Posts Tagged ‘sexism’
MESSAGE TO OBAMA PART 2: CHANGE YOUR VIEW TO “OBAMA FOR WOMEN”
In the first post on “Message to Obama: Change Your View to Obama for Women“, I made clear that I’ll vote for Obama, but the fervor with which I and many other women work for his election will be determined by his actions going forward. As one former Clinton activist said, “women aren’t marginal; we’re the key”. John Kerry took women’s votes for granted, and won only 51% of women’s votes in 2004. That’s several points too low to create a gender gap capable of propelling any Democratic presidential candidate to victory.
Since I wrote that post, Obama’s tidy double digit lead over John McCain evaporated to a measly 3%, a statistical dead heat. This shift was brought about in no small part by Obama’s clumsy attempts to tack to the presumed center on core issues like wiretapping and abortion ostensibly to broaden his base, but instead turning off the passionately progressive grassroots groundswell that brought him to where he is. And remember–Republicans vote for their candidate come hell or high water while Democrats argue the issues, and that’s how we all too often lose elections.
Read MoreWhere Were You 6 Months Ago, Katie?
So now that Hillary Clinton has lost her bid to be the first woman to win a major party’s nomination for president, Katie Couric has decided to speak out. My my. What a profile in courage.
Watch the video teaser and read more here on Huffington Post.
“One of the great lessons of [Hillary Clinton’s] campaign is the continued and accepted role of sexism in American life, particularly in the media….It isn’t just Hillary Clinton who needs to learn a lesson from this primary season — it’s all the people who crossed the line, and all the women and men who let them get away with it,” says Katie. Well, yeahhhhh!
Not that I don’t appreciate her speaking truth to power now–I really do–but where was she six months ago?
Read MoreONE MEMBER OF MEDIA APOLOGIZES TO HILLARY
IN HIS NPR BLOG “POLITICAL JUNKIE”, Ken Rudin says he wishes he hadn’t compared Hillary Clinton to Glenn Close’s character, the villainous stalker who wouldn’t die in Fatal Attraction. You have to scroll down to nearly the bottom of his column “The Democrats’ Fight to the Finish” to find it, but it’s there, claiming of course that he was misunderstood and by the way, was sooo distressed about the tone of some of the responses he received. Poor baby.
Nevertheless, it’s a start at righting a serious wrong. Here’s what Rudin said:
Finally, did I really say on CNN that Hillary Clinton reminded me of Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction? I did. I wish I hadn’t. It was a facile and dumb comparison. And for all the people who took their marching orders from the Clinton campaign’s e-mail blast instructing them to express their displeasure to me, rest assured, I have read every note. Some have been quite thoughtful, enough to establish some sort of dialogue. Others, regrettably, have contained an astonishing amount of vitriol and hate. It’s distressing that many of those who complain the most about bigotry and ignorance exhibit it themselves.
The point that I was inartfully trying to make, as I wrote in one e-mail, is that I was mocking the “when-will-Hillary-drop-out?” conversations that have been going on since New Hampshire — as in, well, if she loses N.H., she’s finished. If she loses Ohio or Texas, she’s gone. I wanted to make the point that she’s not leaving the race any time soon, nor should she. She wins in Pennsylvania by nearly 10 points and people still want to know when she’s getting out? Nonsense. I concede that I damaged my case by making the Glenn Close comparison, but I was trying to say sorry, you’re not going to get rid of her. This is only the seventh inning. The race hasn’t been going on “too long.” In fact, these states — Indiana, North Carolina, Oregon, etc. — haven’t been part of the conversation for decades. Let the people have their say and then we’ll see who should drop out.
The “so-what do we do about it”?
Read MoreOBAMA IS RIGHT: WORDS MATTER WHEN YOU WANT YOUR OPPONENT TO LEAVE THE RACE
AOL News reports this:
Despite calls for his rival to drop out of their tight race for the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama said Saturday, “My attitude is that Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants.”
Note the tepid and dismissive “Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants.” In one carefully chosen short phrase, Barack Obama uses a verb form that bestows his permission, as if she needs it, while at the same time subtly belittling her because she is staying in the race. Both of these rhetorical techniques aim to diminish one’s opponent while seeming to be gallant and awarding oneself the cloak of the putative front runner who can afford to be generous.
But is he the front runner?
Read MoreYou Looking at Me?
This is on Huffington Post, too. Some days it seems like journalists don’t have enough to do with their time so they create conflicts out of whole cloth as a form of entertainment. Fortunately for me, I make no claim to be objective. Let me know what you think. Better yet, go to HuffPo and put your comment there.
You know Hillary is no longer seen as the inevitable front runner in Iowa when Maureen Dowd (almost, at least till she gets to her punch line) writes something positive about her.
In response to the latest Drudge-Limbaugh-sexist bloggers’ echo chamber campaign to denigrate Hillary for—gasp!–looking like a 60-year-old woman, when men of that certain age or even—gasp again–older are seen as distinguished and wise, Dowd observed: “Women are still scrutinized more critically on their looks, which seem to fluctuate more on camera, depending on lighting, bloating and wardrobe.”
Read MoreClinton, Couric, and Chris Matthews’ Sexist Spin
When it comes to Chris Matthews’s interpretation of Hillary Clinton’s words—any of her words—she’s damned if she yeas and damned if she nays.
After gloating that a new poll found Hillary losing in a matchup with any one of five Republican presidential candidates, Matthews later in the same program spun her November 26 interview with Katie Couric, in which–like any candidate with half a brain and a quarter of a spine–Clinton showed confidence in her ability to win the Democratic nomination.
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