Steve M. makes a point about sexism and Senator Clinton:

And where are, say, Condoleezza’s Rice’s “Fatal Attraction comparisons”? Where is the “locker-room chortling on television panels” about her? Rice is a national figure, an architect of the worst foreign-policy disaster in living memory, a top aide to possibly the most hated president ever — where’s her nutcracker?

A lot of us keep saying this and it falls on deaf ears, but here I go again: Quite a bit of the nastiness that’s uttered about Hillary Clinton is uttered specifically because she’s Hillary Clinton (even if it relies on readymade sexist tropes) — or because she’s Bill Clinton’s wife. (Remember, the people who helped paint the negative portrait of Hillary in the 1990s were painting one of Bill at the same time.)

This is pretty much was I was saying here —

I think some of the vile remarks aimed at Senator Clinton are expressions of dislike about her specifically, not of women generally. The problem is that our national political discourse has become so polluted that many who express dislike of Clinton believe they are supposed to toss in some vulgar personal insults of her.

Put another way, righties (and some pundits, like Chris Matthews) fear and hate Clinton specifically and fall back on sexist language as a means of expressing their fear and hatred. Yet many of these same righties are capable of admiring other women and addressing them in respectful language. [Update: Well, OK, that last statement does not apply to Chris Matthews.]

In rightie world, conservative women are beautiful and accomplished. Liberal women are harridans and ball-busters.

As I recall, a couple of years ago some of the same righties who can’t use “Hillary” in a sentence without throwing “bitch” in as well were floating the idea of Condoleezza as a presidential candidate. I believe there are some who still think she’d be a swell veep candidate on a McCain ticket, and of course I think that would be a grand idea, too! Let’s hope it happens! Nothin’ like tying McCain to Dubya’s office wife to sink the ticket!

Of course, IMO there’s another layer of sexism under that. Condoleezza is “OK” because she is so obviously subordinates herself to her boss. Strong, opinionated women are acceptable to right-wingers as long as they are tethered to a powerful, conservative man to keep them in line. Think Lynn Cheney.

There’s no question that many have a problem with powerful women. Note that one of the most common insults tossed at Hillary Clinton is that she’s ambitious. Heaven forbid that a woman should be ambitious! If we say a man is ambitious, that’s a compliment, but ambitious women are scary.

Again, think Lynn Cheney. There are few women in Washington who are pushier and more opinionated than Mrs. Cheney — not to mention more powerful, in a behind-the-scenes way — but she’s seen as being pushy and opinionated on behalf of the cause of conservatism, so that’s OK.

(Years ago, I read a sociological paper about a tribe living in near stone-age conditions. The women of the tribe were not allowed to leave the village and enter the nearby forest; only men could enter the forest. This was not because women were weak and needed protection. It was because of what we’d call magic. The tribe believed that female power is stronger than male power, and if female power were to combine with forest power all hell could break loose. Since males have less magical power, it doesn’t matter if they enter the forest or not. Sometimes I think our psyches haven’t progressed as much as we’d like to think.)

What does this say about Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign? On the one hand, many of the people who strongly dislike Hillary Clinton do so out of a kind of sectarian sexism. To right-wingers, all liberal women are unnatural creatures who not only abort all their babies, they also desire power for its own sake and, once they get it, they cannot be controlled by the hand of man. But at the same time, all liberal men are Frenchified wusses. And I think a lot of righties confuse liberal with libertine, although somehow being a libertarian is OK.

In other words, gender role bias is subordinate to ideological bias. Righties don’t hate her because she’s a woman; they hate her because she’s perceived as a liberal woman.

I agree with Steve that it’s illogical to think that, if Clinton loses, it will be years before another woman can contend for the presidency. She came damn close. For a time she was considered unstoppable. The sexist knives didn’t come out in media until after her own campaign blunders revealed her vulnerabilities.

But the pundits are not exactly gentle with male front-runners who stumble, either. And if it’s a Democratic man who stumbles, pundits will look at the camera and intone, “Is Joe Blow losing this election because he’s a Frenchified wuss?” You can count on it.