No doubt about it, in withdrawing from the presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton hit it out of the park last Saturday. With grace, with passion, with dignity, she ended her campaign and enthusiastically made the case for Barack Obama.
She also made another point, which can’t be denied. As her campaign demonstrates, the glass ceiling for women may now be badly cracked, but it still exists.
That’s not why she lost. She lost because Barack Obama was a stronger candidate and ran a better campaign than she did. But, along the way, we discovered that sexism still exists, especially among the media.
It’s no longer OK to tell jokes about blacks, but it’s still OK to tell stereotypical jokes about women. You could never tell a black candidate to “Shine my shoes” and get away with it, but you can tell a woman to “Iron my shirt” and be considered clever by reporters. And Chris Matthews, of course, was not reprimanded at all by asserting that a great female senator and candidate for president achieved nothing on her own, but is where she is today only because her husband cheated on her.
Win or lose, Hillary Clinton deserved better treatment. Maybe, someday, we’ll be as sensitive to sexist comments as we’ve become to racist comments.
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