The Women of 2008

Posted by Jake G. on 01.03.2009

Did Sarah Palin and Hilary Clinton help or hurt the female cause?



This past week on Nightline they had an interesting piece on the women of 2008 and if the near brushes with the presidency by Hilary Clinton and Sarah Palin had brought women closer to being "equals" in our society. I believe the general purpose of the piece was to figure out if a woman becoming president was closer to a reality now or if we had taken steps backwards. It featured comments and opinions of women who were in the top of their fields, including some females who had made lots of money in business.

By the time the piece was done the female panel came to the conclusion that women as a whole were better off because of the Palin and Clinton runs and believed that the future was brighter than ever for the fairer sex. They used Hilary Clinton's appointment as Secretary of State as evidence and brought up that Palin would probably be seen again. Case closed?

I've decided to call that a cop out. These women didn't want to admit the truth, that 2008 didn't bring them any closer to the White House. I believe that Hilary Clinton certainly brought some hope that women could win the Presidency and had Barack Obama not had a campaign that was the stuff of legend she would have won the Democratic nomination. However, I am not sure she would have won the Presidency. Obviously you get into a lot of "what if", but we can almost guarantee Sarah Palin wouldn't have been heard of. This means that McCain very well may have had a competent Vice Presidential pick and if Hilary didn't have an Obama VP pick she could have lost a tight race for the oval office.

If anything, 2008 proved in some aspects that most still look to men to lead. Obama was able to defeat Hilary and she had the Clinton machine behind her and she should have been a slam dunk for the nomination, yet she managed to lose. Obviously Obama can be credited for his part in that and Clinton herself made some missteps that set her behind as well. Still the fact remains the same, the strongest female Presidential candidate in history lost in the semi-finals. Which brings me to my next point: Sarah Palin?

Any goodwill that Clinton may have gotten women on the national stage, Palin flushed down the toilet. She was, to put it in wrestling terms, the Jackie Gayda incident of VP picks. Caribou Barbie? Palin came across exactly as she was, a pageant queen who somehow had been elected to a national office. Sarah Palin reminded us all that the office of President should be kept away from Miss Teen South Carolina types. Every time Palin was ridiculed on TV and made a laughing stock of the entire world, women in the US were set back. Although Palin herself never said anything as foolish as "like the Iraq and such", she certainly played up the image that many women in America are good to look at, but shouldn't be making world leader style decisions.

Women in America may not have been set back by Sarah Palin, but she stunted their growth. I think 2008 was probably a wash for women. They had one strong, intelligent and cunning politician lose in defeat and come across as a bitch for it. On the other hand they had a nice, pretty politician make the office she was running for become a joke and she the punch line. Are women any better because of this year's historic presence of females on the ballots? I don't think so. Are they any worse? Probably not. The good and bad weighed about the same and before it was all said and done they came no further and fell no less.

It is true that Clinton will now have more time on the national stage, but a female Secretary of State is nothing new. Sarah Palin may be back in 2012 but she won't last long and she certainly won't become the Republican nominee. Women may have taken three steps forward in 2008, but they fell right back down. Here's hoping that the young ladies of tomorrow will have a better shot at changing the world than the ones we had this year.