This book focused on Hilary Clinton's 2008 presidential run, is extra fascinating in the dismal aftermath of her 2016 campaign. As usual, Traister provides compelling analysis, and tells some very good stories. This book is a combination of testimony from a reporter who covered the HRC campaign and the memoir of a young feminist, disappointed in the press (a number of reporters are raked over the coals here, including some lefty darlings) and the electorate but also in HRC the candidate and her machine. (Like Traister, I did not support HRC in 2008.)

So much of this is great, but I was bothered by the way the personal bled into the professional, or perhaps that is better stated as the editorial bled into the reporting. It is stated several times, as if fact, that being a centrist is a bad thing. I disagree, I wish there were more centrists, and so this supposition that underlies a lot of Traister"s analysis is, to my mind, flawed. Still absolutely worthwhile for political junkies, 2nd and 3rd wave feminists., and those who want evidence that Palin led directly to Trump. ( )

Written about the 2008 U.S. elections, this book offers a feminist perspective along with keen political commentary. It's especially meaningful to read as background to the 2016 election so far. ( )

As our recent 2012 election season was heating up this past October, I had an appetite for a politics read and thought that Rebecca Traister’s book taking stock of that other election season—in 2008—and its impact on the women’s right movement would hit the spot. And it did. Traister’s book didn't break new ground nor did it reveal insider tidbits like a few other books, but it wasn’t trying to do that. Instead, it was trying to identify and process the meaning of a historic period in which we saw two women, Hillary Clinton and the one-who-shall-not-be-named-from-Alaska, vying for the highest offices in the land, as well as the increased visibility of the candidate spouses.

For me, the value of Traister’s book lies in how she captured snapshots of those defining moments that we lived through in 2008 and articulated their meanings and implications within the historic and philosophical framework of gender studies and the equal rights movement. I only understood much of these issues intuitively, but did not have the precise vocabulary and terms of reference to process it all for myself in such a coherent manner. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a dry, academic work. It reads more like a journalistic account and analysis with a few of Traister’s personal stories thrown into it, making it a pretty quick but not superficial read.

The book has a fairly broad scope, zooming in on friction within the liberal/progressive movement and within the women’s rights movement over whom to support between Obama and Clinton during the primaries, how issues of not just gender but race were addressed, media coverage of candidates, and the role of pop culture in the equation. I found especially engaging her examination of the generational rifts that were brought into starker relief within the women’s movement during the primaries and the soul searching that accompanied it. This was very much a reality at the time, so I can't agree with those who said that it was tiresome to rehash the same debates in Big Girls Don't Cry that had been highlighted and expounded on for years among feminists. Also pretty interesting was the book’s look at how the Republican Party’s introduction of a female VP candidate ignited discussions within the women’s rights movement about what the principles of their movement were about. What happens when a woman exhibits characteristics of empowerment and leadership but supports anti-women policies? The book also touches on a very good point that was raised during the Democratic primaries, which was a response to those who objected to Clinton by saying they’d be happy to support women candidates, just not *that* woman. She put forward a good question that I hadn’t given much thought to before: what are the factors in society that caused ‘that woman’ to become the way she was?

I have to take issue with a few things that Traister raises though. In trying to make the point that it wasn’t just misogynistic cavemen and crazy media pundits exhibiting sexist behavior, but also liberal men—her peers, other politicians—who were known as equal rights supporters, Traister tended to conflate the chauvinism on display by the media as a blanket example of behavior by non-media people. I thought that was a bit sloppy.

And on the issue of the exasperation with the prolonged Democratic Party primaries, I thought Traister’s interpretation of the reasons were a bit off, or at least, incomplete. She portrayed the frustration that many in the party had—from the leaders down to the grassroots—as men bullying a woman who had every right to stay on and compete. My interpretation of those frustrations with Clinton that Traister covers, though, was that they were due to the understanding that it was mathematically impossible for her to win enough delegates to surpass Obama, so staying in the race was just giving the advantage to the Republican candidate. This debate is water under the bridge now, but I just found it a tad disingenuous of Traister to exclude this side of the argument from the book when recounting this particular topic.

I have a few other quibbles with the book, but all in all, Big Girls Don't Cry makes a great contribution to the collection of accounts that are building up about this significant period in our recent history.
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I’m not prejudiced but . . .
A riveting recap of the full-of-surprises 2008 election, including the inexplicably harsh treatment Hillary Clinton received from even the liberal media, especially the boys at MSNBC. ( )

Tried to read in 2011 but not in the mood.