Hillary Clinton's Problems with Intersectionality

A reasonably catching blog post, On Bernie and Women by a clear proponent of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, focuses on issues with presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and intersectionality. Complaints about Sanders disrespecting Secretary Clinton due to being a woman or complaints about Sanders failing to treat minority populations with respect are abound, mostly hearkening back to issues brought up in the four part Looking For Bernie. I've made a habit of responding to a number of misleading statements about Senator Sanders as well as questioning the lack of parallel questioning on intersectionality on Secretary Clinton. Seemed like a good thing to compile in one place in case others are interested in this topic.

Clinton is clearly a proponent of abortion rights and breaking glass ceilings. She is not as consistently a friend of impoverished women or children. She's made some serious missteps with minority populations as well. Here's a few of the things I'm concerned about having to do with Hillary Clinton and intersectional feminism.

Let's start with Hillary Clinton laughing about her then-client, accused of raping a 12 year old, passing a polygraph which in her words “forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs” and resulted in her tearing the child’s character apart in court.

Hillary Clinton suggested that rape survivors' statements should be assumed exaggerated if they are minors. She also stated the child searched out older men (which doesn't even seem to be supported), implying this 12 year old was complicit in her rape.

As a First Lady, Hillary Clinton called children, teens, and young adults engaged with gangs "Superpredators," and says "we have to bring them to heel."

 A Black Lives Matters activist identified this as an attack on black and brown youth. She requested a response from Clinton about the comment.

Hillary did not respond at the time of the question. She instead told the protester she would talk about it later and wanted to get "back to the issues. The issues that I think are important." The activist was ushered out. Complaints have been made that Bernie Sanders did not handle his first interaction with BLM well, but he at least gave up a stage to the activists and let them address a crowd. After taking a day to work out a response, the answer she provided was appropriate though it sounded carefully crafted. By the way, the bill which was connected with the "superpredator" comment was voted for by Sanders. Sanders though, prior to the vote, made the following statement about the failings of the bill:

[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 39 (Wednesday, April 13, 1994)] Mr. Speaker, let me begin with a profound remark: Two plus two equals four.
In other words, there is a logical and rational process called cause and effect. In terms of Newtonian physics, that means that every action causes an equal and opposite reaction. In other words, Mr. Speaker, there are reasons why things happen, as controversial as that statement may be.
A farmer neglects to tend and care for his fields—it is likely that the crop will fail.
A company neglects to invest in research and development—it is likely that the company will not be profitable.
In a similar way, Mr. Speaker, a society which neglects, which oppresses and which disdains a very significant part of its population—which leaves them hungry, impoverished, unemployed, uneducated, and utterly without hope, will, through cause and effect, create a population which is bitter, which is angry, which is violent, and a society which is crime-ridden. This is the case in America, and it is the case in countries throughout the world.
Mr. Speaker, how do we talk about the very serious crime problem in America without mentioning that we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, by far, with 22 percent of our children in poverty and 5 million who are hungry today? Do the Members think maybe that might have some relationship to crime? How do we talk about crime when this Congress is prepared, this year, to spend 11 times more for the military than for education; when 21 percent of our kids drop out of high school; when a recent study told us that twice as many young workers now earn poverty wages as 10 years ago; when the gap between the rich and the poor is wider, and when the rate of poverty continues to grow? Do the members think that might have some relationship to crime?
Mr. Speaker, it is my firm belief that clearly, there are some people in our society who are horribly violent, who are deeply sick and sociopathic, and clearly these people must be put behind bars in order to protect society from them. But it is also my view that through the neglect of our Government and through a grossly irrational set of priorities, we are dooming tens of millions of young people to a future of bitterness, misery, hopelessness, drugs, crime, and violence. And Mr. Speaker, all the jails in the world, and we already imprison more people per capita than any other country, and all of the executions in the world, will not make that situation right. We can either educate or electrocute. We can create meaningful jobs, rebuilding our society, or we can build more jails. Mr. Speaker, let us create a society of hope and compassion, not one of hate and vengeance.

He has made clear he voted for the bill because it included the Violence Against Women Act:

I have a number of serious problems with the crime bill, but one part of it that I vigorously support is the Violence Against Women Act. We urgently need the $1.8 billion in this bill to combat the epidemic of violence against women on the streets and in the homes of America.

And here are some additional issues with Hillary and women/minorities:

Clinton voted to build a wall on the border with Mexico was in September 2006.

TANF/welfare reform is mentioned in that ontheissues.org quick list as well, but it’s President Bill Clinton’s law. Here’s more on TANF and Secretary Clinton.

Admittedly, I’d love to see more from both candidates about specifically improving welfare reform for mothers with children. Her 2008 campaign, however, continued to express support for TANF’s depletion of resources for mother's with dependent children.

Her re-authorization of the arguably racistly-applied PATRIOT Act.

Clinton completely failed to call-out the problems with Arizona's election fraud. I don't throw the term election fraud around lightly. I initially shot down a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters who were worried election fraud occurred here with the statistics of how infrequently it is found and the idea it was buying into Republican narratives. I’ve had to eat a reasonable amount of crow. Here's their Secretary of State saying election fraud did occur in this case:

Here’s the Mayor of Phoenix requesting a Department of Justice Inquiry.

As yet, Clinton's team appears to have failed to respond to the calls for an extension on the election or a re-vote made by the people affected. Her failure to come forward and speak out against the disenfranchisement of Arizona voters, and those who ran into the most problems were unsurprisingly disproportionately minorities, seems to be worthy of comment as a failure in intersectionality.

While there's no way this list is complete, it's clear the argument that Bernie Sanders has worse problems with intersectionality than Clinton doesn't seem to hold much water.