« David Ignatius, Svengali | Main | Clever » Cleavagegate, The Madness Continues31 Jul 2007 07:14 pm I can't believe this CNN segment ever aired, but I think Ann Friedman does an excellent job:
In all seriousness, though, enough is enough. One has to assume, though, that this kind of thing is pretty great for Hillary Clinton's primary campaign, since it certainly does make me feel like, hey, maybe if we had a woman actually serve as president for a term or two the press would get over their case of the sillies. Comments (28)
Yo Matt, you better get across town tomorrow for another hearing. Laura Rosen just posted that Rumsfeld is going to be testifying at the Tillman Hearing tomorrow. http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/006466.html 
Matt must have set up a "Department of Naive Optimism" for statements like this. "hey, maybe if we had a woman actually serve as president for a term or two the press would get over their case of the sillies." Yeah right, and electing Obama could mean the end of racism and electing Biden might mean that bloviating is cool. But somehow I don't think so.
I know I'm just acting like the word police here but I don't think sexism is just silly.
Electing Biden would mean hair plugs are cool and the end of baldness was near. I suppose progressives are for eugenics.
"maybe if we had a woman actually serve as president for a term or two the press would get over their case of the sillies." They could get it out of their system during a Democratic woman's term, Then, if a Republican woman is elected, we could all look back at how unseemly it was and not repeat it. Like impeachment.
More importantly, women will sympathize with Clinton.
While the U.S. government and media keep focusing on defense policies, campaign advertisement and the war in Iraq, 1.2 billion people in the world continue surviving on less than $1 dollar a day. I would like to see Senator Clinton and the political leaders behind her, support more international problems that affect our place in this world, such as global poverty. We should not forget the commitment made towards the U.N. Millennium Goals (a pact of ending extreme world hunger by the year 2025) in 2000. While the U.S. government and media keep focusing on defense policies and the war in Iraq, 1.2 billion people in the world continue surviving on less than $1 dollar a day. According to The Borgen Project, an annual $19 billion dollars is needed to eliminate half of the extreme poverty affecting the world by the year 2015. To my sense, it is almost unacceptable to have spent so far more than $340 billion in Iraq only, when we have more than war immunities to change the world and eliminate poverty.
Yeah, Ann did an excellent job. Say, did you see her last week on Al Jazeera? She hitched up her feminist pants and bashed Israel for publishing pictures of women soldiers in bikinis. And she did this on Al Jazeera because we know that Jazeera's market is both filled with feminist attitudes towards women as well as a brotherly love towards Israel. I don't know what the hell she was thinking. Let's go to Soviet Russia and bash American Capitalism! Let's go to North Vietnam and be pictured at an Anti-Aircraft site aiming at US aircraft! Let's go to pre-war Baghdad and situate ourselves in front of oil refineries (instead of hospitals.) What a tool. At least Fonda had the good sense later to regret allowing herself to be photographed at the AA sites. But Friedman has learned shit, because wymyn are being oppressed by being filmed in their bikinis!!!!! So what does she do today? Oh? Israeli cleavage bad, Hillary Clinton's cleavage good. What a maroon.
Speaking only for myself, this issue causes me to reflect on how much more I'd rather have to look at Hillary for the next few years than Fred or Mitt. (Has anyone noticed how much better looking the Democrats are than the Republicans? I mean, Mitt looks like Boris Karloff, and he's the best of the bunch...)
You call that cleavage?
"The sponge is back!"
To anon at 10:58pm -- what are you talking about? Friedman is simply saying: there was no "cleavage" shown by HRC, nor any intent to show cleavage, so this is much ado about nothing. The Israeli chicas in bikinis is a different matter. To Kelly at 11:07: Yes, Fred thompson is rather ugly. His wife, though...
Everybody seems to agree that this is silly, but you hear 100 different reasons why it is silly, some of which are clearly contrary to the others. Also, everybody seems to be convinced that their own particular way of bringing up the topic and talking about it, or blogging about it, is distinctly less silly than all of the other ways people have talked about it, or blogged about it.
nbt: Draft Jeri!
I think a Jewish feminist is selling out both women and Israel by appearing on Al Jazeera to bash Israel for putting pictures of consenting women in bikinis in Maxim. This has little to do with Al Jazeera itself. Much more to do with who watches Al Jazeera and how her interview will be used by others. How will her interview help women in Israel? How will it help women in Qatar and the mideast? Israeli women will not see the interview. Her interview will probably be used to foment dissent between Israel and her neighbors. It will be used to justify hardline Islamic attitudes towards women in Islamic countries -- look at the Israeli sluts, we must keep our women in burkas. We must push Israel into the sea to save their women and keep their influence away from us. Look how evil they are, even the American Jewish Woman is telling us this. Not a whole lot of difference between Ann Friedman on Al Jazeera and O'Hanlon's and Pollack's OpEd and how it was used today by Dick Cheney to justify remaining in Iraq: McCain And Cheney Use O’Hanlon-Pollack Op-Ed To Justify Continuing Escalation McCain used the op-ed to bash war critics: Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack have uncovered a truth that seems to escape congressional Democrats: General Petraeus’s new strategy has shown remarkable progress. […] I cannot guarantee success. But I do guarantee that, should Congress fail to sustain the effort, and should it pay no heed to the lessons drawn by Mr. Pollack and Mr. O’Hanlon, then America will face a historic and terrible defeat. Such a defeat, with its enormous human and strategic costs, will unfold unless we do all in our power to prevent it. I, for one, will continue to do just that. Ann's appearance on Al Jazeera seems naive at best. I am curious as to Matt's take on Ann's appearance on Al Jazeera.
Clinton was not showing any remarkable amount of cleavage. The media whores are our enemies and they are trying to Gore Clinton. Anyone who pretends that they are in any way shocked by the insignificant amount of cleavage that Clinton was showing is a goddamn liar and an agent of the Republican party. The media whores are scum. Despicable scum.
I'll say again that the column that started all this was a piece by the Post's fashion writer. Her job is to write about what people wear.
I think the original FASHION SECTION (please note the section, folks) column by Robin Givhen was quite good on the "clothes as iconography" front. As a feminist, I recommend reading it before judging: I don't find it sexist, rather it's more pondering on the appropriateness or not, the discomfort with, or not, of sexual imagery in politics in Western culture--don't miss the yucky Guiliani imagery, for example, at the end of this clip from the article: By the time Clinton launched her first campaign for the Senate, she had found a desexualized uniform: a black pantsuit. Not a fitted, provocative suit, but merely an understated, flattering one. Clothes were off the table. End of discussion. But as she has embarked on her campaign for president, she has given up the uniform. In its place has been a wide array of suits and jackets, in everything from dull khaki to canary yellow and sofa florals. Once again, she is playing the fashion field. The cleavage, however, is an exceptional kind of flourish. After all, it's not a matter of what she's wearing but rather what's being revealed. It's tempting to say that the cleavage stirs the same kind of discomfort that might be churned up after spotting Rudy Giuliani with his shirt unbuttoned just a smidge too far. No one wants to see that. But really, it was more like catching a man with his fly unzipped. Just look away! While Hillary was not on the campaign trail at that moment, the outfit is certainly is not following the "when job hunting, dress for success" dictums we all know since the 80's. It's quite probable this outfit was assembled from remnants in the office closet on a hot day when she stained what she had planned to wear, nary a campaign clothing consultant available. STILL, it presents a chance to talk about: what if a woman president breaks the rules and wears a mini or a backless evening gown at a public function? And what if a male president breaks the rules and wears tight leather rock star pants with a codpiece? Doesn't anyone remember the todo about Condi's spike heel dominatrix boots? I thought that was very interesting. Can't a dominatrix give off equally as tough of an image diplomacy-wise as a broad shouldered straight-postured male? How long do our political leaders have to follow the 80's "dress for success" code? When will there finally be a shift in those paradigms? How long are we stuck with the code? It was tossed out of much of corporate America in the 90's with the introduction of casual Fridays following the suit of Bill Gates et. al. Did you agree with the Bush complaint about the Clintonistas dissing the dignity of the White House by being jacketless and wearing jeans? Or not? Go back to tough guy Golda Meir and her kindly granny shmattes, or Cheney and his green parka in a sea of diplomats wearing dress black, and the topic gets even more fascinating. Is sexual iconography permissible in public leaders or it is still supposed to be relegated to their private life? Is casualness permissible or does it still give too much of a "messy undiscplined mind" message? Can a female politician dress like a bimbo? Can a politician's wife dress like a bimbo? For example, I recall Josh Marshall on TPM making great hay several times of a particular photo of Fred Thompson's wife... I think Hillary's cleavage is interesting stuff indeed. This is not just a question of Al Gore wearing "earth tones" or not or how much a candidates haircut costs. It's about how much sexuality someone can show and still be taken seriously in our culture.
LINKS didn't work in my comment above.
This whole discussion would be more palatable if the news outlets gave as much corresponding time to what Mrs Clinton actually had to say about the Iraqi war during the occasion that she wore the clothes in question - but that would require the news media to actually address substance rather than the trivial wouldn't it?
The press doesn't have a "Case of the sillies". Let's be completely honest here, and I don't really care if people quibble why this goes on because it clearly does go on, but the media doesn't treat Republicans like this. Only Democrats. It's pretty obvious that the people who run these stations are purposefully, willfully, and maliciously trying to affect the outcome of religions. I don't really care what other Reporters, like Yglesias says. This has to stop, because it's a danger to our constitutional democracy. Even freedom of speech has to be helf inferior to holding free and fair elections. I don't care what has to be done to the media to make them understand, no matter how draconian. I only know that if they are forced to play fair, we won't have a democracy in a generation.
eh, elections, not religions. though it's pretty clear one of the ways they do this is by inflaming religious differences.
I basically agree with artappraiser. I think this is a totally legitimate story for the fashion writer at the Washington Post, which is based in the political capital of the country. I think Givhan's article was thoughtful and interesting (as her writing usually is). The article was not on how Clinton scandalized the Senate with her v-neck. Givhan uses her choice of outfit on that particular day to open a discussion about women's fashion, femininity and sex appeal in politics. And its not some kind of partisan smear: Givhan has written about the subject before with respect to Condi Rice and others. The way the story has been exploited by blogs or this quickie CNN story can be criticized as sexist or anti-Hillary or whatever, but the underlying story is legitimate and, I'd say it actually highlights what an asset Robin Givhan is to journalism.
That said, I should also say I agree with Friedman in that I don't really see any notable cleavage in the particular outfit at issue, but, then again, I don't really pay much attention to fashion (or cleavage for that matter).
What I'm waiting for is a female politician-young male intern sex scandal. And to forestall any misunderstandings, I'd be all for it.
Amazing the same people that spent years talking about marks on Bill Clinton's penis, semen stains on Monica Lewinsky's blue dress, and Bill Clinton's insertion of a cigar into Monica Lewinsky's vagina are all reaching for the smelling salts because Hillary Clinton showed some cleavage even though she actually didn't.
"Even freedom of speech has to be helf inferior to holding free and fair elections. I don't care what has to be done to the media to make them understand, no matter how draconian. I only know that if they are forced to play fair, we won't have a democracy in a generation." Wow, a real, live fascist! You don't see that every day.
Comments closed August 14, 2007. |
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Heads in the Sand
I think you couldn't be more wrong. Read MJ Rosenburg's post on TPM Cafe today to see what I mean.
Posted by beckya57 | July 31, 2007 8:00 PM