Andrea Dworkin
Monica Lewinsky is in a terrible, terrible mess. She’s being threatened by a very mean special prosecutor who has unlimited powers. And he plays hard ball. She has my sympathy. Of everyone who is a player in this game, she is the one who is going to be destroyed by it.
We are talking about a man who, in a predatory way, is using women, particularly young women. In this case, a woman who was working as an intern, for no money, because of her devotion to the Democratic Party and to him. In an alcove next to the Oval Office, he simply unzips his pants and she sexually services him.
Bill Clinton’s fixation on oral sex – non- reciprocal oral sex – consistently puts women in states of submission to him. It’s the most fetishistic, heartless, cold sexual exchange I can imagine. People are characterising this as a sexual scandal, but it’s an abuse-of-power scandal. It corroborates what both Paula Jones and Gennifer Flowers have said, and it’s a disaster for this particular young woman, Lewinsky.
I think there probably are many more of them, but I don’t know how many will come forward. It is a very hard thing for someone who is 20, 21, to find herself in the middle of all this, subpoenaed to talk about her sex life.
The second issue that concerns me is what Hillary Clinton is doing. She is covering up for a man who has a history of exploiting women. If there is one thing being a feminist has to mean, it’s that you don’t do that. You don’t use your intellect and your creativity to protect a man’s exploitation of other women.
Ever since she went to the White House as first lady, her life has been going down the tubes. She had to give up her profession and she’s been the staunch wife standing by her husband, no matter what vile things he does to humiliate her. It’s pathetic. She should pack her bags and leave.
Women of Hillary Clinton’s age have a responsibility not to let the men who are our peers exploit and destroy younger women. It breaks my heart to see Hillary Clinton on television. Whatever deal they made in their marriage, I don’t believe it included her public humiliation.
I had great hopes for her at the beginning. I thought: “How wonderful – a feminist in the White House. She’s so smart.” But I have not understood the choices she’s made and I have not been able to respect them. In protecting her husband, she is betraying younger women.
Maybe it was different 20 years ago when Bill Clinton was fooling around in Arkansas. She had her job and her child; perhaps she didn’t care. But now her husband, the president, is being sexually serviced by a 21-year-old woman, in her house.
It’s impossible to believe that she, and everyone who works in the White House, doesn’t feel utterly betrayed by him. They thought he had stopped all this. They thought he was a creep before – even Lewinsky calls him a creep – but when he became president, they thought he knew he couldn’t get away with it any more.
There is a strain of misogyny in him, though. People say it has nothing to do with the way he makes social policy, but I think it does. These things are connected. There are plenty of women who are simply expendable to him – clearly the White House interns are.
As for the conspiracy theory, I don’t believe it. To think there’s a conspiracy would mean the right wing planted the young woman in Clinton’s office to entice him into sexual acts.
I have a modest proposal. I think that Hillary Clinton should shoot Bill Clinton and then president Al Gore should pardon her.
The silence from other feminists in this country is deafening. I think a lot of feminists are very distressed and disappointed in him, but they don’t want to say so publicly because many of them are connected to the Democratic Party.
It’s a problem. It was a problem when Bill Clinton threw poor women off welfare and used pregnant teenage girls as scapegoats, as if they were causing the economic problems of our country. Clinton has good policies for middle-class women, but I don’t think he has good policies for poor women.
Male politicians’ policies in respect of women are important, but sexual harassment is an issue too. The law says that if both parties are consenting, it’s not sexual harassment and it’s not illegal. As far as we know, Lewinsky was consenting, but I believe Clinton is culpable because I think he’s guilty of exploitation.
I care about how men in public life treat women. Clinton shows a real callousness in what he was doing to someone who was just about his daughter’s age.
He may not be forced to resign, but I think he should and I think he will. I don’t want him as my president. I think he’s toast, I think he’s done, I think he’s outta there. And I’m glad about that.
Most of my feminist colleagues won’t be. They feel he’s a good president and the country’s in good shape, they feel he’s a good guy. Yeah, he just did this one little thing that was wrong, but he’s really a nice guy.
I say: “Au revoir, Slick Willy.”
— Andrea Dworkin is the author of Life and Death: Unapologetic Writings on the Continuing War Against Women
Katie Roiphe
This scandal brings to the fore a more general moral confusion in American society. Bill Clinton comes from a generation of excess that is now in moral confusion. People don’t know if it’s any of their business. Most would say that it is wrong, but how outraged, how angry can we be?
In 1992, when the electorate voted Clinton in, they knew he’d had an affair with Gennifer Flowers and in effect accepted that. In some ways, the American people are angered not by the fact of the affair itself, but by being confronted with it in this way. It’s a breach of discretion.
At first, there was this bizarre attempt to portray Monica Lewinsky as an innocent victim – her lawyer described her as a doe caught in the headlights. But as the details emerge, it is clear that she was an active participant. There is an assumption in the United States that women under 25 are children, but she is a mature adult – and power is always seductive.
Women love Bill Clinton. He is a very seductive figure. He embodies a masculine virility that has been under attack in the US for so long. There is also this fantasy that our president is an old-fashioned, sexually aggressive male, and he is an openly sexual figure. We voted for what we wanted and he is a reflection of the contradictions and desires of the American public.
Hillary Clinton has been attacked for alleging a right-wing conspiracy. But the subtext of her interview was the same as in 1992: their marriage has troubles but it is private and everyone should stay out. It was effective. Women think, if she doesn’t care, why should we?
He is very vulnerable on this front. If it wasn’t this Lewinsky, there’d be another one. That’s the reason why this isn’t a little thing and why the right-wing fantasy that Hillary Clinton proposed can’t all be true.
There is also a fantasy that the president is this god-like figure and some people are angry that he is shattering that image.
Still, I think he will survive this. Undoubtedly, he is a good president and good on women’s issues. He appointed the first woman secretary of state, he’s pro-choice and pro-education – and the economy is doing well. We have a culture of recovery and self-help in this country, and he sustains a high approval rating even through this, his darkest hour.
–Katie Roiphe is a contributor to the New York Times and author of The Morning After: Sex, Fear and Feminism
Betty Friedan
Bill Clinton has introduced progressive policies, which have served women well, and I am outraged that the media and his enemies are attempting to bring him down through allegations about some dalliance with an intern.
It is of no consequence to me what Clinton does in his private life. It is irrelevant to me, as it should be to any intelligent woman. His public policies are all that is important.
Clinton has a good record on women. He has started good initiatives, such as the national childcare policy, and appointed some very strong women. He has also stood firm on abortion.
What outrages me most is that, in this day and age, a woman should still be used as a sex object, a way of bringing down a good president.
Hillary Clinton was excellent on television. They have a very complex marriage that is lasting. Why shouldn’t she stand by her man?
— Betty Friedan is the author of The Feminine Mystique and Beyond Gender: The New Politics of Work and Family.