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Dear XX-factor bloggers:
by FieldingBandolier
+1 Reply

Marie Cocco put you to shame this morning.

I'm waiting for your next discussion about how misogyny hasn't had any influence on the Democratic primary.

Interesting that Ms. Cocco didn't quote any of you ("Hillary's the man!"). I guess she just doesn't see you'all as worthy of mention over on your "sister" site.

Go figure.

Re: Dear XX-factor bloggers:
by apropos1

Thanks for the link. I'll agree with you, Cocco at least provided examples in her piece when talking about what led to her perception.

XX factor bloggers were too busy railing against well-known feminists' (Steinem, Morgan) essays on the subject.

You can support Obama and still realize the undertones of misogyny in this election have been ugly, but that's been missing here.

And is apparently still missing...
by FieldingBandolier

as Rachael unself-consciously posts a segment from the Daily Show, which culminates in "The Great American Douche-off."

But I suppose we can forgive Ms. Larimore for her periodic breakdowns in judgment.

Re: Dear XX-factor bloggers:
by kuruman

Below is my take of the link:

I will not miss seeing advertisements for T-shirts that bear the slogan "Bros before Hos." The shirts depict Barack Obama (the Bro) and Hillary Clinton (the Ho) and are widely sold on the Internet. This is a joke. Bro is racial. The two terms rhyme. This is not misogyny.

I will not miss walking past airport concessions selling the Hillary Nutcracker, a device in which a pantsuit-clad Clinton doll opens her legs to reveal stainless-steel thighs that, well, bust nuts. I won't miss television and newspaper stories that make light of the novelty item. A woman being a nut-buster means she is tough. That is a good thing. It's a compliment. This is not misogyny.

I won't miss episodes like the one in which liberal radio personality Randi Rhodes called Clinton a "big [expletive] whore" and said the same about former vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro. Rhodes was appearing at an event sponsored by a San Francisco radio station, before an audience of appreciative Obama supporters -- one of whom had promoted the evening on the presumptive Democratic nominee's official campaign Web site. This is inappropriate. It is, however, one guy that I've never heard of. This hardly means there is pervasive sexism. I'm quite sure Obama did not know what Rhodes was going to say, and I'm sure he didn't agree or sanction it. You are stretching to say this is anything more than one unimportant idiot acting like an ass.

I won't miss Citizens United Not Timid (no acronym, please), an anti-Clinton group founded by Republican guru Roger Stone. Completely tasteless, but people find amusing acronyms funny. They just do.

Political discourse will at last be free of jokes like this one, told last week by magician Penn Jillette on MSNBC: "Obama did great in February, and that's because that was Black History Month. And now Hillary's doing much better 'cause it's White Bitch Month, right?" Co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski rebuked Jillette. This is from a comedian, whose job it is to surprise and provoke. he was rebuked.

I won't miss political commentators (including National Public Radio political editor Ken Rudin and Andrew Sullivan, the columnist and blogger) who compare Clinton to the Glenn Close character in the movie "Fatal Attraction." In the iconic 1987 film, Close played an independent New York woman who has an affair with a married man played by Michael Douglas. When the liaison ends, the jilted woman becomes a deranged, knife-wielding stalker who terrorizes the man's blissful suburban family. Message: Psychopathic home-wrecker, begone. Hillary supposedly doesn't know when to quit, which is the aspect of the Glenn Close character they are referring to. It is as if she is stalking the nomination. People like the author try to tie the rest of the plot to the analogy, but this is just dishonesty

The airwaves will at last be free of comments that liken Clinton to a "she-devil" (Chris Matthews on MSNBC, who helpfully supplied an on-screen mock-up of Clinton sprouting horns). Or those who offer that she's "looking like everyone's first wife standing outside a probate court" (Mike Barnicle, also on MSNBC). We have seen characterizations of men as devils. She is characterized as a she-devil. I see nothing gender-specific in this. I don't even know what the other quote means.

But perhaps it is not wives who are so very problematic. Maybe it's mothers. Because, after all, Clinton is more like "a scolding mother, talking down to a child" (Jack Cafferty on CNN). The fact that Hillary comes off as patronizing and that she thinks she "knows what's good for us" is recognized by many people. This is an honest impression of her. She is a woman and thus "mother" comes in. This is not misogyny.

When all other images fail, there is one other I will not miss. That is, the down-to-the-basics, simplest one: "White women are a problem, that's -- you know, we all live with that" (William Kristol of Fox News). I don't know what this means either. Perhaps someone can explain.

I won't miss reading another treatise by a man or woman, of the left or right, who says that sexism has had not even a teeny-weeny bit of influence on the course of the Democratic campaign. To hint that sexism might possibly have had a minimal role is to play that risible "gender card." I think it probably has had a teeny-weeny bit of influence. No more.

Most of all, I will not miss the silence.

I will not miss the deafening, depressing silence of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean or other leading Democrats, who to my knowledge (with the exception of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland) haven't publicly uttered a word of outrage at the unrelenting, sex-based hate that has been hurled at a former first lady and two-term senator from New York. Among those holding their tongues are hundreds of Democrats for whom Clinton has campaigned and raised millions of dollars. Don Imus endured more public ire from the political class when he insulted the Rutgers University women's basketball team. There is a silence because the contention here is COMPLETELY OVERBLOWN.

Would the silence prevail if Obama's likeness were put on a tap-dancing doll that was sold at airports? Would the media figures who dole out precious face time to these politicians be such pals if they'd compared Obama with a character in a blaxploitation film? And how would crude references to Obama's sex organs play? These examples are completely different. The argument is intellectually dishonest.

There are many reasons Clinton is losing the nomination contest, some having to do with her strategic mistakes, others with the groundswell for "change." But for all Clinton's political blemishes, the darker stain that has been exposed is the hatred of women that is accepted as a part of our culture. A hatred of women? Give me a break. This just proves how exaggerated this whole thing is.

There is just no evidence for anything more than a couple of morons saying stupid things which are typically rebuked.

Hillary is losing on merit. Get over it.

Re: Dear XX-factor bloggers:
by StevieN

good post, kuruman. (Oh, I think Randi Rhodes is a WOMAN).

I agree with both sides of this: I think "journalists" (even the dreaded TV/cable news journalists) should at least TRY for the friggin' higher ground; instead they've shown themselves to be as big buttheads as anyone else walking the street can be. And there is easy contempt for making a woman the brunt of mockery. HOWEVER: EVERYONE is susceptible to being made the brunt of mockery these days (well, except perhaps blacks--whites have to be a little careful mocking a group of people who until just recently whites used to LYNCH on a regular basis). In fact, the sort of mockery directed at Hillary implies ACCEPTANCE in a way--she's just as susceptible to being mocked as anyone else (PLEASE don't try to tell me that people don't have a tendency to want to mock anyone and everyone they can!).

There was a day when men would not even CONSIDER saying mocking a woman in public discourse (well, mostly--there's always a nasty habit of mocking people who are considered beneath others, and in fact in those days, women would NOT be mocked, but Blacks WOULD BE).

As women are now accepted as being "one of the boys," they become open to treatment like one of the boys. Men now feel FREE to cast derision on a WOMAN they feel deserves it just as well as they always felt free to cast it upon a MAN they felt deserves it.

Simply, I think it's a stretch to expand contempt and mockery of Hillary as contempt and mockery of women in general--and therefore, the contempt shown is NOT MISOGYNISTIC contempt.

Thanks, Kuruman.
by FieldingBandolier

That was really unexpected.

After I finally quit laughing, however, I couldn't help but wonder - what do you think misogyny is? How would you know it if you saw it?

Re: Dear XX-factor bloggers:
by apropos1

"Hillary is losing on merit. Get over it."

This may be true, but it has nothing to do with wether or not there have been many misogystic tendencies coming out in this election.

Just as there have been racial ones.

If you can't admit that identity politics are playing a part in this race, then you are willfully blind.

"A woman being a nut-buster means she is tough. That is a good thing. It's a compliment. This is not misogyny."

The above is your opinion. I have heard nut-buster as a deragotory comment, the men who said it certainly were not being complimentary. The nut-cracker isn't complimentary, either. It's alluding to emasculation, which isn't something with positive connotations, not a 'good thing'.

Maybe it is to you, though.

Re: Thanks, Kuruman.
by StevieN
FieldingBandolier:

That was really unexpected.

After I finally quit laughing, however, I couldn't help but wonder - what do you think misogyny is? How would you know it if you saw it?

Oh, the answer to that is easy: Derision, hatred, belittling, directed at ALL women, merely for the fact of them being women. That's misogyny.

After I finally quit laughing I came to realize that you're one of many hyper-sensitized zealous femiminsts who find personal pleasure in seeing bigotry in ANY attack on ANY woman.

This is hardly unknown--there are hypersensitized Blacks who see racism in any criticism of any Black person.

It's all a big yawn, FieldingBnadolier. There are MANY people who find many GOOD REASONS the see Hillary as an appropriate target for derision and mockery--and as a politician she's ESPECIALLY a magnet for that.

Think of cartoon caricatures. Each president is awarded a legion of caricatures by a legion of caricaturists. If the president has big ears they will MOCKINGLY be drawn as IMMENSE ears. Do you wish to suggest that the artists are big-ear bigots?

Re: Thanks, Kuruman.
by kuruman
Yep Stevie...to quote an extremely cool black dude (Sam Jackson)...exactamundo
Re: Dear XX-factor bloggers:
by kuruman

ap

yep...your opinion versus mine...I'll certainly concede that. The thing is, I've heard the phrase applied to men as well. It might mean someone is an asshole (or a bitch). It doesn't mean they are likeable, but it does mean they are tough.

I'm guessing Hillary would not mind AT ALL being referred to as a ball-buster.

The bottom-line is that it is not a phrase specifically derogatory to women and does not reflect misogyny.

Also, if you want misogyny to MEAN something substantial then you have to be a bit reasonable. The hypersensitivity thing dilutes the concept. Calling a guy a jerk when he is being a jerk is not misandry. Calling a woman a bitch when she is being a jerk is not misogyny. You seek to dismiss my opinion completely by suggesting I wouldn't know misogyny if I saw it. That's just manipulative and obnoxious.

Re: Thanks, Kuruman.
by FieldingBandolier
StevieN:

Oh, the answer to that is easy: Derision, hatred, belittling, directed at ALL women, merely for the fact of them being women. That's misogyny.

After I finally quit laughing I came to realize that you're one of many hyper-sensitized zealous femiminsts who find personal pleasure in seeing bigotry in ANY attack on ANY woman.

This is hardly unknown--there are hypersensitized Blacks who see racism in any criticism of any Black person.

It's all a big yawn, FieldingBnadolier. There are MANY people who find many GOOD REASONS the see Hillary as an appropriate target for derision and mockery--and as a politician she's ESPECIALLY a magnet for that.

Think of cartoon caricatures. Each president is awarded a legion of caricatures by a legion of caricaturists. If the president has big ears they will MOCKINGLY be drawn as IMMENSE ears. Do you wish to suggest that the artists are big-ear bigots?

When Hillary is being mocked via sexist stereotypes - when the content of ridicule could be applied to any woman in her position, that's not misogyny?

If Obama were being caricatured on the basis of racist stereotypes, wouldn't that be racist?

Sure, there are many reasons one might mock Hillary Clinton. That the manner of mocking so often entails belittling her as a woman, not as a candidate, constitutes misogyny.

I don't really expect you to get that, however. Bigots tend to view themselves (and often enough, each other) as insightful, and their willingness to voice their prejudice as courageous.

So please, carry-on.

Re: Thanks, Kuruman.
by Sickday

The real problem is that, like Obama's 'muslim' issue, people are allowed to have ridiculous hang-ups that hamper your campaign. You have to deal with them, at least when their attitudes bleed into the centrist, swing voters.

Remember when Ann Coulter called Edwards a faggot? I'd like to think that the charge never really hurt him, but who knows! People are loony. And when you're talking about gender, people rarely agree even in the broadest terms about what is an acceptable charge or isn't. If you can call a man 'soft', can you call him 'weak'? If 'weak' is OK, how about 'a pussy'? The vulgarity isn't the issue. 'Nanny State' translates into 'Iron My Shirts' pretty clearly. People will find a way to voice their opinions, even if it's all in code.

So, I guess I'm saying that I have an issue with the 'blame the media for misogyny' line. Kerry lost 2004 because he was charged as an out of touch frenchy anti-war homo, which is exactly what Clinton is saying about Obama in 2008. Politicians and pundits won't stop making unfair charges until they are punished for them, and most people are probably pretty unconvinced that the networks have been unduly sexist towards HRC.

I agree that there've been nasty undertones, but you can't really get rid of undertones, and just as many have come from the Clinton campaign itself as have come the other direction.

Re: Dear XX-factor bloggers:
by apropos1

"You seek to dismiss my opinion completely by suggesting I wouldn't know misogyny if I saw it. That's just manipulative and obnoxious."

Kuru, you started this post with addressing 'ap', but I did not suggest that you wouldn't know misogyny if you saw it. Are you talking about the another poster?

Our opinions differ, for sure, but I didn't belittle yours and I'm not sure where I was either manipulative or obnoxious to you.

My experience certainly has been that nut-buster comments were not complimentary and were terms used during women bashing sessions. I'm not over-sensitive in the least, I can give as good as I get, I work in a (nearly) all-male field. And hey, maybe Clinton likes the nutcracker doll...

There have been shades of misogyny and racial bigotry in this election, to the point where debating the existence of either is silly to me.

Have a nice day :-)

Re: Dear XX-factor bloggers:
by kuruman

ap

You are right...I was addressing the wrong poster. My bad! :)

Re: Dear XX-factor bloggers:
by apropos1

"You are right...I was addressing the wrong poster. My bad! :)"

Thanks, Kuru. Here's to civil discourse!

Cheers.

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