{"id":1857,"date":"2016-04-27T10:37:33","date_gmt":"2016-04-27T09:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canterburypolitics.wordpress.com\/?p=1857"},"modified":"2018-09-18T15:23:58","modified_gmt":"2018-09-18T14:23:58","slug":"hillary-clinton-managing-the-rhetorical-double-bind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/politics\/2016\/04\/27\/hillary-clinton-managing-the-rhetorical-double-bind\/","title":{"rendered":"Hillary Clinton: Managing the Rhetorical Double-Bind"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a guest post by Dr Mark Bannister,\u00a0Senior Lecturer in Politics,\u00a0Canterbury Christ Church University<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton is in a unique position, having occupied four of the most important and symbolic public offices in American politics. This is not the end of course as she may yet hold a fifth role, that of President. As she enters the campaign \u2018home straight\u2019 analyses of her readiness for the highest office are plentiful. A critical skill for any political leader is the ability to communicate to a variety of audiences. Rhetoric and oratory represent the means by which a politician can persuade, navigate and often manipulate the relationship between the rulers and the ruled. In a new book on Democratic Orators from JFK to Barack Obama<\/a> Aristotelian modes of ethos<\/em> (appeal based on character), pathos<\/em> (emotion) and logos<\/em> (logic) are used to examine the rhetoric of Democratic Party politics since the 1960s. My contribution to the volume evaluates the oratory of Hillary Clinton, drawing on her prolific public speeches in her political career up to the launch of her second presidential bid.<\/p>\n

Women and oratory<\/strong><\/p>\n

Women have not figured strongly in the history of political oratory. Men were not only the ones in Western society\u00a0 most likely to be in the jobs that gave\u00a0 occasion for\u00a0 speeches; they were, with very rare exceptions, also the ones educated to give them, and the ones whose speeches were most likely to be written down. Not only constrained by educational opportunities, women (as feminist scholars stress) have to contend with power structures that have historically limited women\u2019s voices from being heard at all.<\/p>\n

Women therefore suffer from a gendered double bind<\/a> in the use of rhetoric in political speeches: talk tough \u2013 conforming to leadership norms \u2013 and risk sounding too masculine, use feminine emotion \u2013 conforming to gendered notions \u2013 and risk sounding weak. This is all part of the multiple dichotomies and contradictions associated with Hillary Clinton, within a context of difference and dominance. Women in leadership positions, or aspiring to lead, are required to conform to male expectations often magnified by the demands of wartime leadership or institutional. Hillary Clinton did seek to manage this gendered Catch 22 by initially drawing on masculine rhetoric as a \u2018fighter\u2019, whilst using indirect methods to display emotional appeal.<\/p>\n

Hillary as public speaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

Clinton has generally not been lauded for her oratorical skill; her success in public office has not been due to any sharp and succinct rhetorical techniques. Her style, was initially prosaic and tended toward lengthy and complex responses to questions; an understandable approach given her legal training. This caused some difficulty for Clinton as journalists constantly searched for tools to misrepresent her: the 1992 \u201ccookies and tea\u201d<\/a> comment is the most infamous example of reporters excavating a juicy sound bite from and circulating it regardless of the fact it misrepresented the statement as a whole. The extrapolation of this seemingly innocuous quote, taken out of context and used to make \u2018Hillary an issue\u2019 alerted her to potential rhetorical pitfalls based on gender.<\/p>\n

Yet, it is perhaps due to the oratorical bind, through which we consume oratory via only a masculine paradigm, which means her oratory appears more prosaic, less effusive and uninspiring. There have been flashes in a career \u2013 \u2018women\u2019s rights are human rights\u2019<\/a> (1995) and in her 2008 concession speech in Washington \u2013 when the confluence of the occasion and the words was most evident. Gendered analysis of her speeches has seen her occupancy of positions of power, responsibility and influence open her up to charges that equivalent male politicians would never face.<\/p>\n

Adapting to the situation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton has been a prolific public speaker in a variety of roles \u2013 from delivering the first student commencement speech at Wellesley College in 1969<\/a> to defending her actions over Benghazi in Congress<\/a> in 2013. She was \u2013 and still is \u2013 a powerful orator, able to generate appeals based on logos<\/em> and her connection with social issues to establish appeal based onethos<\/em>. Less evident was her pathos<\/em> though she deployed classic rhetorical techniques which were more evident over time to project her image and policy. Much of her rhetorical success has been based on the ability to adapt her oratory to the position she held and the situation, helped in no small measure by her close coterie of advisors. She was comfortable on the international stage pushing the universal human rights agenda as First Lady and later as State Secretary. She could engage in the combative arena of partisan party politics as a Senator and then as a genuine presidential candidate. Perhaps her greatness rhetorical success was to continually face down her critics and many detractors, usually with dignity and poise. Adopting in particular \u2018conflict\u2019 and \u2018journey\u2019 metaphors she projected her \u2018authentic self\u2019 through her rhetoric \u2013 often using proxies \u2013 bound up as she was in a constant struggle to prove others wrong and take on new challenges to \u2018keep going\u2019..<\/p>\n

Transcending the double-bind?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Utilising rhetorical techniques to manage the \u2018double bind\u2019 proved problematic. Still bounded by a male dominated arena, Clinton has been channelled by context, environment and advisers into deploying tough, largely uncompromising language. Rather than transcending the double-bind, she has been linguistically caught up in it, not least when presenting the case for military action and over emphasising her \u2018experience\u2019 (as with the backfiring \u20183am phone call ad\u2019). Herpathos<\/em> and femininity only appeared to shine through once she was freed from playing the tough role assigned to her and expressed a more expansive and inspiring form of rhetoric in her concession speech in 2008<\/a> \u2019the glass ceiling now has 18million cracks in it\u2019. Up to then she had eschewed such fripperies keen to stress experience (ethos<\/em>) over vision (pathos<\/em>). Depending on the outcome of the current presidential campaign, we will see if her rhetoric can make the transition into the highest leadership role, breaking new ground again.<\/p>\n

Democratic Orators from JFK to Barack Obama<\/strong> (2016) edited by Crines, A.S., Moon, D.S., Lehrman, R., Thody, P. is published by Palgrave<\/p>\n

This post was originally published in Presidential Power<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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