A Wrinkle of Hope in New Hampshire

Rush Limbaugh put it best. Contemplating a photo of Sen. Hillary Clinton looking wrinkled and weary a few weeks back, he asked, "Will this country want to actually watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis?"

Iowa said no way. New Hampshire said: We're game.

That's amazing, considering the ranks of wrinkled ladies are mighty thin in public life. They're almost impossible to find on the (never a sagging) boob tube and less popular than famine documentaries at the cineplex. So seeing an older woman in the Oval Office would be more revolutionary than any of the other prospects.

After all, Will Smith is box-office gold.

Maggie Smith is not.

Oh, now, now. I know it's not just the wrinkles that made Iowans spurn Mrs. Clinton — and New Hampshire voters temper their initial enthusiasm. But as Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said about pornography: "I know it when I see it." Well, I know sexism when I see it, and ageism, and how they work together like death and taxes. And I see Clinton battling both.

Just look at the visceral reactions to her misting up at that New Hampshire cafe. (And by the way, is there anything in New Hampshire besides cafes?) Her dampness was denounced immediately as either too pathetically female (getting teary) or too connivingly female (she was just pretending to get teary) or too male (why wasn't she teary before, when Bill and Monica hooked up? She has no womanly feelings, and this just proves it.)

Her defenders appeared to be mostly middle-aged ladies who recognized the emotion as a real one: frustration.

Well, it must be extremely frustrating to keep facing the kind of sexism everyone says has evaporated. "Look at Martha Stewart!" they say. "And Katie Couric!"

Yeah. Look how America has treated them.

Moreover, says Boston University journalism professor Elizabeth Mehren, "In the final days of the Iowa and New Hampshire primary races, so-called media analysts from major news outlets actually remarked on the fact that Sen. Clinton was wearing more somber colors than she had earlier. Did anyone write about Mitt Romney's sudden penchant for crew-necked sweaters? I've covered Romney since 1994. The man was born in a blue blazer!"

Then there was that flap about whether Clinton was wearing a daringly low shirt at one point. Here the ageism and sexism converged: If she was exposing her cleavage, she's a shameless hussy. But if she thinks anyone wants to see it at her age — I refer you back to Limbaugh's comments.

The ageism/sexism nexus reared its head again with the deconstruction of Clinton's laugh, now known as "The Clinton Cackle." What other creatures cackle?

Only witches. And we're not talking cute, young, mole-free witches, either.

Meantime, of course, no one bothers to deconstruct Rudy Giuliani's laugh (assuming he has one). And Sen. John McCain's white hair only made him cooler.

"Listen — women in our culture are perceived to be older than comparably aged men," Jack Tuckner, co-founder of a law firm specializing in women's workplace rights, said. "George Bush is the same age as Clinton, but he's perceived to be central-casting perfect for power: the salt-and-pepper-haired 60- to 65-year-old male."

When women reach that same age and hair color, power rarely beckons. A study by the group Catalyst found only eight of the Fortune 500 companies were headed by women in 2005. A study by any schoolchild today finds that, over the course of 200-plus years, only zero of our presidents have been female.

True, we've never had a black president, either. And in a way, says Faye Wattleton, president of the Center for the Advancement of Women, "(Sen. Barack) Obama is giving people an excuse not to vote for Hillary."

Yes, they're voting for change. But Hillary's voters are voting to change the isms America loves to ignore: Ageism. Sexism. Anti-older-womenism.

It still might work.

The realization makes one teary.

Lenore Skenazy is a columnist at The New York Sun and Advertising Age. To find out more about Lenore Skenazy ([e-mail]) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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