Well on a cardboard cutout of her anyways. This story is a little old, but in case you are confused, here's a
link discussing the event.
You can see that this Facebook post (in case you didn't believe me that this would be the Generation X Administration, well, I submit the fact that we are even discussing a staffer's picture on Facebook as Exhibit A) has caused quite a stir in the feminist blogosphere. I've withheld posting on the topic because, quite frankly, I'm still not sure where I fall on the outrage scale.
Without a doubt that picture makes Jon Favreau look like a tool. But, um, it's a cardboard cutout for chrissakes, not some drunken co-ed he's fondling. And I think that the Hillary camp handled the event with the grace and class that we have come to know from her (and you have to imagine at this point the woman is sick to death of hyperbole-driven sex scandals). At the same time, I totally agree with Bartow that the media is wrong in driving a "boys will be boys" narrative to explain away the picture even if I do think the feminist response is a little over-the-top here. But surprise surprise, I'm interested in the story that the feminists seem to skip over-- that is the continuing and evolving narrative of Hillary Clinton's sexuality.
Remember when Hillary Clinton showed a hint of
decolletage? That scuttlebutt was all about how she was backing away from a carefully crafted persona of asexuality to make herself more appealing to hot-blooded American voters. Before that, remember the lesbian
rumors? Those, it would seem to be, were also politically calculated stories designed to stir the lust of the far right. Very different stories, identical agendas. Use female sexuality to drive desire and hope that desire drives the voter to the polls.
What is inescapable, and what I have yet to hear from the other feminists, is that fusion of power and sexuality for political gain- anyone's political gain.
At the end of the day I guess I'm happy that this story has been relegated to the collective eye-roll it deserves, but I do wish we could springboard it into a larger conversation about women, power, and sexuality, because that to me is the real story here-- not some picture of some frat boy acting like a frat boy.
