Sexism is alive and well in America.
One exit poll I saw had almost twice as many voters having trouble voting for a woman for president than voting for a black man.
The New York Times had a long piece about a future woman president today, Kate Zernike writes:
That woman will come from the South, or west of the Mississippi. She will be a Democrat who has won in a red state, or a Republican who has emerged from the private sector to run for governor. She will have executive experience, and have served in a job like attorney general, where she will have proven herself to be "a fighter" (a caring one, of course).
She will be young enough to qualify as postfeminist (in the way Senator Barack Obama has come off as postracial), unencumbered by the battles of the past. She will be married with children, but not young children. She will be emphasizing her experience, and wearing, yes, pantsuits.Oh, and she may not exist.
The future candidates Zernike offers up are far-fetched and unlikely. I do not see another woman having the money, the message, or the national stature to run for president in my lifetime.
I believe that it will be a long, long time before another woman makes a credible run for president.
This is a tragedy for America, especially when compared to the rise of so many other women political leaders around the world.
(Also see monday's New York Times As Clinton's Hopes Dim, Gender Issue Lives On By JODI KANTOR)
To be sure there have been many racist incidents in this heated campaign as seen by Kevin Merida article in the Washington Post earlier this week which drew 2100 comments and much media attention.
One could surely come up with a video of racist images aimed at Obama, but the sexist anti-woman aspect of the campaign has not been fully documented. Obama is not to blame for the blatant sexism, but we must confront it nevertheless.
Many HuffPo readers do not support Hillary Clinton, but every woman, and man, and Obama supporter, should be horrified by the video below.
But alas, I am sure that this political season has been so polarizing that it will bring out a slew of sexist comments from even the enlightened HuffPo community.
Please just take a few minutes to view the entire YouTube video and try to leave your personal political preferences out of it and you will be as appalled as I was.
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So according to the video, Obama should be Clinton's Knight in Shining Armor? Now that's sexist!
of Sexism? Clintons ought to be ashamed of themselves for using every dirty Machiavellian trick
in the book against Obama. Nothing was beneath them including going hat in hand to the likes of
Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, exploiting every ounce of the latent xenophobia, and racism that
they possibly could squeeze out. They and their surrogates even questioned Obama's manhood in a loud and vulgar manner. They have been thoroughly exposed as the power hungery Sharks,
plain, and simple. And this nightmare is not over yet! Clintons will destroy their party if that can
get them to the White House. If you ask me, I think Hillary would make an excellent VP for McCain.
See this blog post, "I'm a feminist, and that's why I don't support Hillary." (http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/17/1272/09695/235/517428)
Clinton has done more to damage the feminist & bread winning females than any other in the past century. I am a women & I would never vote for someone like her. She does NOT represent the millions of women that she claims she does!
Women I know do not lie, cheat & manipulate. She is toxic.
No? Too bad. I am sorry for your loss.
A lot of it was typical GOP email garbage. I have a very devout Lutheran aunt who sends us them. I've seen Ted Kennedy's head photoshopped over some very gross bodies, etc,etc. ad nauseum.
The video shows what many of us have said about Hillary's negatives: the distorted vetting of the 90's would come back, with new ones.
Some comments by other people in the campaign Obama has repudiated, Powers left, etc.
Recently it was reported here and elsewhere that someone working for her (Samuelson ?) was forwarding the email garbage about Obama to media, political consultants, etc.
I have seen plenty of stupid, ignorant, mean and childish comments from supporters on both sides towards the others. I find the Clinton girls are more deeply vitriolic than Obama's. The AA community is hurt. The do or die feminists demonstrate that estrogen can be just as ugly as testosterone.
In addition to the other HRC failures mentioned here, when it comes to speaking up to defend other candidates, the one she lost me on was the Kerry joke. Anyone who knows Kerry's history of vet suport & the way the MSM does this crap knew in a nanasecond it was distorted . Hillary knew both well. She knew in a half a nanosecond it could help sink his run for pres in '08, .
I'm well aware of that. Should Getty choose to sue for copyright infringement, which they're quite prone to do, the cost to Clinton's campaign will be far higher than paying for licensing.
Learn a couple things about propaganda from 1984 and A Clockwork Orange, didja?
FAIL
She went to Yale law school; he went to Harvard.
She's a US senator; he's a US senator;
He served as a state legislator in Illinois; oops, she never held elective office before.
He is rich from his book sales; she is richer, and we don't fully know how.
Each is married to a lawyer.
She is married to a (former) president and lived in the White House as First Lady.
She lies to make herself look good, then shrugs it off as a joke or "misspeaking" when caught in the lie.
When something in his past becomes fodder for the media, he confronts the issue honestly in a straightforward manner.
Being president requires true character. He's got it; she doesn't.
In my personal opinion, and feel free to disagree with me, the sexist undercurrent of our society is much more widespread than the racist one. Most African-Americans on television are portrayed in similar ways to whites (note that I said "similar" rather than "the same." Racism is still a serious issue in this country). Women, on the other hand, are portrayed very differently from men. (Continued)
OK, I disagree.
If the sexist undercurrent is more widespread it is only because there are more women. However, the racist undercurrent is far meaner.
There were also some negative, but true, things said about Hillary by Senator Obama's campaign. They had nothing to do with sexism and everything to do with who Hillary is--her aggressive insistence on her entitlement, the fact that most of her experience is derivative, through her husband, the fact that she has run a ruthless, dirty campaign that is heavily tinged with racism.
Hillary lost. I'd say fair and square, but she didn't play fair, not at all. Obama did play fair and won. So what's the problem?
As for Obama himself being sexist, that's a stretch that would break any rubber band. He is quoted as saying,"I understand that Senator Clinton, periodically when she’s feeling down, launches attacks as a way of trying to boost her appeal." "Periodically" is underlined in the text window, as is "feeling down." Despite the underlining, I doubt Senator Obama actually emphasized those words as a reference to Hillary's menstrual cycles. He's certainly intelligent enough to have heard of menopause. The fact is, that every time Hillary fell further behind in the race (periodically) she resorted attacks. Or lies. Or pandering.
The internet, LMAO, please, any nut job with a bias can complie "evidence" from the internet to support any premise s/he wants to promote.
For the next woman that wants to run and win, don't trade political expediency for true leadership. Have the courage to stand for and vote your conscience. You don't need votes to prove you have balls, you need votes to prove you have a heart and a conscience. Hillary lost voters because she voted wrongly on the balls issue Iraq and gained votes when "she found her voice" and showed she indeed did have a heart. The jury is still out on the conscience part. What she does between now and the Convention will tell us a lot about her conscience.
"History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.."
Funny, I have looked at every exit poll and they all say the same thing: Hillary's voters are voting the most along race and gender grounds by some 30%. The voting for her simply because she is a woman (and that is a large chunk) is not as sad as those voting for her because they can't or won't vote for a black.
The only sexism card being played in this whole campaign is by Hillary and for Hillary.
The only race card being played in this whole campaign is by Hillary (and Bill) and for Hillary.
Here is my sexist comment: You can't blame sexism for Hillary's poor campaign and poorer record. She started out with nearly a 50 point lead! It wasn't because of sexism that she wasn't prepared on day Feb 6th! She lost because she has failed for the third time to be a true leader; '93 health care and she had a Dem Congress to back her, '02 Iraq vote and she didn't even bother to read the 96 page NIE for the most important vote of her life and '08 when she was ready to be crowned on day one, but failed miserably to see the writing on the wall and had no plan post day Feb 6th! So much for her kind of experience.
Sexism and racism have been a major part of this nomination battle, but we have not been discussing them in any productive way. More often they are being used as weapons in a nomination battle. We should be discussing issues, but since Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama are fairly similar on issues, we seem to be falling back on lazy ways to argue.
Not to say that I don't think a discusion of sexism and racism in this country is not necessary and important. I just think inflammatory videos only cause hurt and anger, not useful conversation. A discussion of sexism or racism in this race would be welcome, if it were about more than getting out the vote. I apologize if posted twice, edit isn't working.
You could have said that four (or even two) years ago , substitutiing "black man" for "woman. Yet look where we are now.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/weekinreview/18zernike.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=women+president&st=nyt&oref=slogin
The "ideal" female candidate (what people say they want) simply does not exist, at least not in the current generation of politicians.