OK, so I’m late to the analysis game, but just recently
was I able to articulate my theory of why conservative women refused to vote
for Hillary Clinton: Because they perceive her to be a gender traitor [credit
to Margaret Atwood]; she had the audacity not to “do gender” as non-feminists view
it, i.e., a woman whose husband has been outed as having messed around with his
intern should get kicked to the curb, or, if that’s not possible, take their
child and leave, and install herself in a condo or townhouse that she makes him
pay for, and settle into comfortable obscurity.
Instead, Clinton was ambitious, and her ambitions
overrode her husband’s philandering. Unlike many wives of public figures who
are outed on any number of charges, not only did she “stick by him”, but she
had the audacity to remain in the Executive branch and maintain a high profile
regardless of him. “Benghazi” and “e-mails” were nothing but distractions or
red herrings. Women who voted for Trump were more willing to vote for a man who
had been outed for groping, as he was at least “doing gender” correctly
according to these women’s assessment; Clinton, however was not, and was
therefore to be abhorred. As far as I can see, there’s no other earthly
explanation: Clinton rocked the boat of gender and how spouses “should” behave,
and conservative women simply couldn’t abide it. They found it less threatening
to vote for an admitted groper than to vote for “her”.
