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Apparently, that's the new definition of "feminism."
While I agree with most of your post and most of your reasons for not supporting this woman, I do think there has been sexism in this race. The frequent referrals to Clinton as a Bitch, a ball breaker and nagging are just a few. The endless discussions of her tears "are they real or fake" are another example. No one does that when Bush or one of the boys tears up. I think we are so use to a lot of the sexism that happens that we don't notice it as much sometimes. Does it really make a difference or is anything approaching more than what she should have been prepared for? No. But it has been there. I don't think you can mention Mathews in January without finding a sexist comment or a hundred.
Does that mean that it is the reason she is losing? No, but it also doesn't mean it isn't there.
I have not been a fan from the beginning. I just think it send the wrong message for the first woman President to be a former first lady. It does not mean that I would not have supported her had she won, I would have. It also doesn't mean I don't think she is unqualified for the job. I just didn't like the vibe of the whole thing. Then there is the whole the Clintons will say anything to win. Which recent weeks have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt.
So while she does not speak for me nor does NY NOW or EMILY'S List, I believe there has been sexism in this race. The racial aspects have trumped it and been more of an issue but it has been there.
I'd also ask, is it sexist when I call a gay an asshole? It's a word I primarily use for guys. Just like some people use "bitch" for women. Is asshole sexist when it's used against women? Is asshole sexist when it's used against men, since it's primarily used against men and not women (just like bitch is used against women). I'm really not joking or trying to be an ass, I'm just curious about this concept of insults as sexist per se.
Moreover, the Obama campaign has NEVER brought up his gender as a positive reason to vote for him that Clinton can't match.
It's unfortunate that the same is not true of the analogous claim about Clinton/race.
http://www.americablog.com/2008/05/kerry-2004ca.... Although I have no sympathy for HRC, I found that post deeply offensive.
I always compared Bush to the monster that kept coming back after the villagers burned him and drowned him and riddled him with machine gun fire.
(Kind of lost its effect now, but when he was giving orders to the Repub congress and beating the shit out of the Dems on a weekly basis, it made sense.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Duane_Jones_...
http://www.freakingnews.com/President-George-De...
btw, night of the living dead was a great film :)
understanding and interpreting the subject. There are many fictional characters and
real-life people that could be used, John chose a woman who bore the symbolic
yoke of menstruation.
Was that lost upon you?
What would count as sexism then?
In a message dated 5/28/2008 9:21:21 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
writes:
If this is to you an example of sexism, then you have no understanding of
sexism.
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I was the reader who first made the comparison.
I just saw a cartoonish monster who wanted to take vengeance on the party, and that seemed to fit the bill..
Sorry if I missed the whole "symbolic yoke of menstruation" thing.
Geeze.
Ivey "the Tiger Woods of poker." It is as though their vocabulary is
constrained by his race. Moreover, I don't think HRC is motivated by revenge at
this moment, rather a deluded belief that she can still be the nominee, which
would make the comparison inapt.
In a message dated 5/28/2008 9:52:19 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
writes:
Now I get where you're coming from.
a black who excelled in a predominately white activity. Really, if this is
your best critique, you should fold your tent.
In a message dated 5/28/2008 10:19:05 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
writes:
So you see Tiger Woods as an African-American and not also as a golf genius?
Now I get where you're coming from.
**************Get trade secrets for amazing burgers. Watch "Cooking with
Tyler Florence" on AOL Food.
(http://food.aol.com/tyler-florence?video=4&?NCI...)
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on gender.
ps:
Take it from me, it's not a good idea to comment in a public forum when you are high.
1: prejudice or discrimination based on sex; especially : discrimination
against women
2: behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social
roles based on sex
I contend the post referenced was an instance of definition 2.
As for you snide aside about commenting while high, I would appreciate it if
you would address the substance of my comments rather than speculate upon the
contents of my substances.
Just to be clear -- I do not think HRC lost due to sexism. Indeed I believe
that were it not for racism, Obama would have secured the nomination seven
weeks ago. I decry her hiding behind sexism, but kid yourself not -- sexism
has reared its Botox laden head many times in this campaign.
In a message dated 5/28/2008 9:45:14 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
writes:
She hired incompetent fools to staff her campaign, people who couldn't be bothered to read the basic rules governing the Democratic primary; she had a strategy that was supposed to end the race on Super Tuesday with no plan for the road beyond; she took a condescending and dismissive attitude toward the states that caucus; she made a shameless attempt to steal delegates from the bogus primaries in Michigan and Florida; she compared McCain favorably to Obama, a treasonous act for a Democrat; she lied on four separate occasions about her flight into Bosnia; she also lied about her stance on NAFTA; she had to fire a campaign manager and her chief strategist; and she was forced to loan money to her own campaign, yet she is still over $20 million in debt.
So now Hillary is hanging around in the race making life miserable for Obama and the whole Party because she is trying to make some kind of statement about gender. In my estimation, Hillary Clinton is making it harder for the next woman candidate, because her petulant and irrational behavior is playing right into the stereotype held by misognystic men. Hillary Clinton is not a victim of sexism; she's just a lousy candidate.
Hillary's had the worst run campaign I've ever seen.
Financially, strategically, politically.....a total failure.
But, from the beginning, if you supported Obama, you got lambasted by her rabid supporters and that in turn made me feel even more against Hillary then if they behaved in a civilized way.
But, of the women out there to admire, Hillary has never been one. I cannot see someone like McCaskill or Pelosi resorting to the tactics and victimhood and encouraging her supporters to behave more like rightwing fringies as Hillary has done.
I don't see them cozying up to Fox and the right in order to destroy a fellow democrat or push her agenda the way Hillary has done.
I will never concider Hillary to be a woman to look to as a role model or a woman to admire.
problem is, you can't whine about it. you have to earn respect and she just played the pander game like every male who came before her. she's not The One.
Women need to ask themselves - would such a power hungry biaatch succeed in advancing our rights or setting them back by decades? Billary has the highest negatives of any candidate in history (even Bush). Can our nation afford to let s/he put this whole nation at risk again by bankrupting our economy and forcing a socialized medicine plan on the public against their will?
This isn't to say Obama (or Edwards for that matter) didn't have crosses to bear, they have. But the topic on the table is the kind of crap Hillary's had to endure, and that crap has often been definied by sexist terms. Think back to the early days of a campaign. You might not have been 100% pleased with the concept of her inevitability, but she wasn't the load she is now, either. The party wasn't as skittish as it is now. When Clinton was attacked by the right or by the supposedly neutral MSM, it was often based on the weaknesses associated with women. Was she strong enough to negotiate with MALE world leaders? Could she be a CiC? And when her bona fides weren't being questioned, dillweeds like Chris Matthews were talking up how manly Giuliani or Thompson or McCain or Bush or any of the losers are. Can't help but notice the distinction. If Matthews praises some people's masculinity, then masculinity must be a good thing to have. If Hillary doesn't have it...uh-oooooh...
Again, I'm just as fed up with HRC as many people on this board, and I don't defend her as if I'm hoping she keeps fighting. But there has been sexism in the race, maybe not from Obama to Clinton, but certainly in the coverage of the presidential race, and coming from the right. To pretend it doesn't exist only gives the Clinton camp ammo that Obama supporters "just don't get it," and that, we don't need.
As for her being a 'bitch' and stuff like that, IMO, I think it's a stretch to see it as 'sexism'. No one thinks twice about the sexism involed when folks refer to our president as a "bastard" -- and who here hasn't called him that at some point! LOL
These are terms that happen to fit their gender, but they are not usually an attack ON their gender. Terms like these are so common in our society that most people hurl them without having a deeper meaning behind them.
Hillary just happens to be the first major female candidate running for president so certain disparaging remarks are being heard that aren't normally heard in a presidential race, but there have been plenty of terms that have been used to describe male politicians over the years that almost exclusively fit their gender.
Here is an exercise: Close your eyes and picture Mitt Romney boasting about how he wanted to DOUBLE the size of Guantanamo and notice if the first thing that comes to your mind isn't a term that also just happens to fit his gender as well. ;-)
"If Matthews praises some people's masculinity, then masculinity must be a good thing to have. If Hillary doesn't have it...uh-oooooh..."
But if Matthews had praised Senator Clinton's femininity, or had said that she smelled good (as he did about Fred Thompson), would that have been jumped on as completely inappropriate? (Which it would have been).
Sexism, as with other isms, is often in the eyes of the beholder. If a person is convinced that they are the target of bias, they will view many interactions in that light. This does not mean that they actually ARE being unfairly treated, just that they feel they are. When listening to Geraldine Ferraro rattle off her list of occasions that Clinton had been the target of sexism, the only thing that came to mind was, "You've got to be kidding!"
People are often unkind, unfair, and sometimes even downright offensive. But that doesn't mean they are being biased - just unpleasant.
Besides wouldn't it be sexist if people DIDN'T say the mean and nasty things that they normally would just because they were talking to/about a woman? As a woman, if I call McSame a motherf*cker, am I being sexist? Or if I call him that, then I call Clinton a b*tch, is that sexist towards her, even though I am also female? (And, by the way, f*ck both of them AND the horses the rode in on!).
I suppose I should now apologize for saying "rattle-off" in reference to Ferraro, as this belittles her actions and speech as a woman, and I should also apologize to Clinton for my comment about her and the horse, as that may be sexist as well. Or maybe I should apologize to McCain about the horse, as it could be construed as being sexist to mention a man and a horse in the same sentence?
I am SOOOOOOOOOOO ready for these primaries to be over. AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
Most of the things called 'sexist' were not sexist . The ONLY instance I can think of was when those yahoos were holding signs at a Hillary rally that said "Iron My Shirt". I mean, that's technically sexism, but that not one campaign doing it to her or the media doing it to her. That's just a couple clowns causing trouble and probably got labeled as 'Obama supporters' in the process.
There are all of these built in excuses that the media is part of the problem, blah, blah, blah... but no one except for her blind followers can see it. And they see it because they want to see it. There has been very little sexism during this campaign.
Now, when we turn to racism, I submit the following: Hillary's people always say that Obama "played the race card". This is because their attacks forced him to make a carefully considered speech on race in America, the first one in decades by a politician that addressed the issue in shades of gray. And of course, who can forget Hillary's remark that "Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again." Also, her little trick of darkening Obama's complexion in a campaign ad, or releasing the picture of Obama in traditional garb when he visited Kenya in 2006, and I could go on at length. I don't believe that Hillary is racist, but her tactics are unacceptable, and her surrogates like Ferraro are almost certainly racist.
This whole thing is stupid and, frankly, I am ashamed of weak and stupid women who fall for it. (And yes, I have been "too busy" to pay attention -- and I did anyway. (Funny that they are SO overworked, but still have time to watch teevee.) Sorry, but I have been there and done that.)
I have no respect for those women for buying into Hillary's BS.
Nonetheless, I will say that while I don't think that sexism has anything to do with the fact that Hillary lost, was a terrible candidate and ran a terrible campaign...
it seems to me that there was a non-trivial amount of sexism in the race.
e.g. This cover of The New Republic, which paints Hillary as hysterical, with mentions of psychodrama and getting verklempt. I'll allow that if they had a similar picture of Romney, they would have used that, but all of that together adds up to at least one quantum of sexism.
The media coverage of Hillary crying.
The crap about Hills wearing pantsuits.
And while a lot of what people are saying is sexism is crap (2), I think I have to respectfully disagree and state that I believe that there has been a non-trivial amount of sexism in this race.
Whatever minority group you are with, whining does not help. Hillary whines. She is a wimp. I'm done with her.
The examples sited below by Mr Gill, the pictures of Clinton's emotional moments in public...by virtue of Clinton being a woman these things seemed sexist to YOU, but actually, they are news no matter what your gender is. And The New Republic "painting" Clinton as hysterical. Well, she rather is compared to most other PEOPLE I know, both male and female. Because she is female her "passionate" expressions are expected aspects of women? The very fact that you call her "Hills" and not "Clinton", as I've seen a lot of people do, call the male candidates by their last names, but Clinton they call a cutesy little nickname, THAT my dear is sexist. Apparently, sexism is in the eye of the beholder. Just the opinion of a 50+ oppressed white woman who thinks Clinton is making women look bad. She's using the stereotype politically, and that is so beneath most PEOPLE I know.
That is the stereotype to which most people are referring when they talk of the hysterical woman .
But I don't see any headlines talking about how the male candidates are wearing pantsuits. Which they are.
And I'll totally own up to using Hills, and admit that it's sexist. If Romney were still in the race, I'd be calling him Mittens, and if Huckles were still around, I'd probably be calling him that, too.
McSame/McLame always seemed uninspired.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...
McCain wears crew-neck sweaters with his shirt, tie and suit jacket. This style flatters some people, namely those who are relatively lanky through the torso, because it keeps them from looking like the proverbial stuffed shirt. It works on those who tend toward a professorial style and in whose wardrobe suede elbow patches would not be out of place. The style also is appropriate for those whose voices have yet to change and who count Thomas the Tank Engine as their favorite diversion. The senator is not among those people.
He seems to wear these sweaters because they are warm. And indeed, the historical record has captured him campaigning in Vermont, in the snow, in a suit jacket and sweater. But he would cut a more sophisticated image if he took off the sweater and wore an overcoat. Gloves wouldn't hurt, either.
Or from 'Fortune' -
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_...
(Fortune Magazine) -- Willard Mitt Romney looks great in a suit. Which is good for him, because all day "Matinee Mitt" has been wearing a crisp, gray number. Speeches, grip-and-grin events, a veterans hall - no venue-appropriate costume changes, just pure Brooks Brothers. Even now, when it's 85 degrees and he's surrounded by people in shorts, the man won't so much as loosen his tie.
And from the ever inappropriate Chris Matthews -
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/...
Does [Fred Thompson] have sex appeal? I'm looking at this guy and I'm trying to find out the new order of things, and what works for women and what doesn't. Does this guy have some sort of thing going for him that I should notice? . . .
Gene, do you think there's a sex appeal for this guy, this sort of mature, older man, you know? He looks sort of seasoned and in charge of himself. What is this appeal? Because I keep star quality. You were throwing the word out, shining star, Ana Marie, before I checked you on it. . . .
Can you smell the English leather on this guy, the Aqua Velva, the sort of mature man's shaving cream, or whatever, you know, after he shaved? Do you smell that sort of -- a little bit of cigar smoke? You know, whatever.
Are these comments sexist as well, or only if it's being said about a woman?
Just goes to show that I haven't been paying attention to the fluff pieces written about the candidates.
Point taken. I still believe that there has been sexism in the campaign (though, as always, not as much as Clinton suggests, and it certainly hasn't affected the outcome).
And there are in fact three woman that I trust. My wife who tells the truth even when it is painful, and even when it may cause her grate harm. She is also has the strength to face the truth even when it is REALLY BAD news, and still make the best of it. (I just wish I could find a way to do that!) And two are little babies who are just starting to crawl now.
As for Hillary, I am a woman also, at an age where I have started lying about my age, so I can empathize with her somewhat. But if she is so concerned about women's rights, then when is she going to take her stand for ALL women, not just herself?
I have not heard her talk about ensuring our reproductive rights, or our equal pay, or the Supreme Court's recent Ledbetter decision, or the rampant sexual abuse and rape being suffered by our female soldiers and contractors in Iraq, or lesbian rights (we can't even get her to say the WORD lesbian!), or any of the other purely female issues. Instead, she's put her rhetoric towards flag burning laws (not an amendment - that would be different, right? Right???), or video game restrictions, or participating in the "Fellowship" with Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback.( http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09... ) Or throwing the election to/for John McSame. Somehow I just don't feel she truly has my back on my women's rights.
Also, if Senator Clinton wants to be treated as an equal, she needs to grow some balls.
A woman cannot say that she wants the benefits of being treated as an equal without taking the drawbacks in stride. If she truly wants to be equal, she needs to stop whining about how everybody is being mean to her, stop having her people claim that she is just too "emotional" to accept that she has lost, or tearing up when the going gets tough. Any male candidate would have been crucified for any of these actions.
( I'll never forget Ferraro talking about how offensive it was to them that Obama had acted as if he had brushed off imaginary lint from his shoulder when referring to one of her attacks, to signal he had moved on. How sexist and demeaning it was. Really Geraldine? REALLY???? Get a little backbone - please!!!!)
It is crystal clear.
There are too many Bushies and Clintons in politics. Enough of them.
And I don't recall Obama EVER making a comment about her gender. Did he try to imply that women are too emotional, that they can't be trusted to have their finger on the button if they have their period (yes I know Hillary is post-menopausal)? Hillary is making these sexism charges completely up. I don't feel like its "my sisterly duty" to stand by her because she has a vagina and I can't understand the women who feel that it is.
And if Hillary cared so much about women, why did she throw the word assasination around so carelessly? She wasn't sending this chilling message to Obama himself, she was sending it to scare MIchelle Obama. As a former First Lady who had an underage child, she knows the security dangers that her husband, herself and their daughter had to face. You would think this would prevent Hillary from invoking what is probably Michelle Obama's worst nightmare but it didn't. Hillary is running out of options and she felt it was worth a try to make Obama's wife scared enough so that she may try to get him to drop out. How is Hillary promoting "womens issues" by scaring an entire family, when family is the centerpiece of most women's lives?
And the tone is unbelievable. As far as I'm concerned, if the people on THAT site called themselves Democrats, and they're leaving the party, good riddance. They sound authoritarian to me. And Johnson? He's the authoritarianest took in the shed. I wish he'd go back to the CIA, that' where he belongs, not in any civilized arena. He's basically using psy-ops on Clinton supporters AFAIC....
There has been sexism in the way the neanderthals joke about her on TV, but I do not believe that being female has held her back, not at all. In fact, she proves that women can run and win the presidency. So she benefits from being female because of all the female support, like Obama gets the AA support just because.
For those of you on the straight side of the fence, calling someone a bitch does NOT necessarily have any gender limitation as the word does in its original application.
I saw some references to Wolf-the-Wimp Blitzer and Chris Loud-and-Crass Matthews and I will only suggest that no one should be listening to these losers whatever their gender (Wolf & Chris) might happen to be.
That being said, I will make bold to say Hillary IS a bitch; she is a racist and a liar and I can only hope that she and her serial-adulterer husband will get out of the public eye and live quietly in some out of the way backwater There seem to be quite a lot of people who are equally sick and tired of their greedy, selfish, and hateful attitudes. We are just all Clintoned out.
Sovereignty in a Republic is given to its citizens in the power of each citizen’s vote. The founders of this great country assumed that the citizens of the United States would vote for the good of this country and not use the vote to merely promote a cause, in this case “sisterhood” and my case “racial justice” but use the vote to steer the country in the right direction. To blindly support Hillary Clinton who voted for the war and stubbornly refused to apologize (does that sound familiar) until less than a year ago and then only when Tim Russert grilled her about it like an ambitious prosecutor makes me have serious doubts about Hillary’s judgment and integrity.
The way she has under estimated Obama as an opponent and ran her campaign gives me series doubts about her managerial skills and judgment. To outright lie is one thing but to lie about being shot at by sniper fire when there was an airplane full of reporters on the trip makes me question her intelligence as well as her judgment. The way a candidate runs their campaign and who they pick to run their campaign is a good indication of their managerial skills, being in the “hole” 20 million dollars makes me have series doubts about her managerial skills and her judgment of assessing and placing human resources. She hired people that she was friends with but they obviously lacked the skills to do the job (does that sound familiar). The reference to RFK makes me have doubts about her ability to handle stress. When Senator Clinton agreed that Michigan and Florida should not be seated when she thought the race for the nomination would be a “cake walk” for her and then renege on that agreement when she is losing shows that her personal ambitions, not the American people, is most important to her.
Hillary Clinton’s commitment to civil rights and yes women rights, universal health care for all Americans and ending the war in Iraq is not as important to her as her own personal ambition. If it was she would get out of the race and get behind Barak who will work to accomplish these things, but it is obvious where here priorities are because her actions suggest that she is willing to sabotage Barak’s chances of winning the nomination. This does not make me just question both of these Hillarys priorities; it makes me question Hillary Clinton’s sanity and Hillary Rosen’s judgment and priorities.
-Vinny the knife.
-Anybody who dubs them self "Fair Deal"
-Will the English
-Randal Flag
-Anybody with the last name of Clinton
If it's something even you wouldn't say, I'm probably on pretty shaky ground.