire of many feminists to see a woman in the Oval Office.

But that’s not the whole story. We suggest that feminist enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton is reflective of a profound crisis of US liberal feminism, which has long embraced or accepted capitalism, racism, empire, and even heterosexism and transphobia.

Making Profit and War

All issues of wealth, power, and violence are also women’s and LGBT rights issues. For instance, neoliberal economic policies of austerity and privatization disproportionately hurt women and LGBT individuals, who are often the lowest paid and the first workers to be fired, the most likely to bear the burdens of family maintenance, and the most affected by the involuntary migration, domestic violence, homelessness, and mental illness that are intensified by poverty.

Clinton’s record on such issues is hardly encouraging. Her decades of service on corporate boards and in major policy roles as first lady, senator, and secretary of state give a clear indication of where she stands.

One of Clinton’s first high-profile public positions was at Walmart, where she served on the board from 1986 to 1992. She “remained silent” in board meetings as her company “waged a major campaign against labor unions seeking to represent store workers,” as an ABC review of video recordings later noted.

Clinton recounts in her 2003 book Living History that Walmart CEO Sam Walton “taught me a great deal about corporate integrity and success.” Though she later began trying to shed her public identification with the company in order to attract labor support for her Senate and presidential candidacies, Walmart executives have continued to look favorably on her, with Alice Walton donating the maximum amount to the “Ready for Hillary” Super PAC in 2013. Walton’s $25,000 donation was considerably higher than the average annual salary for Walmart’s hourly employees, two-thirds of whom are women.


More here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/hillary-clinton-womens-rights-feminism/

[guillaumeb]

1. Excellent piece. Recommended.

This also:

Arguably the two most defining features of Clinton’s tenures as senator (2001–2009) and secretary of state (2009–2013) were her promotion of US corporate profit-making and her aggressive assertion of the US government’s right to intervene in foreign countries.

There is currently a post on Du talking about HRC being the presumed next President and how good this will be. The question is: Good for whom exactly?

[tecelote]

2. Making Profit and War

The first women President should not compete with men on being a hawk. She should bring compassion and peace to the office.

'Very disappointed in Hillary's callous views on war and it's Collateral Damage (as you know - but never hear about - innocent children, women and men killed as a consequence of our actions).

How can she not care about their lives? Profit is not that important if you have integrity and morals. She obviously does not.

[hopemountain]

10. excellent synopsis of hillary's misinterpretation

of feminine leadership. she completely missed that she can lead as a woman without being a callous hawk.

this is where women can be more discerning about the type of woman leader/representative they are willing to support - and not simply work for her election because she is a woman.

[Fawke Em]

15. It takes more strength to oppose the status quo.

And, right now, that status quo is war and corporate profits over the betterment of average people.

If she wants to be viewed as "tough," she should buck the system, not swim in it.

[Doctor_J]

3. she is a corporate conservative dc lifer

She is devoid of morals and will say anything to get votes, then do anything the owning class asks of her. It will be a shame if the first female president is one so completely out of touch with "the little people", including working women.

[bvar22]

4. ...not to mention the MILLION or so Women and Children she either had killed,

or returned to fundamentalist Sharia Law in Iraq and Libya.
Disasters for women....who managed to avoid the killing.


Iraq and Libya were the two most advanced countries in the Middle East.
Women could wear blue jeans, have their own money, shop and spend money without a male escort, attend school, own property, vote, and get jobs in technical professions.

Well, Thanks, Hillary. because that is ALL gone in Libya which has returned to Sharia Law, and mostly gone in Iraq.
Some "Champion of Women" when one measures the women she has helped against the ones she has had killed.

[MisterP]

5. and of course Honduras!

[bvar22]

6. ...AND Honduras.

I would not be able to sleep at night with so much blood on my hands.

[McKim]

7. Womens Rights

Yes, she would probably be good for women's rights in the US but we should ask the women in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria if she has improved their lives, many are already dead and their homes wrecked, widows, raising their children under very different circumstances than Chelsey's. We have a special responsibility to the rest of the world when we vote. I weighed the possible numbers of deaths here and there. And my "greatest good for the greatest number" says no vote for Hillary.

[Paka]

8. K&R

[Enthusiast]

9. Kicked and recommended!

[Scuba]

11. I'd love to see this posted in the primaries group so her supporters could try to defend it.

[raouldukelives]

12. K&R nt

[Baitball Blogger]

13. Not that I'm saying she is a good ole gal, but...

Once you meet a true good ole gal you learn quickly to question the feminist movement as a panacea. That's why we need to break it down and be selective in the women we support and the programs that will truly benefit women.

[PyaarRevolution]

16. In the old days of the Feminist movement.

There was a bit of a divide between some Lesbians and Heterosexual women, putting the progress of both aside for the latter with the excuse it was for all. What I mean is that it was progress for the women who were willing to only put men out on display for spouses or desired men. Such a shame. It was clearly not a panacea for Lesbians.
So I totally agree with you Baitball and add as a general rule we need to be loud and define expressly what Feminism means instead of allowing it to be code by Conservatives to the general population as "Bitch", "Misandrist", "Man-hating Lesbian", etc.
I remember hearing a celebrity expressing her views and someone called her a feminist and she said something to the effect of, "I don't hate men". One of the great things we should respond with when questioned about what a feminist is, "Equal rights for all, regardess of sex" and "Equal pay for equal work".
For women candidates who I support under the Feminist label, I would say Cynthia McKinney and Elizabeth Warren but we need the latter in Congress. She has been a breath of fresh air after Ted Kennedy died with none of the baggage.
I truly hope when Bernie wins the nomination Cynthia McKinney will be his VP.

[Baitball Blogger]

17. Great post.

And welcome to DU.

[farleftlib]

14. women's rights are human rights

She sat on the board of Walmart which openly discriminates against women.

Her hawkish policies have also hurt women and children. No true feminist would champion a candidate who holds these positions.