Truth, Truth-telling and Gender in Politics: The ”Hillary” Experience

Abstract

The American presidential election of 2016 almost contributed a woman president to the global women's movement, feminism activists, women's rights networks and the agents of political feminism all around the world. Hillary Clinton, though her capacity to represent feminism is not unquestionable, came forward as the first woman presidential candidate of a major party and pursued a feminist-and LQBT-friendly campaign. In that sense, she was a great hope for the future of feminist politics in terms of women's participation in electoral politics-particularly officeholding. A woman president governing one of the hegemonic powers of the international system such as the United States (US) was a historic chance for women's attempts at claiming politics. To incorporate the neglected experiences and discourses of women into the mainstream practices of high and low politics by a feminist American president would have repercussions not only for the US, but the rest of the world as well. Low politics, which are the issue areas not inevitable for the survival of the state, are more open to the women's participation. High politics with issue areas such as foreign policy and security are more directly related to the survival of the state and generally exclude women, their discourse and values from the policy-making procedures. A woman president would have integrated both the high and the low politics in the way to make feminism influential even, or especially, in matters of survival. 2 Nevertheless, Hillary Clinton's rather vague, ironic, implicit and sometimes misleading responses to the questions for which she was urged by the public to tell the truth dominated her presidential campaign and created an air of "mistrust" 1 among the voters. Particularly, during the FBI interrogation about her emails as Secretary of State, her negative image reached a peak of historic unpopularity. Her "self-knowledge, steadiness, and composure"-attributes she is famous for-could not prevent her loss of the election,

A Feminist Reading of Turkish Foreign Policy and the S-400 Crisis

“…Despite her debatable position as a feminist, Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, which coincided with Wonder Woman's new post as the United Nations ambassador, has been the closest moment for this goal to be achieved. (Akça, 2019) The victory of Donald Trump, an explicit and proud member of global anti-gender politics, has raised serious questions about the future of feminism. Nevertheless, in another corner of the world, a hopeful agenda of foreign policy is in the process of unfolding.…”