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Comment by the_duke | Hacker News Reader

Nobody dares to talk about this in the media.

But I think a lot of it is just due to her being a woman. And an older one at that.

Many people are not all that progressive in the US, as the campaign has clearly shown.

(I know she was a candidate with plenty of flaws, but a lot of dirt that got thrown at her would never have been directed at a man in that manner).

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I agree her gender is an issue for some, but she got beaten by Obama before, and he had stronger handicaps than her (race and a "funny name"). I think it boils down to her lack of charisma and being seen as "the establishment".

Sadly, elections everywhere are at least as much about charisma as they are about competence.

People usually vote for who they like, not for who's probably competent. Regardless of education.

Exactly. And it's not exactly groundbreaking news, so shame on the Democrats for going for Clinton and shame on her for not giving up after being defeated by Obama in 2008.

I disagree, since most criticisms has been focused on the corruption angle which is an aspect which the left side generally accuse the right of. One of the slogans of Hillary was that she wanted to take power back from the 1%, and it only further the message of falsehood and corruption when leaked conversation with wall-street came up in media.

It should also be mentioned that in a historically dirty campaign that focused less on what people wanted and more on whom they least wanted in office, gender, hair color and other less relevant aspect suddenly becomes more important. Obamas "Change we can believe in" and "Yes We Can" is more engaging than "I'm with her". Of 32 general election TV ads, 24 of those ads show or mention Trump. That explains to me why the left failed in this case, rather then the gender of the candidate.

I've never seen right wingers talk badly about Clinton due to her gender. I've heard plenty of talk on almost every single other one of her traits, but I think the progressives in the US are a bit to quick to pull out the sexism/racism card.

So you never saw or heard of "Trump that bitch" shirts?

Edit: just Google image search "Trump that bitch" and tell me again gender has nothing to do with it.

And the language against trump isn't focusing on his features either ?

1) his hair

2) his (supposed) psychological state, e.g. [1]

3) "deplorables" - we all know what and who is meant by this and very few or none of these are responsible for their situation

4) his family name

I like how Dilbert's author put it. This is why Trump won [2], or, more humorously [3]

[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/the-mind... [2] http://blog.dilbert.com/post/152293480726/the-bully-party [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb7XaRPFPjI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVKC0egDBpk and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvpDwtYl5TA

Not sure what this has to do with my comment with regard to Hillary's gender.

I don't think the sexism/racism shouts from progressives at Trump (and his supporters) were related to conservatives' disapproval of Clinton. The folks that voted for Trump did so not because they are sexist; they did it because they just plain hated Clinton (in particular) and the establishment.

I don't think the majority of Trump voters actually believe that Clinton shouldn't be president because she's a woman. They just view her as a corrupt, establishment politician and Trump just seemed like the lesser of two evils in their eyes.

I think the media vastly underreported just how much the Right hates Clinton. The Right wing media has been pushing anti-Clinton rhetoric hard for about eight years now!

Eight years? More like 20+. I was a kid in the 90s but still remember how much people plain hated the Clintons. Things like Waco and the Assault Weapons Ban drove them absolutely nuts. Like with Hillary's emails, the Clintons' shady behavior made everything so much worse than whatever they actually did.

/E these articles say everything better than I could. They were written in the early 2000s.

http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/presidents/bill-clinton/

http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/usa/hillary-clinton/

I doubt many people cared that she was a woman as a reason to vote against her.

But the fact that she kept highlighting her gender as a reason to vote for her probably did annoy some people.

Responding to allegations of not being a real progressive with "well, wouldn't it be progressive to elect the first female president" really rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe I'm not the only one.

I don't buy the "sexist" argument for one second; look at what happened to Jeb. He was basically a male Hillary, and got destroyed by Trump.

Do you have examples of the dirt that wouldn't have been directed at a man? I paid a lot of attention to this election cycle and I must have missed it.

How about https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=nasty%20woman&tbm=isch ?

That's one she managed to spin positively.

Are we pretending trump didn't insult every opponent in his campaign regardless of gender, or are we pretending it's worse because Hillary is a woman? I'm never sure what to pretend politically.

That's a fair point. I was just honestly trying to think of something.

She's a woman, and they think she is nasty. What does that have to do with her being a woman? Plenty of anti-Trump people have called him a nasty, horrible man. That doesn't make it a sexist statement, as much as the Clinton campaign and supporters have tried to make it so. (And I say this as someone who voted for Clinton.)

Do you think "Trump that bitch" shirts are gendered? I think sexism is definitely a component but not the overarching reason she lost.

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