The Last Female Candidate...?

A few weeks back, we Situationers debated the characteristics of the first female president, a discussion first began by The New York Times. One of the implications of this article is that there would not be another female candidate in our generation. Think that no more....

Over at Slate, Dahlia Lithwick examines the issue and is not impressed with the arguments that suggest Senator Clinton is the last, great hope and, as Marie Cocco argued in The Washington Post, if she cannot do it, no one can. Lithwick's response:

No more women candidates in our lifetimes? Not for a whole generation? Can we at least make Sex and the City a box-office success? Do we dare to eat a peach?

Lithick is more optimistic in the success of Clinton's campaign than others have been. Rather than look at Clinton's failure as a prima facie case that no woman can win, which implicitly lionizes the junior Senator from New York, Lithwick would rather examine the success of the Clinton campaign to show that it is possible for a woman to win in the future.

By advancing the argument that no woman will ever win the presidency without the advantages of a Hillary Clinton because only those advantages account for her success, we do more to disrespect her enormous talents than all of the oily misogynists on Fox News. All across the country, in the most unlikely ways and places, Hillary Clinton kicked ass as a woman. Why take that away from her now?

For Lithwick, a stronger candidate may have won the primary and, if you read the article, she implicitly argues that there are and will be stronger candidates in terms of experience, which was never clear with HRC, and campaigning, which was not her strong suit until March. After discussing a few potential candidates, Lithwick asks:

Why diminish all these women with claims that whatever qualities of Clinton's they lack are precisely those qualities needed to become president someday? What possible evidence do we have for that?

The final refutation for Lithwick concerns the treatment of women as candidates, especially in terms of sexism. Again, the conventional wisdom is that if Senator Clinton could not win (and notice the synecdoche), why would any other female candidate put herself through this?:

A suggestion: Women will put themselves through this because most of us will have been more inspired by the Clinton run than scared off by it. They'll put themselves through it because—for the first time in history—they'll know what it looks like when a woman almost scores the presidency, and it looks amazing. And some of them will also put themselves through it because having been well and truly sickened by the "iron my shirts" moments, they'll do what women did in 1992 after watching Anita Hill endure outrageous nuts-and-sluts treatment at the hands of an all-male Senate judiciary committee. They'll swarm government.

If Hillary Clinton has taught the women of America anything this year, it's never to say never. Which is why it would be lamentable if the only lesson we take from her candidacy were that nothing like it will ever happen again.

Lithwick's argument is optimistic and, while respecting the success of Senator Clinton, the argument refuses to enshrine Senator Clinton and make her the symbolic representative of all women. It is an argument based on empowerment and not victimage. If only HRC learned this lesson...