The reasons Hillary won in N.H.

Did Hillary win New Hampshire because she teared up the day before the election? This simple theory demeans both the candidate and those who voted for her. It’s true that showing a human side softened her image and probably swayed a few voters, but Hillary won for a number of other reasons: her excellent campaign organization in New Hampshire; her performance in the ABC debate just before the election, especially when she highlighted her 35 years of experience bringing change; the large turnout of older women voters and the lower turnout of young voters, who went for Barack Obama in Iowa; the fact that some Obama supporters, thinking him way ahead, cast votes for John Edwards instead.

Hillary Clinton lacks Barack Obama’s charm and easy connection with audiences, a factor in her Iowa loss. Gender played a role not obvious at first. To succeed in a man’s world, Hillary had to toughen herself by withstanding numerous poundings since 1992. To survive the public humiliation of her husband’s adultery and impeachment, she had to steel herself and suppress any public display of anger or resentment. Far more women than men have found themselves in a similar situation. Though Bill’s equal, she was caught in a subordinate role: he could have affairs and stay in the White House; as a public figure, she could not even allow herself a full range of emotion.

In Iowa, what voters may have sensed as hardness may have had less to do with Hillary’s individual personality as with her history as a wife.

Since the media like drama, Hillary’s lead was played up so that a subsequent tumble would be big news. The element of fakery here has a gender component because Hillary was scrutinized and ridiculed to a degree not experienced by the male candidates. Also, by casting the contest as hope versus experience, the press saddled Hillary with her husband’s presidency rather than examining her work as a lawyer and senator. The implication is that she represents the past while Obama represents the future. Here again her marital role trumps her individual accomplishments and overshadows the possibility that she may be a more effective change agent than her opponent.

Hillary relies on logic and reason to sell herself, not a good strategy when the charismatic Obama draws huge crowds. For a female candidate, the balance between showing emotion and showing toughness is trickier than for a male candidate. The male-dominated national press made much of the tearing-up incident because it fit their stereotype of a suitable female candidate. “Hillary the Invincible” was a character they could not handle.

In a repellant sexist comment, a right-wing talk show commentator said that Hillary should not be elected because Americans would not want to see her age in office. It is hard for a woman candidate to escape this kind of suffocating box.

The New Hampshire women voters who preferred Hillary by a wide margin were probably motivated by her competence as much as by sisterhood. On the other hand, when Hillary said she had found her voice by talking to voters, women perhaps recalled times when their own voices had been silenced. As for sisterhood, high-profile political commentators such as Gail Collins and Maureen Dowd of The New York Times and Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post have been extremely harsh critics of Hillary.

The challenge for Hillary now will be to come across as real rather than scripted, to keep Bill in the background, to survive media scrutiny and to put a calibrated amount of emphasis on being a woman. She also needs to show her sense of humor, as she did in an interview in which she alluded to her charm deficit compared to Obama: “A lot of people said they voted for George Bush because they wanted to have a beer with him. Maybe they should have left it at that.”

Margaret Cruikshank of Corea teaches women’s studies at the University of Maine.