Eye-opening video from the Women's Media Center rounds up some of the sexism in recent campaign coverage. But what's on cable is nothing compared to some of the garbage in the comments section of the video.
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"Sexism Sells"
10 Jun 2008 09:06 am
Comments (31)
Yes there was sexism in the campaign, but there was a whole lot of racism NOT COVERED as well, like the monkey T-shirts being sold publicly which barely got a mention or the Obama campaign office that was vandalized and painted with racial epithets or the fact that TV pundits were going out of their way to say that Obama's problems with certain demographics had nothing to do with his race but trying to come up with bogus reasons like "he doesn't connect with blue collar workers" while meanwhile in WV 20% of voters said that race was an issue for them and they vote for Clinton.
The Clinton campaign can complain all they want, but the fact is that black men make less than white women and black women make even less than that.
There have been dozens of white women who have held the highest of offices like Governor or Senator while there has been around 5 black men OR women who have been Governor or Senator.
Yes Clinton faced sexism, but Obama faced and overcame bigger hurdles. It is interesting to note that black women, at the intersection of race and gender voted overwhelmingly for Obama. That says to me that race played a greater significance in their lives than gender.
Clinton lost not because of a disadvantage because of sexism, she lost because she made too many mistakes, at times ran a mendacious campaign that lost her the respect of large swaths of the population and - most importantly - ran against the phenomenon that is Barack Obama.
Youtube comments are always garbage, no matter what the video is about.
No doubt Hillary Clinton faced sexism.
It's too bad that it's gotten to where just about any negative mention of Hillary appears sexist.
I mean, remember when she came out and hollered "Shame on you Barack Obama!!" Wow that sounded bad, both rhetorically and aesthetically.
But no doubt, many things on that video were disturbing.
I saw the quote from Gloria Steinham. She wrote an article in the New York Times several months ago where she said one of the selling points for Hillary was that she had "no masculinity to prove."
So it would be nice if the prophets of equality didn't engage in the behavior they deplore.
The vid seemed a little like propaganda...no perspective.
But then again, I don't need convincing to know that there was a heaping helping of sexism in the coverage of Hillary.
Yes Clinton faced sexism, but Obama faced and overcame bigger hurdles.
I really don't think this is the point. Can't we condemn misogyny without trying to compare it to racism in some sort of winner-less oppression olympics? Why is it necessary (on both sides) to claim that either discrimination against women or discrimination against African-Americans isn't as real or as important as the other?
I think the proper response to that video is to be outraged and simply say that we need to find a way to root out the acceptability of misogyny in mainstream and liberal discourse.
Saying that in no way suggests that racism doesn't exist - I think it works differently, and should be understood and fought somewhat differently - and the explicit comparison serves only to downplay one or the other. The point should be to bring both to light and condemn both.
Also, pointing out and condemning misogyny isn't equivalent to endorsing Hillary Clinton or criticizing Barack Obama. That should be obvious, right?
I mean, we can condemn the racism that Clarence Thomas has faced in his life while also believing that he's a really terrible Supreme Court justice. It's much easier to condemn the misogyny that Hillary Clinton faced while preferring her opponent as the Democratic nominee.
"It's too bad that it's gotten to where just about any negative mention of Hillary appears sexist."
*DING* We have a winner.
While sexism was an issue in the campaign, I wish somebody could explain what makes a mean, belittling comment about Hillary different than the mean, belittling commments made about Kerry, Gore, Dole, Bush I, Dukakis, etc. For instance, is making fun of Hillary's cackle any different than making fun of Bob Dole's speaking of himself in the third person?
Mike
Vik N, the huge difference is that the sexism was coming right from the media. The monkey t-shirts were not. Though I suppose it's fair to say all the Wright rubbish is pretty racist, and the whole "outsider" mentality some in the press have been pushing about Obama. "He's black! He's not like us"
It's all pretty disgusting. And youtube is a vile place. Absolutely revolting to see how people act when they don't have to take responsibility for how they act and what they say.
It's a floor wax AND a dessert toppiing!
VikN wrote:
Yes there was sexism in the campaign, but there was a whole lot of racism NOT COVERED as well, like the monkey T-shirts being sold publicly which barely got a mention or the Obama campaign office that was vandalized and painted with racial epithets or the fact that TV pundits were going out of their way to say that Obama's problems with certain demographics had nothing to do with his race but trying to come up with bogus reasons
First of all, that video is talking about sexism in the mainstream media (which reached millions of people) not one idiot selling t-shirts, who probably reaches a few dozen. So the t-shirt example is not comparable.
Second, a campaign office got vandalized- one campaign office??? Unfortunate, but that's nothing compared to having the mainstream news coverage of your campaign effectively vandalized with chauvinist epithets.
Three, there were attempts to brings up racism in the coverage of Obama's campaign, but what the media did to Obama was nothing compared to what they did to Hillary. It was more like they were trying to make Hillary lose, whereas with Obama, it was just like planting some seeds for racism to grow here and there in the general. The stuff about Obama not winning certain demographics included plenty of references to race and the fact that the demographic was white, and the stuff about "working class" people was more like an attempt to get an additional smear in at him without going totally over the line and ruining the media's credibility (showing that they are in the pockets of racists) by talking about racial stuff openly too often when they talk about Barack.
While sexism was an issue in the campaign, I wish somebody could explain what makes a mean, belittling comment about Hillary different than the mean, belittling commments made about Kerry, Gore, Dole, Bush I, Dukakis, etc.
I'm guessing you didn't watch the video.
"She looks alternately soppy and bitchy."
"Men won't vote for Hillary Clinton because she reminds them of their nagging wives."
"When Hillary Clinton speaks, men hear [screeching] 'take out the garbage.'"
"When she comes on television, I involuntarily cross my legs."
That's a 45-second span of clips.
Obviously, the mainstream media has been attacking Democrats for years, but in their attacks on Hillary Clinton, they drew on very specific misogynistics tropes, painting her as a bad candidate / bad president because she shared stereotypically, discriminatorily female characteristics.
Three, there were attempts to brings up racism in the coverage of Obama's campaign, but what the media did to Obama was nothing compared to what they did to Hillary. It was more like they were trying to make Hillary lose, whereas with Obama, it was just like planting some seeds for racism to grow here and there in the general.
This is what I meant about "both sides".
I really, really hate this need that Clinton and Obama supporters have to downplay either racism or sexism in order to stump for their candidate. It is horribly counterproductive to any progressive politics, which will need major alliances to fight both racism and misogyny.
I would suggest that what you're seeing is that racism worked differently than sexism. It is acceptable to go on tv and say blatantly sexist things in a way that it isn't with racist comments, but one can make one-step-removed racist comments as supposedly disinterested analysis (can Barack Obama convince people that he's American?), and we saw in the Wright controversy the way in which our discussions of race are usually a bunch of white people talking about black people - the media made black voices absent from the coverage and simply presumed that black liberation theology was unacceptable in polite discourse and let no other viewpoint be heard.
Racism against African-Americans in the mainstream media works usually at a level of remove in a way that sexism often doesn't, but that does not mean that it's less bad or less insidious. It just means it's different.
Can we please, please put a stop to the Oppression Olympics? No one's winning.
I agree with DivGuy. It's obvious that Gore faced endless analysis about his clothes, or Kerry about his windsurfing - but the "discussion" of Hilary's appearance always seemed to lean towards how butch she was....
DivGuy,
I agree that we don't have to always compare who faced the worse discrimination, or which kind is worse overall.
But I thought Obama was right when he said that his preacher caricatured himself.
Similarly, I think it would give more credibility to anyone talking about the sexism Hillary experienced if they acknowledged that there may have been a time or two when she caricatured herself.
Like when she came out an hollered, in quite an unpleasant tone "Shame on you Barack Obama!!"
The Daily Show did an excellent compilation of sexist remarks made by cable news anchors (Glen Beck I think was the worst).
While there was certainly racism during the campaign, it wasn't the cable news channels that were spouting epithets. But a lot of those channels had absolutely no problem making blantantly sexist comments about Hillary.
Now that doesn't mean she should have been the nominee. I've been an Obama supporter from the beginning. But if you don't think there was vicious sexism coming from some of the most prominent cable news anchors then you are either in denial or just havent been paying attention.
Can we please, please put a stop to the Oppression Olympics? No one's winning.
I’ll second that notion.
The stuff in the video is bad. End of story. People need to get out of primary mode where everything a competition about who is more overcoming more B.S. and who’s not getting a fair shake, etc.
I'm with Divguy here, there is no good reason to fight a battle between racism and sexism, its a relativistic argument without actually dealing with the problems themselves.
what I do take issue with is those clinton supporters who use sexism as a surrogate for why their candidate lost. its a lazy excuse.
although I do find it funny that the same people (including the candidate herself) who made arguments about how clinton was better able to stand up to the republican attack machine are now claiming that she lost because of sexism and the media. that kind of logical gymnastics was the problem with clinton, not her gender.
"Obviously, the mainstream media has been attacking Democrats for years, but in their attacks on Hillary Clinton, they drew on very specific misogynistics tropes, painting her as a bad candidate / bad president because she shared stereotypically, discriminatorily female characteristics."
How many of those attacks were from avowedly conservative pundits and how are they different from the "southern redneck" insults you can routinely hear from liberals? Or the gay-baiting stuff about John Edwards?
berger referred to the focus on Hillary being "butch". How is that different than the focus on how Kerry, Edwards and even Bush I weren't "butch" enough? Anybody old enough to remember a national magazine branding Bush the Elder with "The Wimp Factor"?
Again, this isn't to deny the existence or evilness of sexism, but I'm not sure it's really helpful to conflate that with garden variety political nastiness.
Mike
I agree with DivGuy. It's obvious that Gore faced endless analysis about his clothes, or Kerry about his windsurfing - but the "discussion" of Hilary's appearance always seemed to lean towards how butch she was....
For one thing, I'm not sure that's really true at all aside from the pant suits. And let's face it, if the worst thing a presidential candidate has to complain about is their suits, then they've had it pretty darn easy (relatively speaking).
For another thing, not only is there superficial criticism of all candidates, but it is often about gender even when it's about men. For instance, Edwards is criticized for doting on his appearance too much. Gore feels the need to display his male sexuality by passionately kissing his wife at the convention. etc. etc. etc.
So much of the criticism of anti-Hillary media sexism is utterly ahistorical and out of context. I'm sorry to see Matt, usually so willing to challenge conventional wisdom, pushing this line.
I'm sympathetic to DivGuy's call for an end to the Oppression Olympics, but I do think this campaign revealed an interesting dichotomy between the mass media and the general public that's worth mentioning.
First, this video really drives home the point that casually sexist comments are far too common in the media and in elite circles. I don't think a single one of those commentators would have made comparably crude comments about Obama. Racial caricatures have become socially taboo in a way that sexual caricatures simply aren't. Perhaps this is just familiarity breeding contempt... nearly everyone deals intimately and personally with the opposite sex on a regular basis. And male candidates who seem insufficiently "tough" and "down-to-earth" get similar treatment. But those comments were really inexcusable.
That said, out in the wilds of darkest America, there were counties where Obama got less than 10% of the vote. In at least one KY county, he finished behind John Edwards -- who dropped out more than three months before. 88%-5% isn't just a landslide election... those are the kind of numbers one sees in third world elections where there's a soldier guarding the polls and looking over people's shoulders. Any random Democrat can pull 20% in a general election in conservative pockets of Wyoming. And these were two candidates running on nearly identical platforms, neither one of which had anything in common, culturally or economically, with the men of Eastern Kentucky. Relatedly, black voters rallied behind Obama in much, much greater percentages than white women flocked to Hillary.
Youtube comments reach a kind of Absolute Stupid, a dearth of human wit and reflection which acts as the lower barrier to human achievement.
This debate is a little tiring (but I'm commenting anyway!). It's as if saying something is sexist is some sort of end point to an argument--ie, "comments about Hillary are sexist, therefore I win". Hillary was subject to nasty treatment by the press--she isn't a particularly charismatic politician, and she was going up against a once in a generation (maybe)-type candidate. When the media doesn't like someone, they get nasty and personal. The press commentary on Hillary was stupid, as was the commentary on Kerry (is he too French? OMG, he asked for swiss cheese on a cheesestek) or Gore or Dukakis (he looks silly in a tank!). I'm not sure what pointing out that the comments were sexist gets us.
And, yes, race is different, so it's not very illuminating to say that the comments made about Hillary as a woman couldn't be made about Obama as a black man.
In the end, I feel very little sympathy for Hillary. She was THE candidate, until she ran up against a rising start politician who voted the correct way on a war that most people think was a mistake.
This debate is a little tiring (but I'm commenting anyway!). It's as if saying something is sexist is some sort of end point to an argument--ie, "comments about Hillary are sexist, therefore I win". Hillary was subject to nasty treatment by the press--she isn't a particularly charismatic politician, and she was going up against a once in a generation (maybe)-type candidate. When the media doesn't like someone, they get nasty and personal. The press commentary on Hillary was stupid, as was the commentary on Kerry (is he too French? OMG, he asked for swiss cheese on a cheesestek) or Gore or Dukakis (he looks silly in a tank!). I'm not sure what pointing out that the comments were sexist gets us.
And, yes, race is different, so it's not very illuminating to say that the comments made about Hillary as a woman couldn't be made about Obama as a black man.
In the end, I feel very little sympathy for Hillary. She was THE candidate, until she ran up against a rising start politician who voted the correct way on a war that most people think was a mistake.
Like most posters I agree with Div Guy's call for an end to the Oppression Olympics.
Nevertheless, two issues remain. One is that many of the feminists who have been most vocal about sexism and misogyny have made precisely that comparison. I have lost count of the number of times that I have read that the campaign shows that racism is taken more seriously than sexism. In fact, some (e.g. Geraldine Ferraro and the woman featured in the You Tube video created from the DNC meeting on May 31) have gone on to argue, against all the evidence, that Obama's race was an asset to him in this campaign.
Secondly, some Clinton supporters have suggested that sexism was responsible for her defeat in the contest for the nomination. Clearly, some people believe this "stab in the back" legend, and that is responsible for much of the anger expressed by Clinton supporters - anger which should be directed against the media rather than at the Obama campaign or the DNC.
a big difference is that the environment where we all are right now is one in which casual sexism ("that b****") is far more often expressed &/or condoned than casual racism (that n*****")--just check the tone of Matt's comment box: questions of gender bring out a whole pack of trolls and creeps; questions of race merely bring out Steve S, and people (as they should) mostly treat him with scorn....
Sexism? By 1997-98, people of all stripes were sick to death of the Clintons. Largely because of sex in the White House. In 2007-08, Hillary played Dick Nixon incarnate, wearing a pantsuit. She was a fringe candidate at best. If you think Hillary cares about women, other than herself – check the record and think again. And, the black widow’s venom would easily find its mark from the VP slot. So, Hillary's out of the question. But in the words of California Senator Dianne Feinstein: “No one brings to a ticket what Hillary brings.” Ditto that: http://theseedsof9-11.com
questions of gender bring out a whole pack of trolls and creeps
i'm rubber you're glue whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you
John Kerry suffered a torrent of abuse in the 2004 campaign, and hardly anyone lifted a finger to defend him. This is standard operating procedure for belitting establishment Democrats, who, being untrusted by the left, are easy game for the Nasty Boys.
What's the first thing your wife will say if you reveal you slept with another woman?
"That bitch!" (Well, after she says, "You bastard!")
Your wife is sexist?
'Nuff said.
Identity politics stuff always incites the most bizarre posts.
Comments closed June 24, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
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Posted by freddiemac | June 10, 2008 9:17 AM