Clinton: Women Govern Differently Than Men

Hillary Clinton has continued her national speaking on what the Democrats should do to win back the White House.  For many, Clinton’s advice after losing to the most unpopular presidential candidate in history strikes a certain dubious note. However, there was an interesting component to some of her last appearances: referring to women as better or at least different leaders because they are women.  It raises a glaring but rarely discussed issue in the media.  The question is whether a male politician would be allowed to claim that voters should vote for him because men govern differently and have special leadership skills do to their gender. It is a view rejected by many women who voted against Clinton — women who Clinton promptly dismissed as controlled by their husbands. It seems like a verboten debate. It is considered fair for politicians to say that being a father or mother makes them a better leader. However, Clinton and others have gone further in suggesting that there is a gender difference to leadership and governing. Activists have argued that women are superior to men as leaders for such reasons as “They know how to spend and save money even when money is scarce.” Even academics are now arguing that women are inherently better leaders.

Clinton was asked whether female leaders govern differently than men.  She immediately responded “of course” to the rapturous applause of the audience. She then pointed to Jacinda Ardern who, after the New Zealand massacre, “showed the heart not only of a leader, but of a mother.” At a time when “Founding Fathers” is viewed as sexist, it is hardly consistent to say that “Founding Mothers” would be celebrated.

Clinton previously raised gender as a something that voters should consider in voting and it was an element of the “I’m with her” campaign in 2016. Nevertheless, according to the New York Times, Clinton carried only 54 percent of the female vote against Donald Trump. However, nearly twice as many white women without college degrees voted for Trump than for Hillary and she basically broke almost even on college-educated white women (with Hillary taking 51 percent). Trump won the majority of white women at 53 percent.

Ironically, Clinton previously stated that she viewed herself as one of the main characters in the series.  I assumed that the character would be such tough women as the Dragon Queen and “Breaker of Chains” Daenerys Targaryen or perhaps the fierce warrior Brienne of Tarth. Instead, Clinton picked the one character that every focus group would likely tell her to avoid at any cost: Cersei Lannister, a loathsome and incestuous character who has no qualms in using torture, murder, lies, and betrayal to attain power.  Indeed, for Clinton critics, Cersei seemed to sum the Clinton era with her statement that “Everyone who isn’t us is an enemy.”

In her book “What Happened,” Clinton described the hate that she encountered from Trump supporters: “Crowds at Trump rallies called for my imprisonment more times than I can count . . . They shouted, ‘Guilty! Guilty!’ like the religious zealots in ‘Game of Thrones’ chanting ‘Shame! Shame!’ while Cersei Lannister walked back to the Red Keep.”   Clinton was referring to a scene where Cersei was forced to walk completely naked through the streets by the High Sparrow as a “walk of atonement.” Of course, Cersei’s status as a mother hardly gave her more “heart” in killing off anyone who stood in her way and ultimately causing the death of her own son. 

I personally fail to see the difference and I have long objected to people who vote with reference to the gender of candidates as I do their race or religion.  Whether politicians are playing a macho or maternal angle, it all strikes me as low-grade effort to claim inherent superiority. I have long viewed all politicians as being crushingly similar in their motivations and actions. It is self-advancement that tends to guide their positions. Indeed, Clinton was ridiculed as changing positions once they became unpopular from opposing same-sex marriage to the Iraq War. Trump has shown the same relativism and self-advancement.

Clinton lost the election because she was the second most unpopular candidate to run for the presidency and has long had low polling for authenticity.  Clinton was also viewed as hawk who not only pushed the country into the disastrous Libyan War but supported the Iraq War.  In her case there was no evidence that gender meant “ many women will govern and lead differently.”

My interest in the statement however is more one of consistency than contentClinton.  It seems that the reference to gender is only worthy of condemnation when made by or about men – unless it is a negative statement about the flaws of male leaders. Consider this hypothetical: a male politicians is asked whether he thinks males govern differently and he says “Of course. Men are fathers and look at problems differently. They must be strong and leaders.”  That politician would be torn apart.  He would be accused of dog whistling sexists and suggesting that women do not have those attributes.  Yet, when Clinton says that women govern differently because they are mothers, it suggests that men categorically are by their gender less compassionate or lack the same “heart.”  

Many in the audience would likely be appalled by a male politicians saying his gender allows him to govern differently or better but they were thrilled by the use of gender by Clinton.  

I frankly do not care if people argue that their gender gives them different strengths or insights or values.  I only believe that the use of gender-based qualification arguments should not also be tied to a refusal to allow the same gender arguments by others.  The media did not raise a single concern over whether the statement that women govern better or differently is sexist or unfair to men.  The fact that Ardern reached out to the Muslim community is hardly distinguishing despite Clinton’s comments.  After 9-11, George Bush reached out to the Muslim community as did Barack Obama and even Donald Trump after attacks.  I considered such efforts to reflect their humanity rather than their gender.

Once again, I am not sold on gender as a criteria or consideration for office. I think it reflects not just an inherent sexism but an overgeneralization of such elements.  Nevertheless, I do not object to people discussing their views of gender so long as they show the same tolerance for such gender-based arguments by male politicians.  

What do you think?

124 thoughts on “Clinton: Women Govern Differently Than Men”

  1. she did this to herself….

    bring it on. she deserves nothing less than the damage she has caused our world

  2. Certain studies do show this as a generality but it isn’t possible to argue from generality to specifics–specifically Clinton is a blood thirsty, evil, lying war criminal who should be leading her way to a jail cell!

    There’s another thing that we know absolutely about human beings. Humans have five sexes. There just isn’t a short cut to learning about a person running for office. Not by color, gender, religion etc. We are still forced to look at the facts of the person’s life who is asking for our support.

    1. “what happened?” Hillary, you did! Recall this coming from your mouth when questioned if you lie: “I try not to.” So your take, noting gender
      accounting for a differing leadership style, is just another “because of misogyny by the misguideds, excuse me for having lost the 2016 election.
      Plain pathetic.

    2. really and here I was thinking there was just two. silly me, very old fashioned!

      remember this:

      just because there are foothills,
      does not mean that plain and mountains do not exist.

  3. It’s a very sad reflection of our electorate that they can be so easily manipulated by politicians. Looking at the styles of Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May, being women certainly wasn’t the determinant factor in how they governed. Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan certainly didn’t view government in the same way because they are men. Every politician is different, that is to be expected. Their life experiences are different. There are differences within the same political party. There are so many factors dangled to attract a voter base and yet so little attention is given towards the one thing designed to keep their varying experiences, styles, differences in check; the constitution.

  4. I know this is going to come as a shock! Men and women are different, and I am not talking only about which bathroom they use. That said, it does not mean that one is better than the other, it just means that each gender often sees things differently. That is not bad, it just is. After managing people for over 30 years, often with more women at the management level than men, I saw both genders manage effectively but differently. We sometimes forget, just because one person (or gender) would do things one way and another would do it another way, doesn’t mean that one is right and other is wrong, it generally means there is more than one way to accomplish an objective.

  5. Bill Clinton sang this song after the cameras were turned off:

    “I’m Hillary the 8th I am!
    Hillary the 8th I am, I am!
    I got married to the genuis next door!
    He’s been married seven times before…
    And, every one was a Hillary.
    Wouldn’t be a Willy or a Fred.
    For there ain’t no ithcBay like Hillary…
    Hillary the 8th I am!”

  6. Women are born with the motherly instinct that probably makes them better at raising kids but has nothing to do with running a country. Hillary didn’t lose because she was a woman; she lost because it was evident she orchestrated a plan to frame Trump and exonerate herself. i.e. tarmac meeting, fake dossier, deleted emails, wiretapping Trump, Hollywood tape, insurance plan, Stormy, Dr. Ford, Mueller Probe, and on and on. Hillary is a shining example that not just men break the law. It’s equal opportunity. “We’ve come a long way baby.”

  7. Hillary never read the Good Book.

    She thinks others, the government, should care for the “little people”.
    May God forgive her for the sins she commits with deception and being the face of evil.

    “The discovery of faith is not an individual experience of the love of God for me, but must translate into human relationships,” Ouellet said. “If there isn’t the sacrament of the brother, of the community, faith does not grow.”

    https://cruxnow.com/church-in-europe/2019/04/10/faith-means-overcoming-division-and-envy-canadian-cardinal-says/

  8. Turley wrote, “The question is whether a male politician would be allowed to claim that voters should vote for him because men govern differently and have special leadership skills do [sic] to their gender.”

    Or the questions could be: Would male politicians be allowed to conduct only 22 Congressional hearings on the September Eleventh terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans in New York, New York while conducting 21 Congressional hearings on the Bengazi terrorist attack that killed 4 Americans in Bengazi Libya? Follow up questions might include why male politicians did not conduct any Congressional hearings on the 39 terrorist attacks that killed more than 60 Americans before the 2012 attack on the U. S. Embassy in Bengazi?

      1. Excerptd from the article linked above:

        Less reported are the 20 fatal attacks on U.S. embassies and embassy staff during the George W. Bush administration, with 13 of the attacks happening at American consulates.

        Some 87 people were killed during the 20 attacks, and 24 of them were either U.S. embassy workers or U.S. civilians.

      1. Excerpted from the article linked above:

        In May 2014, our U.S representative, John Garamendi, stated, “During the George W. Bush period, there were 13 attacks on various embassies and consulates around the world. Sixty people died.”

        But that’s not quite true. Politifact found 39 attacks or attempted attacks on U.S. embassies and personnel and came up with a death toll of 87.

        How many congressional committees questioned Republican President Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state, George Schultz, after the April 18, 1983, U.S. embassy bombing in Beirut that killed 63 people or, six months later, when another Beirut bomber killed 241 Marines?

        [end excerpt]

        Obviously men govern men differently than men govern women. Obviously. But the woman, herself, is supposedly wrong for saying what the men refuse to admit even to themselves and to their fellow good old boys.

        1. Did David Brock double your salary as his paid troll?
          Kinda feel sorry for you given how the idiocy of your people in politics are making your job inhumane, kinda like a slave pre- Civil War working on a plantation for your slave owners

          just saying

          1. Your pity is less than worthless. In fact, your pity is actually spite. And that means that you will never know what virtue really is, you swishy sissy-man, you.

            1. Every time L4B tries to act macho ( like calling guys “punks” or “swishy men”), the best she can manage is Butch.

          2. Estovir,
            It’s “highly probable” that Brock and Soros have her entire coven on the payroll. Soros has so many branch organizations that he can’t keep track of salary issues for all of his trolls.
            I don’t think Brock himself is rich enough to double L4B’s salary, plus the inevitable demands for pay increases that would come from other cove members after such a big boost for her.

        2. And what is that, you ask? Only four Americans were killed on Her watch. Just look at the numbers cited above for Americans killed on His watch. Just look at it.

          (I’ve got my spanking gloves on, today, gentlemen.)

          1. It’s highly probable her glove is well-worn from use on her fellow coven members, but L4D’s peccadilloes have limited appeal outside of her coven cocoon.

    1. There was 9-11 Commission composed of prominent bipartisan people. Not all investigations are done by soley by Congressional Committees, and with good reason. The numbers presented about the lack of Congressional investigations into 9-11, or it’s improper emphasis relative to other Congressional investigations, are misleading absent the context of the 9-11 Commission.

      1. And yet there was nothing misleading about the statement you are now trying to obfuscate; namely, that there were 22 Congressional hearings on the September Eleventh attacks and 21 Congressional hearings on Bengazi.

        It is now time for personal spanking. Drop your drawers and bend over at the waist.

        1. Without getting into the specific weird practices said to be common within your coven, the comment I made was concise, clear-cut, and relevant. I understand why a lying, Dianese propagandist shrew would not comprehend that.
          Not everyone has those limitations and reading comprehensive disabilities Lies4Breakfast has. And not everyone whose stock-in-trafe is obfuscation would repeatedly deflect by rolling out a moronic claim of obfuscation like L4B just did; that stunt takes an especially chicken**** individual like her to pull.
          Those stunts don’t necessarily impress those outside of her immediate circle/ pentagram.

          1. 63 people were killed at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut when George Schultz was Secretary of State. There were zero Congressional investigations of that incident. 4 Amaericans were killed in the attack on the US Embassy in Bengazi when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. And there were 7 Congressional investigations of that incident. Clinton did a better job of protecting American lives than Schultz did. Hillary was investigated because she was not a man. Schultz was not investigated because he was a man. Men govern other men differently than men govern women. Because the men are cowards.

            1. The single car bombing attact on the embassy was followed up on the same year, I think, with the Marine Barracks Truck bomb that killed about 240 Marines.
              Given what was known about the powderkeg of Lebanon, the lax security at the Marine Barracks was inexcusable. The subsequent Congressional hearings pointed primarily at the military commanders lack of adequate security/ preparations to protect the Marines.
              As far as I know, there were no Congressional investigation on the Beirut Embassy car bombing earlier in the year; the subsequent investigations seemed to be done by a panel appointed by the State Dept.
              I won’t go into all of the reasons for this, but Sec. of State Schultz was considered to be far more credible and trustworthy than Sec. Clinton 30 years later. So there are reasons why Congress was willing to wait for the State Dept. panel’s report. If the Reagan Administration had tried to float a similar “it was a video” story, Congress’ reaction might have been far different.
              If this had happened two months before a presidential election and Reagan had just overthrown the previous government, there might have been a different story.
              There is a context that’s relevant to any given major terrorist attack and the aftermath, esp. the investigative part of the aftermath .That’s true whether it’s the 17 Americans killed in the 1983 Lebanon embassy bombings, the 240-250 Marine killed later that year, the Al Queda simultaneous bombings at the two U.S. embassy bombings in 19998, the Cole bombing in 2000, etc.
              Some were followed by Congressional hearings and some were not. Some deferred, at least partially, to outside ( of Congressional) investigations. E.G., I don’t think the integrity or credibility of the bipartisan 9- 11 was questioned by Congress. Nor was the integrity or credibility of Sec. Schultz seriously questioned bty Congress..
              I don’t think remember if Congressional. Committees themselves investigated in the aftermath of the Al Queda embassy bombings and Cole bombing.

              1. Seven consecutive Congressional investigations of the attack on the US Embassy in Benghazi. Not one. Not two. Not even just three. But seven–count ’em–seven consecutive Congressional hearings on Benghazi. And, yes, the State Department conducted its own review of Benghazi. So eight investigations of Benghazi all told.

                Never before in the history of the United States has any terrorist attack against a US Embassy or Consulate been the subject of seven consecutive Congressional investigations–until Hillary Clinton (a woman) served as Secretary of State during the 2012 terrorist attack on the US Embassy in Benghazi. Not Schultz, not Baker, not Powell. (All men.)

                Now go back and compare the death tolls between Benghazi (4 Americans killed) versus the whole lot of the other incidents in which the Secretary of State was a man. Even if you could manage to find just one Congressional hearing held on each of those incidents, still, there’s no way that you’re going to cough up 21 Congressional hearings on any of those other incidents. And you know it. And you don’t care about knowingly coughing up lame-brained farragos on this here blawg.

      2. Read the 9-11 Commission Report, genius, is you can find time to step off of your propaganda platform. WikiLedia probably has a Readers Digest version you might understand.

        1. Turley wanted an answer to the question whether a male politician would be allowed to claim that voters should vote for him because men govern differently and have special leadership skills. I’m answering Turley’s question. You are running away from Turley’s question like a BB in a box car. You’ll put your eye out.

          1. I commented on your complaint about the alleged lack of proportiate Congressional investigations after 9-11. Comments to others who opened up that topic are not uncommon.
            My response was presented fairly briefly in a way that even you could understand, should you choose to. But instead you pull one of your common scummy stunts, at at that point, the “exchange” morphs into an extensive untangling of the slop L4B likes to pour on any discussion.
            That is, as I noted, your stock in trade and common as dirt for internet trolls like you.
            I’ve noted before that any “exchange” with L Fool D requires 5-10 times it takes to make the original comments, just to review and untangle what she has intentionally distorted.
            People might ignore it when internet scum pull that stunt the first few dozen times, or maybe even the first few hundred times. Eventually, some may make note of it and politely, tactfully point out that it takes a truly special anonymous, low-life piece of trash like her to pull those stunts hundreds of times.
            That comes as natural to her as breathing. – Tom, the site isn’t providing a log in space.

    2. It’d be interesting to know the circumstances of the other deaths of Ambassadors, diplomats, embassy guards etc. included in that number.
      Also, how many of those deaths resulted in the chaos unleased shortly after the U.S. was instrumental in taking out the previous government.
      There was a reason that “the video/ spontaneous uprising” trial balloon was initially rolled out. Two months before the 2012 election, when the Benghazi Consulate attack happened, Obama Administration did not want to draw attention to the consewuences of taking out the Khaddafi government less than a year before.

  9. Someone is forgetting about homeostasis: that balance of powers that keeps the human body alive. Plus, of course, the ancient wisdom of Eros and Thanatos. Yin/ Yang, etc. Taken on a greater scale than sordid personalities and forgettable names, someone, somewhere has got to restore the balance of powers in America. Now that she’s stopped participating in the Warrior Death Game, Hillary tried. We haven’t heard Motherhood celebrated since the 1950s, much less on the global stage. I doubt that any man on the planet could promote Eros in the same wise way.

    1. Pleeeze! Hillary promoting Motherhood?! She’s the one who made Motherhood a point of shame: “I’m not home baking cookies. . .”

  10. The left can either claim that there is no difference between the sexes or they can claim a difference between how men and women would govern based on their gender. They cannot have it both ways.

    1. NO one can have it both ways.

      However, one can think there are real differences, not just in biology but behaviors, and still favor equal rights.

      1. and I should have included, roughly proportional, ie. for the sexes, representation.

  11. JT ignores an interesting question answered by Hillary – whether one agrees or disagrees with her – about the differences between the sexes in our social relations and what that means about political leadership. While women in general do communicate and collaborate more than men, they may also be more prone to feeling betrayed – BFF! – and even more territorial than men, without the physical macho component. JT then restates the tired “we are all equal and should be beyond special pleading” argument so popular with many white males on 3rd base. No, we’re not, and the unrepresentative government – among other institutions – by gender that we have is as clear as possible on this point. Discussing that fact and promoting the virtues of the disenfranchised are valid points.

    1. While women in general do communicate and collaborate more than men,

      While women in general hold more meanings and longer meetings all devoted to fussing over turf and process, process, process…

      FIFY

    2. “promoting the virtues of the disenfranchised . . .” is just another way the left claims special dispensation for whatever puppet group they need to inflame. It’s all about power to the DNC. Plain and simple.

  12. Well when I need advice on how to lose the unloseable, I’ll consult Clinton. Until then, she remains an unloveable, sore loser with very little to offer. As for gender-based rulers, I do appreciate Clinton taking the very conservative position that genders are different, do matter and have different outcomes. I find that when women govern like strong men (Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher) they are successful but when they govern like weak women (Theresa May, Nancy Pelosi) they are less so. Of course, Men and women can be either strong or weak. History shows more men with the trait than women but there are notable exceptions — Cleopatra, Queen Boudicca of the Iceni, Catherine the Great, Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth to name just a few.

    1. I remember reading about how Margaret Thatcher had to learn how to project her voice so as to be taken seriously. Women tend to get shrill when we raise our voices (unless you are a barn boss mare.) When a woman’s voice gets higher and higher, listeners intuitively do not take her seriously. She had to learn how to project her voice properly, keeping the tenor the same, and projecting in a strong, clear voice, in order to be truely heard.

      I found that so interesting. Such a subtle way to project strength and confidence.

  13. Everybody is ignoring Hillary except for Professor Jonathan Turley, who just can’t stop flogging a spent Mare. It is pathological.

    1. Hillary is more like an annoying vampire than a “spent mare.” You have to keep driving that stake in time and again lest she rises to walk among the living and bore us to death in her quest for the White House. Get thee behind me, Hillary. Thou art an offense to us all.

      1. Embellish the martial prowess of the vanquished to your heart’s content. Drag Hector’s corpse thrice around the citadel walls or the mulberry bush as the case may be. Whatever it takes to make a scary monster out of a popped weasel. Have at it. But lay off RBG.

    2. Are L4D and “Late4Dinner” aka “Late4Yoga” one in the same? I have to ask, because I tend to agree with this statement. Even Trump seems to be backing off of beating on that old gassy mare. Hopefully Trump and his campaign not taking likely current real threat i.e. Sneaky Mayor Pete. The rest of the Dems are bumbling stumbling idiots crawling over each other each other in race to appease AOC fans.

    3. Unless you are using a breeding metaphor with Hillary Clinton, it’s “flog a dead horse”.

  14. She didn’t remark that women might prosper more in public offices where collegial decision-making is the order of the day (as it commonly is in parliamentary systems) and prosper more in situations where politics isn’t high stakes. (National government in small countries, local government in suburbs).

    What Joseph Sobran said of Hillary applies, “…like egalitarians from Joseph Stalin to Bella Abzug, a terror to work for”. It’s doubtful she’s suitable for institutional leadership in any venue.

  15. It’s almost jejune to point out that if liberals did not have double standards, they’d have no standards at all.

    What we’ve seen over the last 60 years has been a revision of the division of labor between men and women in occidental societies, brought about by cultural shifts which lagged behind changes in technology. You’ve also had since about 1970 escalating efforts to make use of administrative regulation, judicial decreee, and (on occasion) statutory legislation to jam more women into situations they would not occupy in the absence of contrivance. Its a reasonable inference that systematic efforts to reduce the presence of young men in higher education are now bog standard.

    What we can see from these efforts and from examining employment statistics is that there are a number of venues where in a legal and social regime befitting a system of natural liberty, women so employed would be at least atypical and sometimes almost absent.

    Among hourly employees, that would include transportation workers (bar bus drivers), production workers (with the exception of those working in laundries, the food processing industry, the garment industry, light appliance assembly, and laboratories); installation, maintenance, and repair; the building trades; buildings and grounds workers (housekeepers excepted); protective service workers (private detectives and crossing guards excepted).

    Among salaried employees, that would include engineering (bar architecture, which has an aesthetic component), computer and mathematical occupations (in a more qualified way, as there are collecting pools of women in web development, database administration, statistics &c).

    As for managers, we have every reason to believe that in the absence of incipient legal harassment, they’d be largely confined to subsectors where the workforce is dominated by women (and weak operational measures of competence are the order of the day) and largely confined to small operations.

    Ideally, legislators would take their counsel from Richard Epstein and eliminate employment discrimination law, leaving only a residue of permission for tort claims for near criminal conduct in workplace settings (harassment, extortion). In the public sector, written examinatoins and manual performance tests should be the order of the day (with NO gender-norming). With an authentic set of common standards, it’s doubtful the women’s share of those employed in the military or in the uniformed police would exceed low-single-digits.

  16. Two words: Theresa May.

    Why does no journalist ask HRC what she thinks of May’s governance?

  17. The Democrat Party is proudly sexist. It is common parlance to disparage men, especially white men.

    The problem with identity politics is that they are inherently bigoted.

    True diversity is diversity of ideas, skills, and manner of thinking. When you are trying to deal with a difficult problem, you can assemble a team with different strengths to attack it from all sides. In fact, there is an investigational new drug in cancer research, showing great promise, that was the brainchild of a chemist whose wife took The Red Death chemo. He had none of the preconceived notions of an oncologist. He looked it from his own unique perspective, both as a chemist, and as someone whose loved one was taking poison in the hopes it would kill her cancer before it killed her.

    A true meritocracy does not consider race, gender, or sexual orientation.

    1. Ha, ha, ha! I wish HRC would go away but the idea offered in response that men/ conservatives view government as a meritocracy while liberals do not is as. absurd as saying women have always had equal rights! Women can government as well as men. As a result, some women fail and do some men. The difference is that women who fail are said to have failed because they are women and that therefore women can’t govern.

      1. Women can government as well as men. A

        1. Government isn’t a verb.

        2. We have no grand reason to subscribe to this statement.

        1. Absurd ×3 “We have no grand reason…..”

          Wrong. It is commanded to us with the age-old mothers’ retort “Because I say so!” 🤰

    1. Give us Uncle Joe as the 2020 nominee. With two gaffe-prone candidates sticking their feet in their mouths, a Trump-Biden race would be the most the most entertaining in history.
      Trump could briefly have Melania appear on a debate stage, then have the Secret Service swarm and protectively pull her back if Biden approaches to greet or shake hands with her.

        1. All of the women competing with Biden, and will be on the debate stage(s) with him, will be the ones who need to worry about Uncle Joe’s hair-sniff test.
          What’s the Muslim women’s head garb called ….habij?….maybe Biden’s women opponents will were them during the debates.

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