--- title: Hillary Clinton: Carly Fiorina Shouldn't Get a Pass as Woman description: Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton says Republican rival Carly Fiorina should not be judged any differently just because she is a woman canonical: https://time.com/4070291/hillary-clinton-carly-fiorina-planned-parenthood/ author: Jay Newton-Small article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-12T21:21:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:42:26.747Z article:section: Politics og:title: Clinton: Fiorina Shouldn't Get a Pass Because She's a Woman og:description: "People need to hold women’s policies up to light." og:url: https://time.com/4070291/hillary-clinton-carly-fiorina-planned-parenthood/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf67bad5ff71f1da1/698868033c1639061b45a319/hillary-clinton7.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Clinton: Fiorina Shouldn't Get a Pass Because She's a Woman twitter:description: "People need to hold women’s policies up to light." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf67bad5ff71f1da1/698868033c1639061b45a319/hillary-clinton7.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Exclusive: Clinton Says Fiorina Shouldn't Get a Pass Because She's a Woman > Sponsored content. 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Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: 5 Surprising Things About Carly Fiorina [Watch (HLS stream): 5 Surprising Things About Carly Fiorina](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/iRMLNlOn.m3u8) (1:37)  _Published 2015-09-18. 5 Surprising Things about Carly Fiorina_  by [Jay Newton-Small](https://time.com/author/jay-newton-small/)  ## Jay Newton-Small Oct 12, 2015 9:21 PM UTC  Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a town hall event at Manchester Community College, on Oct. 5, 2015. Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a town hall event at Manchester Community College, on Oct. 5, 2015.The Washington Post/Getty Images  by [Jay Newton-Small](https://time.com/author/jay-newton-small/)  ## Jay Newton-Small Oct 12, 2015 9:21 PM UTC Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton says Republican rival Carly Fiorina should not be judged any differently just because she is the only woman candidate in the Republican presidential race. “I’m always in favor of women running,” she told TIME in an exclusive interview. “But people need to hold women’s policies up to light and determine what their answers to problems would be before deciding to support them. I’m willing to subject myself to that process and try to earn every vote; I assume any woman running would do the same.” Clinton was responding to a question about whether Fiorina had been treated differently than other male candidates in the Republican primary. The fuller contents of the interview conducted on Friday will be included in my forthcoming book, _Broad Influence: How Women Are Changing the Way America Works_, which will be published in January. “Obviously, I disagree fundamentally with a number of positions that she’s put forward. I think that her full-throated, inaccurate attack on Planned Parenthood was really ill-advised and inflammatory,” Clinton said of Fiorina. Those remarks were an unusual direct criticism of Fiorina. Clinton had previously been critical of the Republican discussion of Planned Parenthood at the last debate, which included Fiorina’s description of a video that does not exist. “Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain,” [Fiorina said](http://time.com/4037239/second-republican-debate-transcript-cnn/). She was describing silent video footage that was edited together with a voiceover from a separate interview. The publisher of the original footage, which doctors say could show the aftermath of an abortion or a miscarriage, has not identified the source of the video or alleged that the footage was taken from a Planned Parenthood facility. **Read More:** [_Watch Carly Fiorina Talk About the First Female President in 2002_](http://time.com/4048592/carly-fiorina-woman-president/) It’s something of a milestone that there are two strong female candidates on both sides running for President this cycle, and it’s been interesting to watch how they interact with one another. Fiorina has been able to attack Clinton in ways her male rivals cannot. “\[Clinton\] tweets about women’s rights in this country and takes money from governments that deny women the most basic human rights,” Fiorina told the Conservative Political Action Conference in February. “She tweets about equal pay for women but won’t answer basic questions about her own offices’ pay standards — and neither will our President. Hillary likes hashtags. But she doesn’t know what leadership means.” Fiorina in recent weeks has made criticism of Planned Parenthood a central theme of her campaign, refusing to back down when reporters have repeatedly pointed out the inaccuracies of her debate claims. Fiorina herself has long scoffed at the “War on Women” slogan of Democrats. “The ‘War on Women’ is shameless, baseless propaganda. There’s no fact to it. But it’s worked because it’s scared women to death,” Fiorina [told CNN](http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1407/06/sotu.01.html) last year. Clinton has refrained from directly attacking or addressing Fiorina until now. Instead, she has long maintained that much of the Republican field would be bad representatives for women in the Oval Office. She has pointed to Marco Rubio’s antiabortion stance even in cases of rape, incest or when a mother’s life is at risk, and Jeb Bush, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz’s opposition to the Paycheck Fairness Act. Clinton has repeatedly sold her campaign in part based on the potentially historic nature of her candidacy. But Clinton is now arguing that a President Fiorina would be as bad as her male Republican counterparts for women. In other words, all female candidates are not created equal. As to whether or not Fiorina is actually getting treated differently by her fellow Republican candidates, Clinton said she would let Fiorina answer the question. “She will have to speak for herself,” Clinton said. **Read Next:** [_Hillary Clinton, Republicans Play Different 2016 Gender Cards_](http://time.com/3969997/hillary-clinton-trump-mcconnell-gender-mcconnell/) ### See Hillary Clinton's Evolution in 20 Photos  Teenager: Hillary Rodham poses in her 1965 senior class portrait from Park Ridge East High School in Illinois. AP  Law School Student: Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham pose for a snapshot at Yale Law School in 1972\. They married in 1975. Clinton Presidential Library  Mother: Clinton poses with her husband, Bill, then in his first term as governor, with their week-old daughter, Chelsea, on March 5, 1980. Donald R. Broyles—AP  Campaign Companion: Clinton celebrates her husband's victory in a Democratic runoff in Little Rock, Ark. on June 8, 1982. AP  Arkansas First Lady: Clinton is seen in her inaugural ball gown in 1985. A. Lynn—AP  Political Wife: Clinton celebrates her husband's inauguration in Little Rock on Sept. 20, 1991. Danny Johnston—AP  Dignitary: Clinton receives an honorary law degree from Hendrix College in Conway, Ark., on May 30, 1992. Chris Ocken—AP  Campaigner: Clinton speaks at a meeting during the presidential campaign for her husband in Buffalo, N.Y., on April 4, 1992. Bill Sikes—AP  First Lady: Clinton appears at the MTV Inauguration Ball at the Washington Convention Center on Jan. 20, 1993. Shayna Brennan—AP  Second-Term First Lady: Clinton attends the Inaugural Ball after her husband was sworn in to a second term on Jan. 20, 1997. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  New York Senator: Clinton speaks at a press conference with female Democratic senators in Washington on June 21, 2006. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Committee Member: Clinton listens to the testimony of Lt. General David Petraeus to the Senate Armed Forces Committee at a hearing on Capital Hill in Washington on Jan. 23, 2007. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Candidate: Clinton holds a a campaign event in Portsmouth, N.H., while running for the Democratic presidential nomination on Sept. 2, 2007. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Campaigner: Clinton speaks at a campaign stop in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Jan. 2, 2008. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Secretary of State: Clinton kisses President Obama at a joint session of Congress in Washington on Feb. 24, 2009. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Witness: Clinton joins Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Dec. 3, 2009. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Witness: Clinton testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Jan. 23, 2013. J. Scott Applewhite—AP  Author: Clinton attends a signing memoir, "Hard Choices," at a Costco in Arlington, Va., on June 14, 2014. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Grandmother: Clinton holds her granddaughter Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City on Sept. 27, 2014. Office of President Clinton/AP  Once and Future Candidate: Clinton speaks at Iowa Senator Tom Harkin's annual Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa, on Sept. 14, 2014. 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