Hillary Clinton launches tirade against 'whining' women

http://www.telegraph.co.uk

Despite a lifetime advocating women's rights, the US Secretary of State showed little patience with other mothers who struggle to juggle the dual roles demanded by modern life. 'I can't stand whining," she told Marie Claire magazine. "I can't stand the kind of paralysis that some people fall into because they're not happy with the choices they've made.

"You live in a time when there are endless choices ... Money certainly helps, and having that kind of financial privilege goes a long way. But you don't even have to have money for it. But you have to work on yourself ... Do something!" Her words were interpreted in some quarters as a dig at Ann Marie Slaughter, who left her post as director of policy planning under Mrs Clinton at the State Department last year for a job at Princeton University, saying that she needed to spend more time with her two teenage sons. Mrs Clinton's office however accused Marie Claire of creating a misleading impression, pointing out that her comments about whining followed a question about the habitual griping of Holden Caulfield, the boy who is the character in Catcher in the Rye.On Twitter, Ms Slaughter, 54, responded: "Hillary Clinton, for whom I have the greatest admiration and loyalty, was not talking about me when she mentioned whining." The former First Lady, who raised a teenager in the White House in the 1990s, was however not exactly laudatory about Ms Slaughter when asked a direct question about her former colleague, who wrote a widely circulated essay about her decision to quit in Atlantic magazine. Mrs Clinton conceded that "it's important for our workplaces ... to be more flexible and creative in enabling women to continue to do high-stress jobs while caring for not only children, but [also] ageing parents". But, she added, Ms Slaughter's problems were hers alone. "Some women are not comfortable working at the pace and intensity you have to work at in these jobs," she said. "Other women don't break a sweat. They have four or five, six kids. They're highly organised, they have very supportive networks.'" In response, Slaughter tweeted: "[T]hat is certainly not true of me! Pace and intensity are no problem; it's about flexibility." Mrs Clinton's remarks are likely to raise eyebrows in Washington, where the demands made on those working in key government jobs are notorious. It is not only women who have left high-powered positions to be closer to their families. Rahm Emanuel, Mr Obama's first chief of staff, decided not to move his wife and children from Chicago. After 18 months he left the White House, albeit partly because of the chance run for mayor of his home city. Raising a child in the White House has its particular pressures, but comes with the major benefit of working from home. Barack Obama, the current occupant, has remarked on how "living above the office" enables him to enjoy time with his two young daughters. Mrs Clinton's daughter Chelsea was 12 when the family entered the White House in late 1992 after Bill won the first of two four-year terms. In the early days of her marriage Mrs Clinton took a decision that would dismay some feminists, sacrificing her prospects of a glittering Washington legal career to follow her politically-ambitious husband to his home state Arkansas.