Hillary Clinton squandered last night the opportunity of a lifetime.
She could have taken that moment to praise her supporters, praised Barack Obama as the rightful nominee of the Democratic Party and put herself as the bridge builder who would bring party unity to the convention floor in Denver and Obama as the new President of the United States in November.
Hillary Clinton had the opportunity to become a hero on her last 5 minutes as candidate for the nomination. She had the opportunity to become a larger than life figure, and example of resilience, smart, wit and grace under pressure.
Instead she chose to be the The Bitch.
Bitches have some or all of the following characteristics.
1) Personality. Bitches are aggressive, assertive, domineering, overbearing, strong-minded, spiteful, hostile, direct, blunt, candid, obnoxious, thick-skinned, hard-headed, vicious, dogmatic, competent, competitive, pushey, loud-mouthed, independent, stubborn, demanding, manipulative, egoistic, driven, achieving, overwhelming, threatning, scarey, ambitious, tough, brassy, masculine, boisterous, and turbulent. Among other things . A Bitch occupies a lot of psychological space. You always know she is around. A Bitch takes shit from no one. You may not like her, but you cannot ignore her.
2) Physical. Bitches are big, tall, strong, large, loud, brash, harsh, awkward, clumsy, sprawling, strident, ugly. Bitches move their bodies freely rather than restrain, refine and confine their motions in the proper feminine manner. They clomp up stairs, stride when they walk and don’t worry about where they put their legs when they sit. They have loud voices and often use them. Bitches are not pretty.
3) Orientation. Bitches seek their identity strictly thru themselves and what they do. They are subjects, not objects. They may have a relationship with a person or organization, but they never marry anyone or anything; man, mansion, or movement. Thus Bitches prefer to plan their own lives rather than live from day to day, action to action, or person to person. They are independent cusses and believe they are capable of doing anything they damn well want to. If something gets in their way; well, that’s why they become Bitches. If they are professionally inclined, they will seek careers and have no fear of competing with anyone. If not professionally inclined, they still seek self-expression and self-actualization. Whatever they do, they want an active role and are frequently perceived as domineering. Often they do dominate other people when roles are not available to them which more creatively sublimate their energies and utilize their capabilities. More often they are accused of domineering when doing what would be considered natural by a man.
Whether feminists like it or not, anybody who “occupies a lot of psychological space” is just absolutely not fit to be president of anything. Especially president of a country like the United States, which has been mired in the Oedipal psychodrama of the neo-cons who gave both Bushes and the first Clinton presidency.
The Bitch uses the power of psychological violence to make every single event be about her, of who she is and how she feels about everything and everybody, especially those who refuse to subjugate themselves to her needs.
To The Bitch anger and resentment are what feed her soul. The Bitch is not Beautiful. The Bitch is angry, vindictive, petty and in a perpetual state of scorn.
The Bitch is a woman slighted, a woman who was once The Victim but now with sheer psychological violence she’s risen to the top.
The Bitch will never be The Victim again. And it’s this fear that ironically keeps her in the perpetual road to recovery from her victimhood. The Bitch is The Victim on perpetual payback mode.
The Bitch’s greatest achievement, indeed is The Payback.
Everybody who has ever tried to not grant her all she wishes is an enemy of her state of perpetual bitchitude. The Bitch is indeed an equal opportunity offender. She is not just Better Than Man because she is a woman. She is better than man because she is The Bitch. She is better than all women because she has the maleness, the anger and the power of violence that other women don’t have.
The Bitch is above being woman because to her, Woman is synonymous to Weak. And it’s that thought of being Weak that she happily uses to fuel the Anger and Violence that are at the core of her being.
Hillary Clinton chose to be The Bitch last night with her boastful non-victory speech; by waving into the world’s face the imaginary 18 million voters who will remain silent without her command.
It was indeed an act of violence intended to formally claim her entitlement to occupy as much psychological space as she could muster in her psychological war against The Party of Change.
Hillary Clinton did a huge disservice to women last night by not accepting to go heroically into the night and by basically proving to misogynists all around the world that there are only two choices for a woman : to be The Bitch or to be the The Victim.
Hillary Clinton had the opportunity of a lifetime to show the world that women do have a third and a fourth and a million different options that have nothing to do with either violence or weakness.
Hillary Clinton didn’t rise to the occasion and for that matter all women last night lost the opportunity of a lifetime.
This was originally posted as Why women lost last night to Hillary Clinton at culturekitchen, Liza’s culture and politics blog.
