Assaulted or Unassaulted?
Sure, there'll be Hillary nutcrackers. But I prefer to think that such an election year novelty speaks more to her Olympian quads than the assumption she would subjugate all men, geld them in a secret ceremony (tastefully lit with tuber rose-scented Jo Malone candles) and lead them around in studded dog collars like moist, smoothly complected capons.
I mean, it's not like there would ever be similarly outrageous paraphernalia that inanely caricatures Obama, right? After all, there's been so little of that kind of thing over the years. But lately Hillary's fiercely loyal base insists that her negative treatment has been due to the fact -- and only due to the fact that: she's a lady, whoa-whoa-whoa, she's a lady.
The truth is, her gender was and is helpful in her rise, but not as much as her intelligence and ability. And it should be an asset when 110% of the world is run by men. She, along with millions of women, has had to work much harder than her male counterparts to make it, to achieve anything approaching parity. There is rampant, maddening sexism. But Hillary's latest claims are simply not credible and in fact go a long way to diluting the scourge of daily, routine oppression against women. It is her sophisticated feminine talents, her truly advanced power of reason that propels her to her rightfully earned heights. If nothing else, during the episode involving Bill's legendary satyriasis, Hillary was far more understanding and/or forgiving than perhaps a marital partner of the opposite sex would be and effectively put to rest any insinuation that she'd be an unholy, testicle-mashing harridan. Bill had to be grateful for his wife's strength and wisdom. All men are. They are also, however, scared shitless.
Men, with their incessant chest-thumping; their insatiable, sloppy libidos; their back hair; their gas; their drool. Men, with their vein-popping, hyper-competetiveness, their Saturday afternoon scrums around the plasma watching ESPN and "300" and guzzling Red Bull and pork rinds, all because their days of trampling villages with severed heads on wrought iron pikes are gone. And though the hunter gatherer lies a-mouldering in the grave, men nonetheless require ersatz prey for their perpetually cocked shafts.
Wow. I just soiled myself.
What has effectively killed the enthusiasm for her as the possible President of the Re-United States is not the fact that she lacks a Y chromosome. Rather, it is her use of tactics culled from the pages of The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy for Dummies, her not-so-subtle pressing of buttons calculated to catalyze knee-jerk responses from the sea of supposedly loyal Democrats but who seem to be nothing more than cultural automatons ready for a shiny penny to be slid into their slots, apparently as vitriolic as the Repuglican somnambulists that made Hillary's life a misery and whom they so rightfully despise.
But like the attacks on Obama that highlight his scary sounding middle name or his scary sounding pastor or his scary sounding wife (and she's a WOMAN!!!!) categorizing Hillary as a victim of sexism shows there is nothing else to be said that cogently criticizes her qualifications, nothing of any substance that is assailable. Like all the bloody invective launched at Obama, the Hillary nutcracker exists because her actual ideas are unimpeachable. That she is using those low-brow tactics herself, or that her surrogates accuse the media (inarguably culpable for much that is low-brow and divisive) it is the fact that she is cannibalizing her own integrity by invoking sexism as a ploy to get herself elected that indicates her unsuitability as a genuine force for change.
So, it's not the gender, stupid. You'd have to be nuts to think so.
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Nice post. I don't think the people crying "sexism!" will get it, but nice post.
Geez, you write as well as I do. :-)
I LOVE THIS! It shoudl be posted everywhere.
Now that is one funny and dead on piece.
But for those who want it in a couple of sentences:
Obama is the better politician. But, at the end of the day, he is the better man, too. And ultimately he also has the better woman at his side to aid him.
Perfect summary!
You Crack Me Up, and In A Wholesome Wordsy Way.
Indeed. This "sexism" accusation is supposed to make us all quiver and put her on a pedestal above reproach like she's Caesar's wife. And the funny thing is that pedestal treatment is far more sexist than not.
I've heard other women being accused of being traitors for not supporting her, as if feminism can and should be conflated with a vote for a female candidate (does that include Margaret Thatcher?). My understanding of feminism is A LOT different, as it has been informed on occasion by women of color who have objected to the normalizing of "women" being solely "white women." I saw evidence of that here.
But I also thought these so-called feminists were pretty phony if the sole issue is voting for Hillary, not judging people on their actions, including lies, intimidation and smears.
As a woman, I would like to thank you for a delightful piece. Hillary has actually probably set back women's lib several years. I agree that she is smart, talented, all the things you'd want a President to be, but there is such a disconnect somewhere in her make-up. She apparently is unable to say 'I'm sorry', 'I made a mistake', etc. She is somehow reminiscent of the energizer bunny that just keeps going, no matter what.
Hillary and her people don't seem to realize that they are not running in a popularity election; it's a primary and it's about the delegates, stupid!
Thanks for all your great posts, Stephen. They are appreciated.
I don't think she set back anybody but herself. Women should stop looking for other women to get their "cause" forward and they should also stop complaining when those women fail to live up to their expectation. When a woman happen to do something that help the "cause" congratulate them for doing great thing that is helping women everywhere. But to expect It beforehand is just unfair to them since they also have to carry the weight of these expectation in all their decisions. You think a man in the same position that she is right now would not have folded month ago to save is political futures. Hell yes! She stayed on because of all the "expectation" and also because she got an overinflated ego that could not take admitting defeat. But the "expectation" helped create that ego in the first place!
She did not lost because she was a women she should not also use it has an excuse to stay on too!
she really did set women back.
In truth, we as females say that about one another because we want to think we are above some of the foibles we see in the men wielding power. Female ego.
Women have been and will continue to get these fine opportunities to show we are just as prone to human error as men. Different - we can bring some fine distinctio
You are on the money - it's a thing a woman has to see herself doing and stop.
Hillary Clinton is a woman? Who knew?
Yep, no sexism against Hillary Clinton at all.
And no racism against Obama.
Seems that this is her last argument. She has tried everything else. Sad, really.
So you would vote for a woman just because she is a woman? By that same criterion all white men should vote for a white man and all black men should vote for a black man. Is that really the way we should be selecting our leaders? Not on competency or political platform but by race and gender?
james carville was practicing sexism when he said that hillary had three balls and if she gave obama one they'd both have two.
when her supporter said she had testicular fortitude, that was also sexism, in your book.
when tina fey called hillary a bitch, all her supporters said "you go, girl"- what's up with that?
so, it's ok for hillary's supporters. hmm.
Klondiker seems to lack any humor. I thought this was pretty funny. And given Carville's discussion of her gonads, it's fair game.
Precisely.
And no, Sen. Obama hasn't had mass-marketed products depicting him in a racist fashion. That would be too difficult to get past a lot of marketing reps. The "gentleman" in GA with the Curious George as Obama T-shirts gets to do all his own printing.
Frankly, I suspect that she's secretly pleased at the 'nutcracker' moniker and toy. Wasn't her surrogate going around telling peopel she had an excess of testicles? Wasn't that sexist in a similiar way?
Sexist would be if she was being dismissed because she had no testicles and owned breasts. Sexis would be if she were pretneding to be a man because she was ashamed of being a woman - oh, wait...tha
I have yet to hear Obama or his surrogates claim he lost in WV, Kentucky, Ohio, or Pennsylvania because of racism. Yes, we read it in the blogs and the comments to them, but the campaign itself has not said so. It seems ironic that husband Bill is one of those crying sexism and that the media and Obama have been unfair to Hillary. He is the one who cheated on her right under her nose, and not just once. If that isn't the height of hypocracy! The Clintons really don't know how to play by anyone's rules but their own, and they keep changing. We will have a woman President some day, but it will be someone who has earned it by her own merits.
I've had a hard time with Bill Clinton berating sexism and disrespect to his wife - and him getting a free pass. He is the number one perpetrator in my book.
"... she is cannibalizing her own integrity by invoking sexism as a ploy to get herself elected...
Thanks Steven. As convoluted as that first seems, there is a great deal of evidence to support your observation. By using sexist tactics to garner votes and then claiming sexism as the cause of her loss, she pretends to be defending a high ground, but her tactic has eroded that real estate to the point where she stands in nothing but the deep hole she dug for herself.
It was part of the plot development in Act II of this three act play of "Political Desperation".
I don't like her hair. I guess I'm a hairist. I'm also a lieist and a cheatist.
And the funniest.
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