On the cover of Ed Klein's new No1 bestseller, Blood Feud, Hillary Clinton is seated on an outdoor stage in winter clothes, squinting with what we are made to believe is barely-disguised animosity at President Obama taking the oath of office instead of her.

In reality, she's at New York City mayor Bill DeBlasio's inauguration, when the temperature with wind chill was about 20F. She's probably freezing her ass off.

The deliberately unflattering shot may be jarring, given that even those pictures of her testifying at the Benghazi hearing last year were at least contextually relevant: For the majority of her time as Secretary of State, pictures of Hillary hewed to the standard politician fare – stern, inspired, possible annoyed.

But if you've been watching Hillary's public image closely for a while, pictures highlighting her supposed Bitchy Resting Face are older hat than that thing Matt Drudge is still wearing. She's often portrayed as "unladylike" – holding grudges, winning arguments at any cost, not suffering fools lightly – so of course you get photos of her looking tired, pissed off or somehow "unattractive", since there is nothing less feminine than being unworthy of the male gaze.

Klein's book is more of the same in more ways than one. Its opening scene – intended to establish Hillary as the same old bitch – places Clinton at her favorite restaurant in Chappaqua, surrounded by wine, cursing about her former boss (Obama) to her girlfriends.

But this is 2014. After Texts from Hillary and Beyoncé Voters and a growing swath of female (and male) voters who are sick of the ease with which strong women are painted as not-fun, it's only the entrenched Hillary haters who don't want to be at Le Jardin du Roi with her, sipping wine and bitching together. (Hillary, call me! I have stories.)

And in 2014, if you are looking at pictures of Hillary, something else has changed, too.

There is no way that French President Francois Hollande is this charming. Photograph: Unimedia / Barcroft Media Photograph: Unimedia / Barcroft Media

For the past several weeks, wire services – and thus newspapers and websites the world over – have been filled with pictures of Hillary on her worldwide book tour. She looks ... happy.

Of course, 18 months after dropping the Madame Secretary routine, it's fair to say Hillary is having quite the year: her own bestseller, a grandchild on the way, a still-high approval rating and the omnipresent support, both financially and emotionally, for her potential presidential run that could begin eight months from now.

Maybe, now that she doesn't need to look serious to be taken seriously, by the male politicians out for blood and the media gatekeepers out for eyeballs, Hillary can smile – practically ear-to-ear – because no one will find a reason to attack her for it.

Hillary Clinton is excited to see what's next. Photograph: Ferdaus Shamim / Zuma Press / Corbis Photograph: Ferdaus Shamim/ Ferdaus Shamim/ZUMA Press/Corbis

If you followed Hillary's 2008 presidential campaign, you might be suspicious of such optimism: she was liable to "get older before [our] very eyes"; her "cankles" made her ankles less attractive to the political commentariat; her lips showed every sign of belonging to a woman over 60; and, of course, her ass was certainly too broad for any chair in the Oval Office.



Not that she'd fared better in the '90s. Before he was convicted of corruption charges, Republican Congressman Bob Ney suggested the size of Hillary's hips was forgivable because it related to having children. Congressman Steve Chabot – who looks like this – generously granted: "She's not a dog."

Hillary Clinton is bemused by your insults. Photograph: Action Press / Rex Photograph: Action Press/REX

To be fair, not every man in the United States was on board the Hillary-as-ball-buster freight train. In 1998, as she was running for Senate in New York, mansplaining boner-prose maestro Tom Junod explored his baser feelings for Clinton. Even Klein's apparently fervent belief, from way back in 2005, that Hillary must be a lesbian strikes one as more pervy, unfulfilled fantasy than true attack. And certainly, there were a fair number of male Pumas in 2008 (and thereafter) whose fervor for her candidacy seemed less than strictly platonic.



But after all of that, can you even now imagine the Hillary of 2008 smiling and comfortable ensconced on a sofa, nearly cuddling with an attractive younger man?

This is British television host Rylan Clark. This is also a lot of women being jealous – at least of that coat. Photograph: Ken McKay / ITV / Rex Photograph: Ken McKay/ITV/REX

Though Hillary the politician stands on the shoulders of giants – Ann Richards, Carol Moseley-Braun, Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm and Geraldine Ferraro among them –Hillary the icon has had a bit of a tougher road to hoe. From treading the line of appropriate womanhood as First Lady (remember her chocolate chip cookie comments?) to betrayed wife (standing by her man is to this day a widely denounced decision) to the junior Senator (head down, nose to the grindstone but in those much-derided pantsuits) to presidential candidate (too emotional and too bitchy) and then Secretary of State, she's been in the spotlight for longer than any celebrity politician but a Kennedy. And in that spotlight, Hillary could hardly succeed for failing at something – and usually that something had to do with being a woman and "doing it wrong".



On some level, that's probably what makes her so relatable to so many women right now. It's clearer than ever that we're all "doing it wrong", as far either some man – or judgmental woman – is concerned: you're doing motherhood wrong, singlehood wrong, marriage wrong, divorce wrong, our jobs wrong, our friendships wrong, staying at home wrong; you're too fat, too thin, too emotional, too cold, too smart, too dumb, too ambitious, too invested in earning your Mrs degree and definitely too self-critical.

But by making her the subject of every criticism under the sun, it's entirely possible that Hillary's critics made her into the Everywoman.

Or maybe what makes her happy is what she sees as her legacy. Photograph: NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images Photograph: NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Of course – as demonstrated by the flap over her book-tour comments about being broke after Bill left office – every woman doesn't run for president. And if Hillary does, the campaign will almost certainly sap her smile of some of that contentedness, and provide a new series of unattractive photos by which people will decide to judge whether she is fit for office. Her popularity will plummet, her enemies will have a field day and someone, somewhere will conduct a poll about whether Americans want to have a beer with her – when, by her No1 hater's own admission, she's clearly a wine drinker. And some women watching will hear something (probably from a man) in the midst of Hillary's next round in the spin cycle that reminds them: it's not that so much that Hillary Clinton's doing it wrong, it's that she's been set up so that she won't ever be able to do it "right".

Or maybe things have changed just enough that no random dude on the campaign trail will demand that she iron his shirt, and no one will ask again how being a grandmother will affect her run for office, and the next pundit who questions whether the cut of her pantsuit is sufficiently sexy will have to close his computer and walk away from the internet until 2017. Perhaps what Rebecca Traister wrote in The New Republic is right: "The degree to which our cultural attitudes about women in politics have matured is astonishing."

Or maybe not. Maybe 2014 doesn't have to be the year of the strong female politician. Maybe it can just be the year of the strong female politician who doesn't give a fuck if you think she's pretty. Who are you, anyway?

