What Is It About Hillary?

When I see stuff like this, and read articles like this and this, I don't know whether to laugh or cry over the way women are objectified in our culture.

Never mind that the joke of having a Hillary nutcracker depends on the fact that “strong woman = ballbuster” never needs to be spoken out loud –- it’s a given, like “strong man = role model” and “weak man = pussy.” What strikes me as interesting is that the joke is based on two separate premises: the generic premise based on a sexual stereotype and the specific premise that Hillary Clinton is one nutcracking bee-yatch.

The generic premise says that any woman who attempts to compete as an equal on a male playing field must be competing primarily to stick it to men. As a penalty, the criticism she gets is half-nitpicky, half-gotcha, and the bar for her achievements is always set a little higher than it is for her male co-players, which means that in order to be equal to those men, she has to be superior to them. If she fails at this, her entire sex fails; if she succeeds at this, it only proves that her entire sex will do anything to stick it to men. And if she makes the slightest mistake, especially the kind of mistake that’s excused in one of her male co-players? She gets the book thrown at her. (Hi, Martha Stewart!)

The specific premise says that Hillary Clinton wears the pants in the Clinton marriage -- which means it’s only a matter of time before somebody starts marketing a doll of Bill Clinton in a dress. (You’d think, right? But interestingly enough, the logical corollary to ballbuster Hill –- “Bill has no balls” –- doesn’t seem to have the same currency in the Penile Hive Mind. Unless I’m missing something. My God -- could it be that the Penile Hive Mind is only equipped to dish it out and not take it?)

So we’ve got a joke based on a generic sexual stereotype (woman = nutcracker, and vice versa), as well as a specific swipe against an individual woman who embodies the unspoken male fear of the powerful (and therefore castrating) woman. And I wish I knew what it was about Hillary’s embodiment of this cliché that pushes the Rant Button in people. There’s definitely something about her personally which drives some folks gleefully bazoo. They so totally delight in trashing this woman. I mean me, I think Barbara Bush has it all over Hillary as a vengeful, grudge-keeping termagant (oops -- another stereotype), but you don’t see Barbara Bush nutcrackers on E-Bay. And not just because you never saw her in pants. (Although if you ask me, that has a lot to do with it. Barbara Bush could be an axe murderer, but as long as she wears a granny dress, the PHM gives her a pass as a man-hater.)

So chalk up the Hillary Nutcracker as another in a long line of misogynist jokes, and remember -- that sound you hear in the background is a lot of people with two X chromosomes grinding their teeth like Marge Simpson. Will Homer ever change? Nope. Will stereotypes ever change? Sure. (Two words: Stepin Fetchit.) But the double-standard operates here as well. If a woman doesn't agitate for change? Change never happens. If a woman does agitate for change? She's out to stick it to men, which means she becomes the problem, and change never happens. It's a Red Queen's Race and it always has been: women have to run as fast as they can just to stay in the same place, and if they let up for even a second, they're back where they started. (Insert picture of Bugs Bunny holding up a sign that reads DEPRESSING, AIN'T IT?)

As for me, I have my doubts about Hillary as a politician, but they have nothing to do with her sex, any more than my doubts about Obama have to do with his race. And I suggest that if another company came out with an equivalent Obama toy -- say, the Obama Lawn Jockey? -- there would be such a chorus of pundits using the words "vile" and "disgusting" that those two words would quickly become meaningless.

Just as meaningless –- if you stop to think about it-- as a criticism based on a sexual stereotype. If I can quote myself, from an unfinished project about women in the workplace:

WOMAN #1: He called me a bitch in front of the entire meeting!
WOMAN #2: Good for you.
WOMAN #1: Good for me?
WOMAN #2: Calling a woman a bitch is what a man does when he can’t think of anything else to criticize you for.

Dinner With Competitive Friends

“This is what he does 24/7: He is a competitive eater; that’s his occupation.”
-- 2007 hot dog eating champion Joey Chestnut on the 2006 champion, Takeru Kobayashi

To the surprise of no one, the winner of the 2007 Oom Galla Galla Competition was once again a Presidential candidate. Named after a famous joke about Native Americans, the North Dakota contest has become a quadrennial rite in the political life of aspirants to the White House, and this year was no exception, drawing over two dozen declared and undeclared candidates, most of whom were left in the rhetorical dust when Senator Hillary Clinton clocked in at over twenty meaningless buzz words per sentence. This torrid pace far outstripped her closest competitor, ex-Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani, who basically said nothing but “9/11” for ninety minutes straight. Senator Clinton’s victory also came as no surprise to her husband William. “This is what she does 24/7,” he said. “She’s a competitive bloviator; that’s her occupation.”

Plans for CourtTV’s new reality show, “So You Want To Be A Serial Killer,” were put on hold today after series star and renowned mass murderer John Jacob Loomis was arrested by Miami police at the scene of his latest atrocity and charged with 147 counts of murder. Loomis, who has won the Gacey Invitation for five years straight, was held without bail under a new Florida law which disallows the so-called Fox Exemption for spree-killers who commit murder on-camera. While Loomis himself refused to comment on the arrest, his press agent released a statement claiming that the arrest is “a slippery slope, at the end of which competitive hit-and-run drivers may be arrested for running over little old ladies, competitive slumlords may be held without bail for freezing their tenants to death by shutting off the heat in winter, and competitive White House aides convicted of lying and obstruction of justice might actually have their prison time reduced or even eliminated by a Presidential pardon.”

In an upset victory, Austrian Dieter Roland won this year’s Einstein Memorial 50K by setting a world’s record time of 45 seconds for creating 50 units of kinetic energy (K) while contemplating the test question, “How many Frenchmen can’t be wrong?” Herr Rohan’s wife Else, who feeds him intravenously, cuts his hair, and spends her spare time trying to get a reaction out of him, was not surprised by her husband’s victory. “This is what he does 24/7,” she explained. “He’s a competitive thinker.” When reminded that trying to get a reaction out of your husband makes you not much different from most wives, Frau Rohan laughed and replied, “Well, most husbands don’t get paid for being distant and unreachable, do they, dear? Dear? Dieter? I’m talking to you, Dieter. Dieter, will you at least for once acknowledge that I’m talking to you? Dieter? Oh no. Oh no. Don’t you dare give me that ‘I’m competing’ look or I’ll tell everybody in the world all the thoughtless things you do when you ‘think’ I’m not looking. Do you hear me, Dieter?”

Facing fierce competition from the Fox Network, the entire Bush Administration, and the autobiographical writings of Henry Kissinger, Republican spokesmodel Ann Coulter won this year’s Richard Nixon Invitational last night by lying continuously for twelve straight hours without a break until she finally admitted: "I'm a competitive liar; this is what I do 24/7." Beginning her acceptance speech with the words “I am so much smarter than anyone in this room, and stop groping me, O'Reilly,” Ms. Coulter continued to lie repeatedly until she was gagged with a hot dog by second-place finisher Richard Cheney, who competed as Vice President, as the President of the Senate, and as a private citizen who can’t break a ten without swearing that you just gave him a five. Because Ms. Coulter’s jaws continued to move even after the initial frankfurter was shoved down her stupid throat, it took 74 more hot dogs in the space of ten minutes to finally shut her up, which was a first and a world record at the same time.