Great New Yorker article from 1996 by Henry Louis Gates
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1996/02/26/hating-hillary
Hllary Clinton’s supporters have their own theories about the slings and arrows, many of which have to do with her role as a prominent working woman, and hence a symbol of feminism at a time when feminism is under siege. Gloria Steinem offers the canonical feminist explanation: “She and the President are presenting, at a very high, visible level, a new paradigm of a male-female relationship. And that is very much resented.” Mandy Grunwald—a consultant who worked closely with the Clintons in 1992, as media director of the campaign—notes that women in politics often make other women uncomfortable: “They feel threatened—they’re looking at a woman who is close to their age and has made totally different choices.” Hillary, she says, “forces them to ask questions about themselves and the choices they’ve made that they don’t necessarily want to ask.”
Hillary herself identifies a cultural component of her difficulties. “I don’t want to get grandiose,” she says, “but I believe that we’re going through a significant transition—economically, politically, culturally, socially, in gender relations, all kinds of ways—and so someone as visible as I am is going to get a lot of attention. I think if the spotlight were turned on many of my friends in their own private lives somebody could make out of it what they would: ‘My goodness, she didn’t take her husband’s name,’ or ‘She’s the one who travels while her husband stays home and takes care of the children,’ or ‘She has a very traditional role—does that mean that she’s sold out her education?’ There could be questions like that raised about nearly every American woman I know. It’s just that I’m the one in the public eye right now, and so a lot of the issues that are being talked about around kitchen tables or office water coolers or in college classrooms get focussed on me.”
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