"Women Will Never Forgive Tiger"

According to Jessica Grose: "Women will never forgive Tiger." Link here.

She adds that it does not really matter. The audience for golf is so predominantly male that it is not all that important whether women ever forgive Tiger Woods.

Rachel Larrimore agrees that it does not really matter all that much, because Tiger Woods is not running for public office. He is not Mark Sanford. He is not a role model for children and adults alike. Link here.

So far, so good.

As I read these remarks one thought keeps coming back: What about Bill Clinton?

Perhaps it is a slight exaggeration to say that women forgave Bill Clinton. Truth be told, most of them, including so-called defenders of women's rights, were lining up to rationalize his behavior. If feminists did not forgive Bill Clinton, the reason is that, in their eyes, they did not have to. He did not do anything wrong.

And what about Hillary? You might say that she was absent when Bill Clinton offered his insincere apology.

True enough. But it is also true that she was out in front, in public, defending him against his critics. To her mind the Lewinsky affair, to say nothing of the other accusations of sexual indiscretions and worse, were simply a Republican plot to undermine the Clinton presidency.

When it came to her dignity as a woman-- question that motivates the discussions about the behavior of Jenny Sanford, Elin Nordegren, and Silda Spitzer-- Hillary Clinton was not exactly a role model.