Strong Women Never Saw Much in Bill Clinton
by


This first appeared in the
North Hills News Record

Bill Clinton is no Prince Charming. It's sickening to find out how many Cinderellas believed he was and even more pathetic to learn how many still believe it.

In the classic children's fairytale, Cinderella portrayed a helpless creature who lived with wretched filth and tedious labor. She whiled away her days working in the cinders until Prince Charming waltzed into her life and whisked her off to live happily ever after.

That's what many women believed Bill Clinton would do.

When Mr. Clinton was campaigning for president in 1992, his female fans sighed dreamily at the media darling. Here was a so-called "good-looking" candidate who truly cared.

Mr. Clinton smiled a lot, cried at times, and talked about soft issues like education, the environment, and health care. No matter what the camera angle, he never failed to conjure up a good case of the warm fuzzies in his starry-eyed supporters.

Finally, here was a sensitive, caring man who would use the strong arm of government to make the world a better place. Bill Clinton was their Prince Charming.

According to the spin, Mr. Clinton helped open up the political arena for women. So many angry women, like Illinois Senator Carol Mosely-Braun (Democrat from Illinois) and Senators Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein (Democrats from California), were elected into office on the fuzzy spillover that the 1992 election year was dubbed "The Year of the Woman."

As president, Mr. Clinton supposedly has championed women by placing them in high-ranking offices. Donna Shalala was appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services, Ruth Bader-Ginsburg as Supreme Court Justice, Janet Reno as Attorney General and Joycelyn Elders as Surgeon General. He even pushed the idea of a co-presidency by allowing his unelected wife to tinker with the health care industry.

The Cinderellas swooned. Thanks to Bill Clinton, they thought life might truly end happily ever after.

These women are an embarrassment to the millions of women who haven't sulked and pouted while waiting for someone else to make things better. Women in this bigger category encounter the same difficulties, but they take it upon themselves to do something about it.

When these women faced discrimination in the workplace, they spoke up. When they experienced rigid work hours, they made themselves so valuable to the workforce that companies adopted flexible policies in order to keep them from leaving.

When they were told that women couldn't succeed in certain professions, they forged ahead anyway. When they hit the glass ceiling, they started their own companies. When these women saw a need in the community, they rolled up their sleeves and worked to meet it.

These are the women who were never impressed by Bill Clinton. And unlike the Cinderellas, they never confused talking about things with getting things done.

Quite a few women don't agree with the sentiment that the president should get back to his job of "leading the people" because they don't want to be led by anyone--least of all a man like Bill Clinton.

Only the Cinderellas are pitifully clinging to Prince Charming, Bill Clinton. The rest know that changing the world depends far more on us than any elected official.

These are the women who don't stand behind Bill Clinton because they don't believe women need to be rescued, they don't believe in fairytales, and they never once believed Bill Clinton was Prince Charming.

© Copyright Deborah A. Ayers 1998. All rights reserved.