“If you’re tough enough to run New York City, you’re too tough to be considered acceptably feminine.”
— Gloria Steinem, who endorsed Christine Quinn for NYC mayor
It's too bad about Christine Quinn. She lost the Democratic
primary for NYC mayor big time even though she started out well ahead of the
pack. It happened because she’s a woman. It happened because we have vastly
different standards for women than we do for men, even in New York City.
Quinn was an indefatigable worker who always showed up. Every
community meeting I went to she went to. She knew her stuff. She made a real
effort. She was tough, yes, but I aspire to that, as all women should. And she
had a good heart. For several years she lived in my building and we
occasionally shared an elevator. Her driver/body guard accompanied her to her
second floor apartment. She was genuinely polite to him and always congenial when speaking with me.
I found Quinn to be on the right side of almost everything
but she got credited with Bloomberg’s third term as if she, somehow, was solely
responsible. She was, I understand, blamed for the closing of St. Vincent’s
Hospital and the fact that she’s fat, ugly, brash with a bad voice who wears
cheap clothes. Or so people said at the exit polls and when questioned by New
York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Kate Taylor. Does it matter that Christine
Quinn is not fat and she looks perfectly well groomed in her tailored suits?
“Nice lady, but if I have to listen to that voice for four
years, I’ll die,” said John A. Catsimatidis, the extremely wealthy man who ran
for mayor in the Republican primary. Only his gender and his privilege allowed
him to get away with such idiotic statements. How can this idiot man be rich?
What does it take to be rich, I wonder? Certainly not intelligence, decency or
character. He’s no silver-throated crooner himself but, then again, I’ve heard
obese men call thin women fat more than once. We’ve got a hell of a long way to
go and right now, in the “greatest city on earth” we’ve just proved it.
Remember what happened to Hillary? Well, brace yourself. It’s about to happen
again.
Quinn understood about scare expensive housing and
unscrupulous landlords and the city’s vastly imbalanced haves and have-nots.
She knew the system and worked it. She knew better than to make promises she
couldn’t keep. Worked out to stay fit. I know because I saw her postings for a
workout partner on our apartment website bulletin board.
No. She didn’t listen to the women who attempted to caution
her about her outward behavior, which can be perceived as tough and aggressive.
“I don’t get up in the morning thinking about how I’ll approach this as a woman
or a lesbian; I think about the issues,” she is quoted as saying in the NY
Times.
She is made vulnerable by her ethics, her task-oriented drive,
ultimately her naïve belief that her hard work and long years of commitment to
the working people of NYC will carry her to the front of the finish line. It
just doesn’t work that way.
I’m sorry, New York City, for your loss, and I’m sorry Christine Quinn. I
hope there’s a next time and I hope you win.
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