Hillary: Because She’s a Woman

In an article written by Mary Williams, a staff writer for Salon.com, the case is made for why Clinton’s Womanhood helped (if not fully pushed) her to power through a bout with pneumonia.

Williams believes that Trump supporters, when hearing of Clinton’s illness, think:

“Ladies, aren’t you too weak to do this stuff? Why don’t you just sit down and have a lemonade and leave the heavy lifting of running the world to the menfolk, dear?”

Other than perhaps the small group of crazies, self-dubbed the Alt-Right, I don’t know of anyone saying anything remotely close to this. With this imagined quote, Williams is inventing a straw-man which she sets her entire argument around. In light of Hillary’s illness, the author wants, instead, for everyone to give Clinton “…supportive get well wishes…” which, funny enough, is almost exactly what Trump did. Now, he might do a very Trumpian thing and say something quite outlandish soon enough, but on this, he has yet to fit Williams’ invented misogynist. The article goes on along these lines, centering around the idea that women are tough because they are women and this toughness, apparently, must be proven to others (if such were not the case why would Williams bother writing this article?).

It would be a waste of my time and yours if I were to argue against the supposed toughness of Hillary Clinton for collapsing into a van then embracing a little girl after she — Hillary — had been diagnosed with a contagious and quite serious illness (perhaps that one has more to do with intellect), or to point out the obvious spin put on this story by claiming she is “tough” not “…been lying to us about her health.”

Instead, I would like to argue against this strange Because She’s a Woman slogan that the Left seems to be pushing. Were I a true feminist, would such a claim not infuriate me? That a female’s success is dependent on her being a woman and not her individual effort and merit? To say that Hillary is tough because she is a woman would be to claim that women are different and in fact better than men in this regard (dismissing the whole “men and women are the same” argument). If men are tough and women are tough then why would one need to say, she is tough because she is a woman, as Williams so emphatically does.

The author believes that women must work even when sick because “That’s just what’s expected of women in the workforce, so that’s what gets done.” She is claiming here that women are expected to work in spite of any illness and men, on the other hand, are not. If she wasn’t claiming this, then why would she make the distinction “…expected of women” and not “of people.” Does she provide evidence or any sort of cohesive argument for this claim? Not at all. In fact, she goes on to criticize and group women into one, insecure, bunch.

Of women, Williams claims:

We fear being viewed as weak, so we hustle through the job, hiding or downplaying our diagnoses and hoping nobody notices.

Statements such as these offend my wife (who is, in fact, a woman) because they claim a broad stroke insecurity that afflicts all women. My wife in no way fears being seen as weak. I’m quite positive that I’m much more concerned about the thoughts of others than she, as seen through her constant questioning of “Why don’t you ask them?” and my continued refusal to do so on some imagined principle of self-reliance.

So, were I a true feminist, I would have to respond with a, “How dare you!” or something of the kind. But this claim that women are insecure is the reason she presents the argument in the first place. Hillary needs Mary’s help to defend herself against those mean Trump supporters. And Mary will prove that women are strong through some anecdotal evidence of female athletes and actresses who battled through certain adversities. If women are strong and can power through most anything, then why does one feel the need to write a piece titled:

Hillary powers through pneumonia — because that’s what women do

How weak an argument and how demeaning it is to women.