In yesterday’s International Herald Tribune, Ruth reads an editorial by Susan Faludi titled “Hillary Clinton and  white men: The fight stuff.”  She points it out to me, says it’s interesting. The heart of Faludi’s argument can be found in the following paragraphs.

Maybe the white male electorate just can’t abide strong women whom they suspect of being of a certain sort. To adopt a particularly lamentable white male construct, the sports metaphor, political strength comes in two varieties: the power of the umpire who controls the game by application of the rules but who never gets hit; and the power of the participant, who has no rules except to hit hard, not complain, bounce back and endeavor to prevail in the end.

For virtually all of American political history, the strong female contestant has been cast not as the player but the rules keeper, the purse-lipped killjoy who passes strait-laced judgment on feral boy fun. 

It is easy to challenge the metaphor. What game do you know of where participants have no rules except to hit hard, not complain, bounce back and endeavor to prevail in the end? Bare knuckle boxing, maybe. But baseball? Basketball? Football? Even down and dirty rugby has rules by which players are supposed to abide. 

Still, there is something here. The line Faludi draws mirrors the boundary that George Lakoff sees in the conservative family model between family, where rules are enforced, and the war zone outside where men must do battle with other men. It reminds me, too, that the old maxim, “It isn’t whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game” has given way to a kind of win or die brutality, “Winning is the only thing,” dramatized on “Survivor” and other “reality” shows. That’s the attitude that clearly motivates the Bush administration’s take on the Constitution. Lying, cheating, torture, contempt for human rights—We’re at war, baby, so anything goes. At home, too, if you do anything that puts you beyond the pale. And, don’t forget, shut up, Daddy is always right.

There is also that image, “the purse-lipped killjoy.” Is she Mom, breaking up a fight between her boys? A teacher laying down the law in a classroom? Feminists critics or therapists saying that sexist humor is “inappropriate”? 

The demise of patriarchy? I can live with that. My lady is smart, beautiful, a great cook, a great mom, and more than pulls her own weight economically. But what about all those guys out there who grew up male chauvinists, who’ve seen their privileges eroded, their jobs disappear, who are finding it harder and harder to do “what a man’s got to do”? Purse-lipped killjoys irritate me. They must find them hell.

So maybe Faludi is right. The Hillary of her campaign launch, the gracious lady in her gracious home, asserting her inevitability. She was these guys’ nightmare. The Hillary who has been down in the polls, played dirty, gotten knocked around? She’s not an umpire any more. She is Rocky Balboa, battered, bleeding, one of the guys. They can relate to that.