Marie Cocco’s column, in The Washington Post, about the misogyny expressed in Hillary Clinton-bashing, is quite eye-opening, I think. Not surprising to me, but seeing it laid out starkly in black and white is sobering nonetheless.
Don’t Worry, Be Equal
Funny, but I don’t expect we’ll see the usual round of panicked op-eds worrying about the poor boys this time around, since there isn’t anything to worry about. Or rather, there’s never been anything to worry about.
Not that most of us didn’t know that. It seemed hard to believe that hundreds of years of male privilege had been undone by a few female math teachers, and that quickly!
(Thanks to Lena for the link)
& Another Thing
So Kentucky voters have said that race matters.
Has anyone actually come out & said they won’t vote for Clinton because she’s a woman?
Is Geraldine Ferraro talking out her ass again?
Gendered Politics
What’s a politico to do? I am an ardent feminist, which most of you reading already know well enough. But I’m so saddened by the way women are talking about the Democratic nomination and how they feel they’ve been sent to the back of the bus. I don’t doubt that there was some sexism at play, in the media & elsewhere, for Hilary Clinton. It’d be a surprise if there weren’t. But that’s not a good enough reason not to vote. I mean, imagine the Suffragists! Imagine what they fought for, what they went through, & imagine explaining how you, as a woman, chose not to vote because your candidate didn’t get the nomination.
I couldn’t do it. I’m not happy about Obama’s “sweetie” remark at all. And it’s true that I just don’t like Hilary Clinton and never have; her ambition scares me. Not because it’s wrong for a woman to be ambitious – I so wish more were! – but because hers seems more about what it would mean to her to be president than being about what she could do for the country. And it scares me, when someone’s goals seem more about having something to prove than about accomplishing something.
If Ann Richards had run for president, I would have worked on her campaign and given up a year of my life to get her elected. And if Obama doesn’t win the nomination, I will work to get Hilary Clinton elected. Because the sad reality is that John McCain is not pro-woman: he’s not pro-choice, he voted against the Lily Ledbetter Act, and he actually had the nerve to suggest that women should get more education and training if they want to be paid as much as men.
So please, Clinton supporters: get out & support whoever the Democratic nominee is. I will.
Painting with a Broad Brush
Have you all seen the recent Shur-Line commercial? With a woman from Shur-Line and a wife (I assume) who are trying to coax the husband out of hiding so that he’ll paint? It’s so condescending toward men; like they need to be told what to do and reassured that there won’t be any chores.
On the other side, it makes women responsible for making sure “all’s safe” for the guy to come out.
Idiotic & condescending to both genders: well-done.
Afghan Girls
And in another part of the world, an update on far more dire issues: the percentage of Afghan girls enrolled in school is not increasing.
Aid agencies like CARE International last week attributed the gender disparity in Afghan schools to a lack of female teachers, the number of Afghan girls forced into early marriages and work, and attacks on schools by militant extremists, reports AFP.
Um, White House? Wasn’t this one of the big things we were supposed to help fix? Hello? Anyone? Have we forgotten about our goals in Afghanistan entirely.
(via Feminist Daily News)
GID Group
For those who are astounded by the news that Blanchard has been appointed to the Work Group for Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders, consider this: the chair of that group is Dr. Ken Zucker, who believes transgender kids can be cured with reparative therapy.
Read this story, from NPR, about the difference between therapists in how to treat children who are brought in with gender issues. And then consider that Zucker is in charge of the work group working on GID for DSM V.
If you are a psychologists or know any, please ask them to contact anyone they know at the APA to advise against Zucker as chair of this work group.
Gendered Lessons
Humorless Feminist checking in again – but have you seen the recent Dairy Queen commercial for the Brownie Wafflebowl Sundae? A little girl goes into the DQ with her mom. Sees little boy already seated at table. Waves cutely, smiled, bats eyelashes. Tells mom she doesn’t want a sundae after all. Once mom & daughter are seated at table, mom says how surprised she is that she didn’t want a sundae. Simultaneously, waiter brings sundae to table, says, “compliments of the young man in the monkey shirt.” Same boy as before waves, smiles.
How fucked up is that? That’s right, let’s teach the girls to flirt to get what they want before they’re even 10. Feh.
Imagine it the other way around – a little boy either acting coy & cute so a girl would buy him a sundae, or if the boy acted all touch & strong in order for her to buy him one.
Degrading much?
Testicles to Spare
James Carville recently joked that if Clinton gave Obama one of her testicles, they’d both have two.
har de har har.
That, plus the joke about her “testicular fortitude” – ugh, does a woman running for president have to have balls?
Worse, making a joke about the black candidate having less than two is really ugly – and historically, a pretty loaded thing to say, considering the sexualization of black males, specifically as predators, & the way so many black men who were lynched were also subject to castration or other genital mutilation.
Carville turned into an asshole this campaign season, imho (which started with the whole Bill “Judas” Richardson fracas.) To me, this is unforgivably ignorant of American history and some of the racialized hate we’ve experienced as a nation. There is no excuse for someone as high up as Carville to make this kind of wisecrack. As if gender baiting weren’t bad enough.
Shakesville summarizes why the gendered part of the joke isn’t funny, either:
“From “pansy” to “testicular fortitude”2 to this little outburst, Clinton surrogates have been trying to paint Clinton as a tough, manly man, and Obama as, for lack of a better word, a sissy. This is a line of attack that demeans Obama, demeans Clinton, demeans women, demeans men, demeans anyone who believes that toughness and sensitivity need not be tied directly to gender. I expect more from the Clinton campaign; given the amount of misogyny that Clinton has faced, I’d like to think her campaign would be free of it. But evidently it’s easier to paint Hillary as a man than to argue that women can be tough too; it’s easier to paint Obama as less than a man than to argue that women can be tougher than men. And it’s a shame, because clearly, there are some women tougher than some men. Hillary Clinton may be tougher than Barack Obama. But it isn’t because she’s a guy, and it isn’t because he’s a girl.”
(via Shakesville)
Who Knew?
It’s amazing the small ways that the culture’ s inequalities show themselves. In this case, a man decided to take his wife’s last name, because he was a lot closer to her father than his own. But there is no bureaucratic pathway for such thing – as there is for women to change their names when they get married – so he had to go through a formal name change (much as trans people do).
It’s always a similar feeling, for me, when we fill out our taxes, and I have to remember I’m the spouse, and not Betty.
(thanks to Lena, as usual, for the interesting link)