viz.

In my whiniest voice: but I'm *not* suggesting that "every criticism of the Clinton campaign can be reduced to gender," or trying to "reduc[e] the race to gender bias." That's not what I'm doing at all, and to suggest otherwise is a little unfair. That's why I repeatedly point out that gender is not sufficient as an explanation for her failure to capture the nomination; I cannot emphasize enough that I think there are other things working against her, not the least of which are her own failures and shortcomings as a candidate. She takes too much money from lobbyists; she hedges about her tax returns and releasing her records as first lady; she runs from or embraces her husband's administration according to the political expediency of the moment. In my mind, those are not gendered criticisms; those are legitimate problems and areas of concern, and she is paying a price for them.

And to me there seems to be some tension in your argument: you take issue with my declarations that gender bias plays a significant role in the response to her campaign, but in this comment you seem to castigate her for "distanc[ing] herself from gender politics" and "remov[ing] herself from feminine identifications" (and what does that mean, and how is it not an essentialization of the so-called "feminine"?)--both points, incidentally, with which I disagree. Are gender politics important, or not? Are you arguing that the discussion of gender needs to be more nuanced and less "essential," or are you suggesting that she's a bad feminist who is "not identify[ing]...as a woman" and she therefore hasn't earned the benefit of precisely the discussion we're having? Certainly, she has distanced herself from certain versions of second-wave feminism that are floating around out there. But she has had to make calculated, political, and, yes, unattractive decisions about what role gender can play in the first serious campaign by a woman to be the president. (And her vote for the Iraq war probably falls into this category; and it will, fairly in my opinion, be remembered as the great tragedy and miscalculation of her candidacy.) And in my opinion--essentializing and "insulting" as it may be--unfair forms of generalized, free-floating gender bias have necessitated some of those decisions. (And for what it's worth, I think there is also a conversation to be had about the role of racism in both the response to Obama's campaign as well as the calculations he has had to make about how much the first serious black contender for the presidency can talk about race, as well as what he can say about racism in this country.)

Finally, as you have pointed out before, this is a blog about visual rhetoric and representation. I'm sure my argument is sometimes reductive (and if for that reason it is insulting to the real, lived experiences of women, then I sincerely apologize. In my mind there is a difference between third wave/third world feminism and "postfeminism," by which term I mean the tenuous argument that gender bias is no longer a political problem in our society and culture). But I do think there is something essential about gender: not necessarily essential in terms of identity politics, but essential in terms of the response to Clinton's candidacy. It may not be the overarching issue or number one problem, but in my mind there is no question that it is there and that it is powerful. This conversation began as a discussion of the way visual images frame and interpret the candidates in this campaign. And when I say "frame" I mean that they serve to locate women within a particular and familiar framework: figure of grace or figure of suffering. There is a way in which this is about gender and hermeneutics, a hermeneutics that may be determined by the choices made by the photographer. And one of the issues that shapes those choices is gender bias. So, yes, you can preface every comment I make with the caveat, "roughly speaking." But in fairness, I do think that I'm looking at the specific manifestations of gender bias faced by and in the experience of this woman: I may certainly be wrong, but I think I am paying attention to a "particularized knowledge" of gender bias as it is faced by Hillary.

So I also have to ask: what did I write that made you think I was "assuming all women face equal and the same discrimination"?