Liberal: You don’t like Hillary Clinton because she’s a woman

Maybe the reason Hillary Clinton is so unpopular isn’t due to her scandal-ridden past, but an unfortunate result of society’s inherent bias towards women in general.

That’s what Boing Boing writer Caroline Siede speculated in a recent article in which she attempted to get to the bottom of Clinton’s likability problem. Siede makes a convincing argument that art has failed us by training us to “empathize with white men” who, though flawed, “have an innate core of humanity.” On the flip side, such “stories about everyone else” are less prevalent.

She draws a line between the way we perceive Hillary Clinton versus her male counterparts, such as Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, and Tim Kaine, stating that while Clinton’s flaws are what make her unlikeable, the flaws of these men are what make them likable.

“Gallons of digital ink have been spilled trying to figure out why Clinton struggles so much with likability,” Siede says, “But perhaps the problem isn’t with her at all. Maybe it’s with us.”

Sanders is a “fiery activist,” Biden a “truth teller,” and Kaine an “earnest goof.” We forgive these men for their imperfections, but struggle to do the same for Clinton — even though according to Siede, she’s the “most qualified human being to ever run for president” — because we don’t have “cultural touchstones for flawed but sympathetic women.” In other words, art has failed us by not providing us with enough female protagonists who are “allowed to be flawed.” And, as a result, we have become accidentally sexist.