The issue emerged last month when Mrs. Clinton accused the Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump of having a “penchant for sexism” and he in turn accused her of hypocrisy, given her husband’s treatment of women. And in recent weeks, the scandals of the 1990s and Mrs. Clinton’s role in them have taken on a life of their own, delivering an unexpected headache to a campaign predicated on inspiring female voters.
Mrs. Clinton had hoped to galvanize women late last month in her critique of Mr. Trump. Instead, two weeks before the Iowa caucuses, her campaign has found itself trying to shore up support among women as discussions about past Clinton scandals have moved from conservative critics to broader public consciousness.
“She’s not a victim. She was an enabler,” Mr. Trump told Fox News last week. “Some of these women have been destroyed, and Hillary worked with” her husband.Ms. Dunham declined a request for comment. Her spokeswoman, Cindi Berger, said that Ms. Dunham is “fully supportive of Hillary Clinton and her track record for protecting women,” and that the description of her comments at the dinner party was a “total mischaracterization.”
But the resurfacing of the scandals of the 1990s has brought about a rethinking among some feminists about how prominent women stood by Mr. Clinton and disparaged his accusers after the “bimbo eruptions,” as a close aide to the Clintons, Betsey Wright, famously called the claims of affairs and sexual assault against Mr. Clinton in his 1992 campaign.
Even some Democrats who participated in the effort to discredit the women acknowledge privately that today, when Mrs. Clinton and other women have pleaded with the authorities on college campuses and in workplaces to take any allegation of sexual assault and sexual harassment seriously, such a campaign to attack the women’s character would be unacceptable.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/us/politics/90s-scandals-threaten-to-erode-hillary-clintons-strength-with-women.html?_r=0
