Living History Unknown (best books to read fiction .txt) 📖

the press had picked up on the “cookies and tea” comment, suggested that I talk to reporters a second time to explain in greater detail―and more articulately―

what I meant. On the spot, I had an impromptu mini-press conference. But it had little effect. Thirteen minutes after I answered the question, a story ran on the AP wire. CNN

quickly aired one, too, and followed with an afternoon segment that made little reference to the initial question―about conflicts of interest and the Rose Law Firm―but reduced everything I said to, “I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas.” The theme for most news organizations that day was that I had made a serious political error.

I had made an awkward attempt to explain my situation and to suggest that many women who juggle careers and lives are penalized for the choices they make. It turned into a story about my alleged callousness toward stay-at-home mothers. Some reporters merged “tea and cookies” and “standing by my man like Tammy Wynette” into one quote, as if I had uttered both phrases in the same breath―not fifty-one days apart. The controversy was a boon to GOP strategists. Republican Party leaders labeled me a “radical feminist,” a “militant feminist lawyer” and even “the ideological leader of a Clinton-Clinton Administration that would push a radical-feminist agenda.”

I got hundreds of letters about “cookies and tea.” Supporters offered their encouragement and praised me for defending a broad array of choices for women. Critics were venomous.

One letter referred to me as the Antichrist, and another said I was an insult to American motherhood. I often worried about how much attention Chelsea paid and how much sank in. She wasn’t six anymore.

Some of the attacks, whether demonizing me as a woman, mother and wife or distorting my words and positions on issues, were politically motivated and designed to rein me in. Others may have reflected the extent to which our society was still adjusting to the changing roles of women. I adopted my own mantra: Take criticism seriously, but not personally. If there is truth or merit in the criticism, try to learn from it. Otherwise, let it roll right off you. Easier said than done.

While Bill talked about social change, I embodied it. I had my own opinions, interests and profession. For better or worse, I was outspoken. I represented a fundamental change in the way women functioned in our society. And if my husband won, I would be filling a position in which the duties were not spelled out, but the performance was judged by everybody.

I soon realized how many people had a fixed notion of the proper role of a President’s wife. I was called a “Rorschach test” for the American public, and it was an apt way of conveying the varied and extreme reactions that I provoked.

Neither the fawning admiration nor the virulent rage seemed close to the truth. I was being labeled and categorized because of my positions and mistakes, and also because I had been turned into a symbol for women of my generation. That’s why everything I said or did-and even what I wore-became a hot button for debate.

Hair and fashion were my first clues. For most of my life I had paid little attention to my clothes. I liked headbands. They were easy, and I couldn’t imagine that they suggested anything good, bad or indifferent about me to the American public. But during the campaign, some of my friends began a mission to spruce up my appearance. They brought me racks of clothes to try on, and they told me the headband had to go. What they understood, and I didn’t, was that a First Lady’s appearance matters. I was no longer representing only myself. I was asking the American people to let me represent them in a role that has conveyed everything from glamour to motherly comfort.

My good friend Linda Bloodworth-Thomason suggested that a friend of hers in Los Angeles, the hairstylist Christophe Schatteman, cut my hair. She was convinced it would improve my appearance. I thought the whole notion was a stretch. But soon I was like a kid in a candy store, trying out every style I could. Long hair, short hair, bangs, flips, braids and buns. This was a new universe and it turned out to be fun. But my eclectic experimentation spawned stories about how I could never stick with any hairstyle and what that revealed about my psyche.

Early in the campaign I also got a glimpse of the difficulties of serving in what is, by definition, a derivative position. I was Bill’s principal surrogate on the campaign trail. I wanted to support his campaign and to advance his ideas, but as we had already learned from Bill’s “buy one, get one free” remark, I had to be careful where I stepped. I had taken leave from my law firm and resigned from all of the charitable and corporate boards on which I served. That meant leaving the board of Wal-Mart, on which I had sat for six years at the invitation of Sam Walton, who taught me a great deal about corporate integrity and success. While on the board, I chaired a committee that looked into ways that Wal-Mart could become more environmentally sensitive in its practices, and I worked to promote a “Buy America” program that helped put people to work and saved jobs around the country. Resigning from the Wal-Mart board and others like the Children’s Defense Fund left me feeling vulnerable and unsettled. I had worked fulltime during my marriage to Bill and valued the independence and identity that work provided.

Now I was solely “the wife of,” an odd experience for me.

My new status hit home over something mundane: I had ordered new stationery to answer all the campaign mail I was receiving. I had chosen cream paper with my name, Hillary Rodham Clinton, printed neatly across the top in navy blue. When I opened the box I saw that the order