Hillary Stood Up, Then Stood Down In China

Via Allah at Hot Air, Hillary, as usual, is touting her 1995 trip to China. But there are two sub-plots to that trip worth noting.

I went to Beijing in 1995 and stood up to the Chinese government on human rights and women’s rights.

First, via Laura Ingraham's, The Hillary Trap, we find a reference to an Anne Applebaum item in National Review.

In a witty, incisive report in National Review, British journalist Anne Applebaum detailed the rift that was developing between Western feminists and their sisters in the less developed world:

Most of the Third World women were interested in very basic issues: the horrors of female circumcision, legal systems which prevent women from owning property, hunger and illiteracy.... The Western agenda was somewhat different: it ranged from lesbian rights to the need for women's studies at universities to "Gender Stereotyping and Sexism in Advertising" ...

then, fast-forward to a Thrid World journalist who ultimately accused Hillary of betrayal of the very ideals she purported to stand for in China:

These facts of our lives explain why we women of the third world, immigrant and non-immigrant, were so heartened by the First Lady's candid speech at the Women's summit in Beijing in 1995. That was just the year before Clinton's re-election, but now it seems like another time, another era. For the same Hillary Clinton, who was preaching to us about women's rights for personal and professional fulfillment, is now eating humble pie in order to preserve her marriage at any cost. And we third world women are confused, bewildered, even outraged.

... Of course, we are not as fortunate as Hillary. Most of us neither have high paid careers as lawyers, nor husbands we can hold under our thumbs in some sort of a Faustian political bargain. Many of us come from a world where polygamy is still practiced -- one of my closest friends grew up in an Indian household in which her mother, the discarded first wife, suffered daily humiliation while living under the same roof as her father and the father's second wife. Chinese women of a certain generation can recall a time when middle-aged men with money and power frequently acquired young concubines.

To us, the Clinton-Hillary situation resonates with that horrific past we have struggled so much to put behind us. American feminists say that Hillary has a choice. But that is precisely the point. So many of the women around the world do not have the choice that Hillary has. That is why, to many of us third world women, Hillary Clinton's words of love and forgiveness were shocking, mystifying, and ultimately infuriating.

Comments

[Miklo]

So you've been a little curious about what Hillary's camp has on Obama?

Well, I have a feeling we're about to find out...

Now that Obama is surpassing Hillary on the trail, she's going to pull out the file. As long as she was ahead, she was prepared to hold her cards close to the chest - but now that Obama's numbers are rising - Stay tuned!

[DirtCrashr]

...Middle-aged men with money and power frequently acquired young concubines. Must Sound awfully familiar to Hillary!! She knows on which side the bagman drops her deposits...

[BobInStamford]

In other news, Scott McClellan, former shill for the Decider, has announced that his former boss is a lying sack of shit.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071120/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cia_leak_mcclellan

[Yoda]

Working surge, straw grasping resorting to, Bob is.

[Fred Beloit]

Selling book, Scott is; useful idiot, Boob is.

[seekeronos]

Useful, the Boob is, you say?

Indeed, clouded over, the Dork Side is.

[Fred Beloit]

Looks like Yoda has created a new and concise way to comment on blogs. Unfortunately, it is very easy to imitate and plagiarize. Hope Yoda has a good copyright lawyer.

[seekeronos]

Little green men, subject-verb order swapping, and making fun of the Boob, helpful to digestion, it is.

(Having said that, I wonder if the non-English dubs of Yoda where he appears in the SW franchise have English-style subject-verb order...?)