Social media is awash in references to Clinton as a bitch, among less-flattering terms. “Trump that Bitch!” T-shirts are this season’s must-have couture at Trump rallies. And how about the tween boy yelling, “Take the bitch down!” at a recent Trump event in Virginia? Pure class.
It would be nice to think that this is all merely a heat-of-the-campaign thing—that if Hillary wins in November, the baser attacks will fade, and she will be treated with a smidge more respect. Fat chance. (Just ask Obama how that panned out for him.) “It will probably become even more overt the more power she attains because the more threatening she is,” predicted Farida Jalaizai, a political scientist at Oklahoma State University who focuses on gender. “People will have no problem vilifying her and saying the most misogynistic things imaginable.”
Just as Obama’s presidency helped bring unresolved issues about race into the mainstream political discussion, a Hillary presidency would likely do the same for issues like equal pay and child care. And while such discussions clearly need to be had, they pretty quickly can get heated. “Clinton will be walking a fine line,” said Leonie Huddy, a professor of political science at Stony Brook University. She will be a historic figure who brings a different perspective to the job. “But she is also going to be evaluated through the lens of, Is she just there for women? Maybe she will do something bad to men. There is a latent fear among men that their position in American society will decline further. So while there are a lot of guys on board for equalizing gender power, there are also quite a few who aren’t.”
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