Slate: Hillary's Winning 2016 Strategy -- Make Everything a Women's Issue
She should frame her arguments with feminism
9.20.2014 |
News
| Trey Sanchez |
How will Hillary Clinton win the 2016 presidential election? According to Slate, it will happen by Clinton making everything a women's issue.
Slate author Amanda Marcotte reasons that because women generally rank the Democratic Party high for its stance on a variety of women's rights issues, a strategy that Clinton could use is turning every issue into a women's issue. As Marcotte argues, all issues are really "inseparable" from feminism.
For example, Marcotte says that reproductive rights are forever linked with economic issues, like equal pay. Another is giving a "feminist take" on workers' rights and minimum wage. With the issue of contraception, health care is linked to women because having access to birth control methods through universal health care will "help level the playing field between men and women."
Marcotte says that Clinton does not have to worry about changing voters' minds as much as she does about motivating people to get out and vote. "Once inside the booth, women's greater support for a social safety net and government regulation of business is what gets them to pull the lever for the Democrats," she writes.
Clinton obviously holds the ear of many women and uses that to her advantage. The former first lady recently spoke to an all-female panel, garnering praise from Marcotte for "framing her arguments" with feminism. But flavoring every hot-button topic with feminism is what could lead Clinton to a win. At least that's the hope of modern feminists, like Marcotte.
She concludes:
“To be clear, Clinton is not re-inventing the definition of feminism. Feminist academics have been on this for a long time, wedding feminism to race and class. But Clinton's remarks show how Democrats are beginning to move that sort of thinking out of women's studies seminars and turning it into a potent political strategy, reinforcing the notion that the traditional liberal agenda is particularly important to women.
Appealing broadly to female voters helped push Obama over the line in 2012, and there's no reason to think that Clinton can't take it to the next level in 2016.
