So let me get this straight -- with the exception of Michelle Obama, all the women who were center stage in the 2008 presidential election (whether they were candidates or not) are bitchy, stupid, whining shrews?
If this is where we are in 2010 when it comes to permissible portrayals of women, I may have to live to be 237 before we're treated with even a modicum of respect.
I am SO weary of men journalists (and some women) thinking they can get away with sexist slams of women in the name of political commentary. The authors of Game Change, the long on gossip, short on real reporting book, apparently want us to believe that all the things we hated about the 2008 presidential campaign can be blamed on the women who were involved.
Yes, ladies -- apparently everything you didn't like in 2008 was all our fault!
Seriously?
The whole John Edwards fiasco was Elizabeth Edwards' doing? She bears more blame than her husband in his actions and the potential impact that could have had on our country? That's just the stuff of fairy tales. So I have to ask -- where is the political or historical value to calling Elizabeth Edwards names because maybe she wasn't always nice to staffers. Sarah Palin is described as Eliza Doolittle and there's gossip aplenty in describing Cindy McCain and Hillary Clinton and tiffs with their spouses. And they call this insightful political commentary?
The only woman who escapes unscathed is Michelle Obama, but who's going to bad mouth a sitting First Lady? Wouldn't want to have that come out and be in the doghouse with the President.
If this is what passes for political journalism or commentary today, I shudder to think what future generations would think of us if a copy of Game Change lands in some time capsule and ends up being the example of our political world in 2008.
The media has been worshiping at the alter of authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann since the book came out. But at least there are two voices of reason in the media wilderness that I hope will get through to potential readers -- Salon.com's Joan Walsh and The Plain Dealer's Connie Schultz.
Walsh really let those boys have it, and I was happy to see she didn't pull any punches when Ed Schultz on MSNBC was in full 'Elizabeth-Edwards-is-to-blame-for-the-downfall-of-the-Democratic-party' mode. Connie Schultz also weighed in with some plain talk at her column trying to get our focus back were it belongs -- on real news and not on the gratuitous attacks on a betrayed wife who is battling cancer.
So what's the motivation of these authors -- two men with high profile journalism jobs who have decided that the villains in the 2008 campaign were the women, even if they weren't the candidates? That's easy -- money. It's not a good time to be selling books when the publishing industry is going downhill. So it's not a stretch to think that a book that's a cross between political commentary and Us Weekly is going to do better in the marketplace than one that actually provides perspective into an historical election.
Game Change isn't journalism; it is gossip-mongering at its worst. Why do I say that? Well, essentially the whole book was written on "deep background" -- meaning that none of the sources would agree to be directly quoted and the authors would preserve the anonymity of the sources. No one is accountable for what they said. The sources could say or make up whatever they wanted. Campaign staffers who were miffed or bruised over their treatment could vent about anyone with abandon and not suffer any backlash.
Deep background has its place. After all, it did help Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein bring the Watergate scandal out in the open. Given the nature of Game Change, I don't think anyone will be confusing "Woodstein's" All the President's Men with "Halpermann's" book or contribution to investigative reporting.
Between the attacks against almost all the women in the book and the male journos ooh-ing and ahh-ing over this piece of faux-journalism, it's clear that women in the political world don't stand a chance to escape the rampant sexism that is alive and well in the 21st century.
The real "game change"? That might happen if we could lose the sexist rhetoric and drama. Or maybe I could write a version of this story with another woman and take on the flip side! I have no doubt we could come up with some irrelevant, misogynistic things to say about the guys, too. Maybe a dose of their own sexist medicine would get some of these men to understand what they're doing and why it's time to let it go.
Joanne Bamberger, a Washington, D.C.-based writer and political analyst, is the founder of the political blog, PunditMom. Her book about the increasing involvement and impact of mothers in the world of politics will be published this fall by Bright Sky Press.
Follow Joanne Bamberger on Twitter: www.twitter.com/PunditMom
Even with all the advances generations of feminists have made - and I remain eternally grateful to those women and men who have do so much for us - there's still a constant attitude of the "Condescending Wow" towards a woman's achievements. When a woman's achievements are judged, it's often with specific mention of her sex, as if it's such a surprise a woman could be in politics, sports, literature, science, etc.. The underlying attitude is one of patronization.
What it connotes is the idea that the male experience is the basic element of human existence, with "female" (and, for the matter, "black" or "gay" and many others) as a deviation from the fundamental. Campaigns - recently and historically - focus on the woman's sex and make that the issue, rather than upon her actual intellect, ideas, achievements, errors, content, humanity.
The only criticism I've heard at all came out of Colbert and that was for the gossipy nature of the book.
All of the pre and post game talk was about how Joe Biden had to go easy on Sarah Palin or risk coming off badly.
Joe Biden was called a chauvinist for WINNING a debate.
Does anyone think we would have seen pundits talking about how Joe Biden had to be careful about coming on too strong in a debate against Tim Pawlenty?
WHY did Joe have to go easy on Sarah?
Also, can anyone claim with a straight face that ANY male politician could have given the teary eyed speech that Hillary made in NH in 2008 after losing Iowa and STILL be in politics.
Edwards or Spitzer would have a better chance of winning an election than a male politician who cried.
Furthermore, Obama was the victim of very racist attacks. Did he complain about them or try to paint himself as a victim they way the Clinton campaign did?
He did not. In fact, he went out of his way to say that he would win or lose the race on it's merits not because of racism.
Team Clinton could not play the sexism card often enough.
If you are going to lament the sexism in politics (even if it's more politics than sexism) so be it...but look both ways.
No one wants to join you.
Why not simply refute the points he made?
If you feel Palin or Clinton ARE strong examples of leadership, make a case.
Whenever feminists have no answers, they ignore or insult...it doesn't speak well for your case.
Those who continue to miss these observations are themselves victims of history.
There is indisputable evidence of murderous times, over 18 million women killed and millions more tortured in the crusades alone. We are an interesting society indeed with a strange past with the mutilation, torture and wholesale slaughter of a sex; How WOULDN’T we all be deeply wounded psychotically?
We all lose in this scenario. We lose because trust has then been so eroded that deep and sustaining relationships become almost impossible save the few extraordinary who rise above. Divide and conquer though.
Society at large is infected with cartoonish versions of male and females, which none of us should ever aspire to, but all of us are impugned with.
Somewhere deep inside you know you have been robbed, but you don’t know exactly how.
Wonder what we will be like when we celebrate the female and bring equal legs to balance the table. How about just be awesome without the stereotypical constraints that block us from our own garden, each other?
I thank all those women who are brave for the rest of humanity.
Hillary plays the game pretty well, in terms of ruthlessness, but she has no game face: you can see right through her. It's also obvious she holds the majority of other women in outright contempt. She lost me the first day she stepped on the public stage and made it known that there were woman who baked cookies and there were Women Who Made a Difference, and she was not to be confused with the first, who were inconsequential. Wow.
The book is crap, of course, but nobody is actually calling these guys out in on tv, in person. I think there's enough women in journalism to do that, were it the least bit important to them. But most of them seem to have their game faces on.
Thank you. Every woman should read this.
"That suggests you've bought into the male propaganda yourself."
So, no one is entitled to an opinion unless it's the one YOU want.
Typical.
Meaning something that a male candidate would not deal with...
You realize the men in this book are hardly portrayed as fine, upstanding gentlemen, right?
2) Senator Clinton would only be "co-president" with her husband sharing most of the responsibilities.
3) That Senator Clinton's campaign was a way for Bill Clinton to get around the 3rd term rule.
4) The GOP selling Hillary Nutcrackers.
5) The GOP selling "get back in the kitchen" t-shirts
6) The constant press references to Hillary being a bitch, shrew, shrill, whining, crying, emotional, ad nauseum.
7) The constant press references to Senator Clinton's hair, outifts, makeup and general appearance.
8) The constant discussion of candidate Clinton's marriage! The "what does her married life say about her potential presidency", a line of questioning that has never been posed to a male candidate.
9) The outrage over Sarah Palin accepting the Vice Presidential nomination when she had young children at home, including a *gasp* infant with down's syndrome.
10) The outrage over Sarah Palin's wardrobe budget for the campaign.
Does that satisfy your query?
2- When Hillary was the First Lady, most of the same people who are decrying the "sexism" against Hillary, had NO issue claiming that she was the "co-president" THEN...how can you reconcile those contradicting thought processes?
3- Your #3 is the same as #2.
4- Do you remember the stuff they were selling about Obama? Monkey dolls, etc. Politics is hardball. If you are in politics, you will be attacked. The attacks themselves might be sexist or racist, etc. The reason for the attack is politcs. Also, how often is the term"white male" used as a derogatory by the left?
(This is somewhat unrelated to this argument, but I find it funny that the same women telling Elin Woods to leave and never look back TEND to be the sames ones who defended Hillary staying...so, it's not out of the question to question just HOW much she did so for political reasons)
9- This one you might have a point about. I doubt Todd Palin would have face the same level of scrutiny if it were him running instead of her....however, they did ask Edwards how he could run with a dying wife and young children. So...I'll concede the levels are different, but don't act like men are not asked the same sorts of things.
10- I'm not sure your point about this one. I don't know how to address this in terms of gender or sexism. The outrage over her wardrobe was an issue of FAUX POPULISM.
Also, you fail to address a CLEAR double standard based on gender in politics...
Namely, men cannot criticize female candidates or else they will be called sexist no matter how unrelated to gender those criticisms may be, while women can attack their male opponents with no hands tied behind their backs since EVERYONE knows "sexism" only cuts one way.
First story: Men tell me when they were in law school there were only 2 women in their class (both ugly and/or lesbians) and some male professor would always make the women stand up and grill them in detail in front of the whole class about some reported appellate case about a rape: how deeply did he penetrate, was it oral and anal as well as vaginal. The women always eventually break down and run from the classroom in tears, never to return.
Second story: Men say they had a woman attorney in their firm once, but she broke down in tears during a settlement conference, and fled the room. So they never hired another woman.
The third story is the "joke" about a man who asks a woman if she will have sex with him for $1 million, she says yes; he asks if she'll do it for one dollar and she says "hey, what do you think I am?" and he says "we've already established that, now we're just negotiating price."
I don't recall reading any "rape" cases in law school, I have never seen a woman attorney cry in a professional setting although I have seen them humiliated and demeaned by their male co-workers. And the biggest whores in the legal profession and indisputably male. But the anti-female bashing stories continue.
So basically, sexist stereotyping is wrong.... and men are the devil.
They will never allow themselves to grasp the irony.
buy into the sexist rhetoric. Example: If someone says to me, " the sky is red" I look and see the sky is blue and not red. I would just think they do not know what they are talking about. And go on with my day. Not giving them a second of consideration. I realize that being criticized for ones gender is more personal but the logic still applies. They don't know what they are talking about and it just shows their ignorance and lack of good logic.
I do realize horrible things have been said and done by stereo typing people. But you can only control how you are going to manage that attack in your own mind.
"The third story is the "joke" about a man who asks a woman if she will have sex with him for $1 million, she says yes; he asks if she'll do it for one dollar and she says "hey, what do you think I am?" and he says "we've already established that, now we're just negotiating price.""
...have to do with anything?