I don’t watch Gossip Girl, but, apparently, Rebecca Traister’s terrific book about women and the 2008 election, Big Girls Don’t Cry made a cameo in Monday’s episode.
I did, however, just finish reading that great book. In it, Traister points out something that I had missed and that you probably did too. When Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire primary, she became the first woman ever to win a presidential primary contest. That’s right. In history.
You likely don’t know it because none of the news stories mentioned it, though it should have been the lead. Everyone talked about the tears that weren’t or the fact that the win reinvigorated her campaign instead. In fairness, Clinton did as much as possible to downplay her gender early on. But it is incumbent upon journalists to notice important, history-making facts.
What’s interesting about this is that it makes me wonder whether things would have been different. Obama tried to downplay race often, too, but reporters were too smart to ignore it completely. Obviously, the historic nature of his run was a factor. Maybe it’s just that we were too used to having Clinton around. Either way, it’s possible the public could have had a different response had the story been different.
