Obamas’ View of Gender issues – not on their radar
By LisaB on November 21, 2008 at 6:00 AM in Current Affairs
At realclearpolitics is a piece that will no doubt sink in the plethora of “post-election Palin bashing.”
It is time to stop kidding ourselves. This wasn’t a breakthrough year for American women in politics. It was a brutal one.
The glass ceiling remains firmly in place — not cracked, as Hillary Clinton insisted as she tried to claim rhetorical victory after her defeat in the Democratic nominating contest. It wasn’t even scratched with the candidacy of Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential nominee — unless you consider becoming an object of national ridicule to be a symbol of advancement. As divergent as these two women are ideologically and temperamentally, as different as are their resumes, they both banged their heads — hard — against the ceiling. Both were bruised. So was the goal of advancing women in political leadership.
The author goes on to talk about women “in the pipeline” noting that no real advances are evident here either. Women have not become more numerous in political office. Period.
Read the rest ->
Including incumbents and newcomers, a record number of women will be serving in Congress, but still only 17 percent of its members will be female. This is where that record places us: on a par with the legislative representation women have achieved in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. The United Nations, which tracks women’s global political advancement, says that at this rate, it will take women in the developing world 40 years to reach parity with men.
How long will it take us? We already are well into the fourth decade since the contemporary women’s movement of the 1970s spawned a generation that sought to claim an equal place in the halls of power.
Those who watched the media’s sexist hazing of both Clinton and Palin often rationalize this treatment as the result of these two candidates’ particular personalities and the legitimacy — or presumed illegitimacy — of their campaigns. But Barbara Lee, whose Boston-based family foundation has conducted extensive research of gubernatorial races involving women, routinely identifies the same undercurrents in state campaigns. Voters demand more experience of a woman candidate, and judge her competence separately from whether she is sufficiently “likable.” Male candidates typically must clear only the competence bar to be judged — as Obama indelicately put it during a primary debate — “likable enough.”
Bonnie Erbe says BO’s cabinet needs more women. Well, yeah.
Clearly there’s no way President-Elect Obama’s folks can claim the pool of qualified women is too small. That’s so 1970s. There are women eminently qualified to serve as Secretary of Defense or Treasury. A woman in either post would break new barriers for the Obama administration, as women voters helped him break the race barrier in the White House. My conservative friends spout GOP rhetoric averring that gender should not be the preeminent criterion for cabinet posts. Of course it shouldn’t! But a disproportionately small percentage of female appointees also speaks volumes about the administration’s attitude towards women.
Now is the time for women leaders to keep the administration-elect considering gender diversity in the appointment process. The warning signs are, so far, not terrific. If women leaders wait until the cabinet appointments are publicly announced, it’s too late.
Erbe also addresses how MO is packaged right now, and that is interesting. We know MO went to high-powered schools and worked as an attorney. Yet she now says she wants to be “mom-in-chief” as if there isn’t an ambitious bone in her body. Uh-huh.
When in doubt, blame the media. That used to be an overused conservative tactic. Now it’s being adopted, apparently, by the Kool-Aid imbibing Obama fans who are so blind to the Obamas’ flaws they scramble mightily to find someone other than the Obamas to blame for these flaws.
———————
As for President-elect Obama, I probably agree with him on 90 percent of his environmental agenda, 90 percent of his diversity agenda, and 20 percent of his tax-policy agenda. I am extremely disappointed so far with what I see developing as his gender agenda: his position on women’s rights.
Erbe goes on to reply to a columnist complaining that the media is “mommifying” MO. (As a mom myself, I must say that’s insulting, but who cares?)
So please, Ms. Traister, get a grip and stop foaming at least long enough to realize this is not some media conspiracy to turn Michelle Obama into Mrs. Mom but an Obama staff contrivance to tone down Michelle Obama’s negatives. After she made campaign trail comments about being proud of her country for the first time (only following her husband’s success) and disparaging Senator Clinton, the campaign had no choice but to tone her down, or the country would have turned on her husband.
It’s sad both she and Senator Obama are going along with it. It’s beginning to look as if they’re a couple much more concerned with racial than gender parity. As one who has spent her life fighting for both, it’s distressing for me to see gender parity fall by the wayside.
I think the racial calculus was always the choice. Very early in the primaries, BO signaled his willingness to use sexist language and imagery. That he now doesn’t all-of-a-sudden become a gender breakthrough politician should not surprise anyone even remotely paying attention. What also shouldn’t surprise anyone is MO had enough ambition for her husband to actually say “mom-in-chief” and to subordinate both her career and achievements to the role of political wife.
MO learned that a woman runs into trouble when appearing strong in her own right. She will get hammered for being too tough, not feminine, etc etc, ad nauseum. So, she made a calculation. Appear in the “acceptable role;” get elected, then, presumably, show your real colors. Great. We get to look forward to more “MO isn’t just a mom-in-chief – she’s well read!” stories for the forseeable future.
But I think it is also a bad beginning. While Hillary Clinton was always upfront about who she was and what she could do, earning lots of enmity for it, MO deliberately dissembles. She knows how the gender race is run – but rather than opposing the system of making women appear limited, she embraces it. For BO’s ambitions AND her own. She will have influence and power, and she knows it. So she lied or allowed others to lie about her. I suppose they expect someone else to work on gender parity in leadership before their own girls reach adulthood.
Am I angry about this? Not really. I expected no less.
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Marie Cocco always wrote all the right things – during the campaign as well.
Michele Obama should be ASHAMED of herself!
Back in January I believe I watched her with horror and disgust while she was giving a speech to a group of business women in Chicago.
Michele said:
“Well, if HIllary couldn’t run her own home, she can’t, she can’t, and how can she ever run the White House!”?
I shuddered to hear this accomplished intelligent attorney talk like a washerwoman about to lose her job!
Michele and Barry don’t give a damn about the women who propelled them to the White House!
At least we have Hillary as SOS and let’s hope she prevents Hussein from realizing his Sharia Law agenda–while campaigning in Kenya for his slum bilionaire Sharia Law couz Odinga!
The only bright light after the BUSH-BUTCHERING years where the country was destroyed and the world set aflamed by a moron from a wealthy robber-barron Arab-loving family of Bushes…is watching Hillary travel around the world HEALING THE BUSH WOUNDS….
Let the healing begin. I’m sure Hilary will try to set Barry straight about doing more for women’s rights….which are HUMAN RIGHTS…
Send Barack Obama this CD by JOHN LENNON:
‘WOMAN IS THE NEGRO OF THE WORLD”—She still is!
A woman could have 1000 pages of qualifications and a lifetime of experience but she will never have the key qualification: Six inches in the nether region.
PUMA!
With some of the males on the political scene, I’d have to say that six inches is about five and a half inches too much but like so many males, they’d never admit to it.
experience = penis
PUMA
THE
NEW
THIRD
PARTY
WOMEN
CAN
TRUST
When I was trying to make some since of the Democratic campaign this year, I was reminded of my dad always saying “You get what you pay for” when purchasing a new car. And that was when it began to make some sense. The Democratic party was trying to sell We the People a cheap Yugo for the price of a Lamborghini!
And 17,148,898 (Obama) voters bought the Yugo while 17,564,254 (Clinton) voters insisted on the Lamborghini. Which just goes to prove that P. T. Barnum was a wise man because those with the Yugo are insisting they are driving an American Cadillac!
What a great analogy!
Think about this. If Hillary had won the presidency and Obama did not accept the VP, just what cabinet post would he be qualified for? NONE! Would you offer him State? Or Defense, or Treasury or even HHS? That shows how pathetic his qualifications are. He has none. On the other hand, Hillary would be the best candidiate for ANY position! Yet people trash the woman and hold Obama up to no scrutiny. Palin is way more qualified than Obama…yet she continually gets a bad rap. When Obama is a bad rap.
Think about this. If Hillary had won the presidency and Obama did not accept the VP, just what cabinet post would he be qualified for? NONE!
Great point, alibe.
ALIBE
HOW TRUE!
I think Hillary will make a better SoS than some of the other names floated. However, if she met with some leader & said “i speak for the President”, would the savvy leader believe her? Can Hillary & obama really work together?
Absolutely. She has more world clout than he does, frankly.
No matter his shitty qualifications, BHO was hired by the people of this country. If Hillary accepts the SoS position, she is – wherever she goes – a representative of the people of the United States of America. If she says that she is speaking for the President – she is speaking for us all.
She loves this country. She has – time and time again, years and years on end – proven that.
If she chooses to do the SoS job, one for which she is more than eminently qualified for – she will, as always, do a spectacular job.
She is an extremely hardworking person, who is dedicated to the betterment of all people throughout the world.
She will not simply do a spectacular job, she will drag his ass across the finish line, as it were.
And of course, if ANYTHING goes awry, he’ll point at her and shriek “Your fault!!! All YOUR fault!!!”
Keep your friends close…and your enemies closer, after all.
This appointment makes it impossible for her to run in four years….unless he goes off the rails and she resigns in forceful, stark, contrasting protest.
About the only solace I can take in the appointment is that at least we will have a tough and pragmatic brain at State, for a change, and that BILL RICHARDSON got SERVED for his perfidity.
He wanted that job so badly he could TASTE it. He backed the wrong horse to try to get it, too. It’s a bit of poetic justice.
Obama plainly isn’t stupid–he recognized Richardson’s treacherous nature. May he sink into the mud and mire of history as a small state governor who once upon a time USED TO BE in federal government, but whose poor judgment doomed him to obscurity. The baaaastard!
Bill obviously has some problems in life. His endorsement was all about himself, not about Obama.
That was one of the low points for Obama, frankly.
I laugh when I see the “progressives” pushing Richardson.
The guy can’t give a decent endorsement speech and turns it into a personal drama about himself and the Clintons? And this is someone we want speaking on behalf of the US?
Oh lordy.
You both made excellent points. Richardson couldn’t show loyalty and couldn’t show that he can balance the competing needs of two strong powers. Both characteristics are essential for SOS.
p-L-e-a-s-e!
Have some respect for Bill Richardson! Enough out of you all here…
I said it before and I’ll say it again:
Bill Richardson is fit to buy a Mexican Chillie Kiosk in Washington and start selling enchilladas at half price!
He’s got the smarts for this!
The President is an employee of the citizens of this country. Problem is, that GWB didn’t understand this and neither does Obama.
Women definitely have been the big losers in this election. (Michelle Obama has as much to do with most women–black or white–as lipstick does to a pig.) I feel that women’s issues have been set back by a generation. There is more to women’s issues than abortion….This recession may wake up a few younger women, as they find themselves being laid off while their male colleagues are allowed to hold onto their jobs. As for HRC, she will make a significant contribution no matter where she is, and that must annoy Obama. If she stays in the Senate, she will work with McCain to sort out our economic problems. If she is made Secretary of State, she will work to sort out Iraq and the Middle East. Either way, she and we win; and Obama is showed up for being the snake oil salesman he really is….
I do hope it’s a wake up call for women. We’ve only been trying to pass the lousy ERA for what, EIGHTY FIVE YEARS?
How tough is it to codify into law that your rights won’t be denied or abridged because of…..SEX?
Why can’t this nation say that women are EQUAL?
That lousy “Oh…but the DRAAAAAAAAFT” excuse is just bullshit. We sure didn’t use the draft in George’s Folly, now, did we? Throw enough money on the table and you’ll find people to go.
I agree that the abortion issue is a big CANARD. With the Plan B so widely available, to say nothing of the threat of HIV everywhere, motivating anyone with half a brain to insist on the “no glove/no love” credo, anyone who gets pregnant and stays that way has to REALLY not think about it….hard.
Even if Roe got rolled back (and that’s unlikely when cretins like SCALIA call it “settled law”) it would require a BUS TRIP to a neighboring state, at worst. It would develop into a tourist industry in the “No Roe” states, with package tours for those seeking services in other locales, because if there’s a vacuum, and an opportunity to make money, SOMEONE will fill it. They might not call it the ABORTION trip, but they’ll call it “The (fill in name of city) Weekender /Getaway”–shop, visit, see a play, do what you will…three days and two nights in FABULOUS (name of city)…!” They just won’t mention that the “clinic” is an easy walk from the hotel they use.
Perhaps the economy WILL wake women up, and they’ll stop catfighting over the cute guy and realize that Last Hired, First Fired and Seventy some-odd cents an hour for every dollar a male makes is NOT ACCEPTABLE.
Fifty percent of the voters are essentially being held hostage to bullshit, smoke and mirrors. When the bloom is off the rose, though, the only one who will still look good is likely CLINTON.
Remember, it wasn’t Nixon’s foreign agenda (which was bold, superb and nuanced) that did him in–it was his DOMESTIC AGENDA, that involved treachery, deceit, perfidity, and blatant illegality…and Chicago-style DIRTY, DIRTY politics.
Nixon, as we know from his tapes, had prejudices, too.
All just a little bit of history repeating….????
I think anyone who works for Obama will rue the day. He can not be trusted. His word is not his bond. He will throw anyone under the bus. He can not be trusted. He has no core values. How can you work for someone like that? You have no idea what they want or what they are. At least with Bush you knew what he was and what he wanted. (Scary though, he was a consistent fool. We didn’t expect him to be honest or competent.) And now we have Obama. Afraid to lead and doesn’t know whom to follow. FDR he ain’t.
I agree with you. Although I will support Hillary if she decides to accept the SoS position, it will be a sad day for the same reasons that you posted and more. Moreover, what will make it so sad is that the things she fights for will be put on the back burner. There is no one to pick up her torch and carry it. She is the only one who does what she does. There simply is no one else.
American Poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) wrote, “For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: ‘It might have been …
Lisa B. Great post. But I am angry about this. Very, very angry. And all women should be angry by the blatant sexism of this campaign. And women should be even angrier that the Obamas encouraged and benefited by it.
Amen.
Lisa B. Do u think the smack talk MO said about HRC was what she felt or lipservice?
FWIW, and it’s just my opinion, I think it was real. I think candidates get more “politic” as they go along and are less filtered earlier. She’s also not good at hiding her emotions or thoughts at all.
I think this article points out a very interesting component of women in politics, which is that the same tactics are used against women in elections all over the country.
Well, the good news about THAT is it can be counter-attacked. Anything that is predictable is, by definition, a technique. And a better technique can be developed that beats the sexism technique.
I’ll be interested to see which clever strategist figures out this one. (Knowing the irony of life, it’ll probably be a man who does it.)
Speaking of gender equality, Larry, what happened to that great ad for Hillary’s debt that was always right under your pic on this webpage? I’ve been away for awhile, and just noticed it is gone — is that part of the ‘you all have full rights of free speech movement’ makeover going on here?
Please put that pic and ad for Hillary back. This is at its core a blog animated by all that her candidacy has brought up, the bitter and the sweet.
Re MO: If somebody cares to go picking back through the verbal garbage of the BO campaign, I believe you will find that very shortly after the ‘love my country/first time’ debacle, the lines about MO as devoting her life primarily to the care of her family and planning on using her position as lady #1 to make sure that women get a better deal in the ‘life-work balance’ came creeping in via many low-level sources, and quickly hit the msm. My perception is that there has always been a not-so-subtle Hillary trash going on that consists of MO being used to position Hillary on the fringe of acceptable American womanhood. Never mind that MO spent most of her time on the campaign trail leaving her kids at home with substitute caregivers, even lying about it sometimes (some fall holiday, I think), once the msm got its talking points, it just activated them, and now MO is weapon #1 in the resurgence of the male breadwinner model of social and economic policy.
So I agree with this post, but can we please have the Hillary ad back to at least maintain the little glimpse of gender equity that it signalled when it was here?
Thanks!!
PUMA!!!
Kal, you have made excellent points. What did happen to the Hillary Debt link and more importantly is it linked to an attitude change here?
Paranoia of an ever so slight paradigm shift here.
And yes, there was some of that comparison of Mo as a proper “non-feminist” female during the primary directed towards Hillary, but it didn’t become full blown propaganda tool until Palin.
It was the 9/11 memorial where Mo was needed at home with the children as a proper mother (nasty attack at Palin) should be when her children are starting school… only we found out later (and it wasn’t reported in the media attacks on Palin) Mo was out on the campaign trail that day out of state. She could have attended the memorial, she chose not to and she covered it up with a lie that was also a slam at “bad mother” Palin.
It fit right into the whole media hype on supposed feminists who were bashing her as unable to care for children and a job simultaneously. Utter trash.
Kal
Thanks for the thought!
Where is Hillary’s ad? I missed seeing her here where she rightfully belongs among FRIENDS! i also click like crazy on Amazon sites posted here as someone suggested.
Please bring HIllary’s photo back…..
PUMA….and homesick….
I think that all BO wants is HRC out of the Senate and public life. I see him firing her in the first year as his last gotcha to her. HRC, please stay in the Senate and drive him nuts.
Well, putting her in STATE is not the way to do that. That puts her front and center on the WORLD stage.
For what possible reason would he fire her that wouldn’t bite him in his own ass? All that would do is awaken a quieted but still angry giant–her supporters.
Her supporters wouldn’t tolerate it–and her husband, who is King of the Bully Pulpit, wouldn’t tolerate it either.
Obama hired her because he HAS to–”Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” after all.
Pay no attention to Condi and Colin…they weren’t very effective in their jobs, and were kept on a short leash. Clinton won’t operate that way.
Think HENRY KISSINGER. He owned the news cycle.
Now, Hillary Clinton could wipe her ass on Henry, but the point is still made. Hillary can easily command media attention …and Obama can end up having his DOMESTIC agenda (to include every mistake and impropriety) picked over on the news, just like Dick Nixon did, while the INTERNATIONAL agenda belongs to the adult in the room–SecState Clinton.
Kissinger was about the only guy in the Nixon Administration who didn’t wind up in jail and had a career and reputation post-Watergate. Now, I don’t particularly want to get into a discussion of every diplomatic course of action taken by Kissinger, because there were doozies mixed in with those successes, but my point is simply that he didn’t walk away with the same stink as everyone else during those Nixon years. The very position at STATE has the ability to shield an individual from the lunacy of an administration, if the individual doesn’t spend too much time with his or her nose up the President’s ass (the error of Condi and Colin).
CF — you just made me a feel a whole lot better about Hillary accepting the SOS position. Your points about Kissinger are so dead on that I almost leapt for joy at thinking this might be Hillary’s similar future should she accept it. I’d rather she didn’t though.
Wonderful article, LisaB.
I am so sad to know that I won’t see a woman president in my lifetime.
The reason hillary lost is because she ran a bad campaign. Face it, no matter how much you want to complain – she got her ass handed to her by the Obama campaign. Secondly, her policy positions were too conservative. She supported the worst foreign policy fiasco in decades. Now stop whining finally, jeez.
Stolen and bullied, not won. We all lost.
Oh goodness, I think that’s such a superficial argument.
She won the popular vote. Her policies are now the status quo for Obama.
I recently read where the medical companies are joining to insist on mandatory enrollment for all in exchange for no pre-existing conditions. The catch? Obama has to expand his plan. In other words, they saw that her plan works. His doesn’t.
So get ready. You’re going to get Hillary’s programs.
Certainly you’re going to get her stance internationally.
I think what the progressives will have to face is that you were had.
You raced out to support Obama, sent him 500 million bucks, and you’re not going to see much for it at all.
LOL*
I’m laughing, because he’s also going to raise your taxes.
BINGO…!!!
He ran on CHANGE, but he’s filling his cabinet and his White House with old pros.
He did con the progressives (who, to my mind, sexist bastards that they turned out to be, are anything BUT “progressive”) and they’re still too giddy to see it.
Yet.
My property taxes are already creeping up. Amazing, too, since home values are plummeting.
What’s up with THAT?
User fees are under fire too–Massachusetts is now arguing over DOUBLING TOLLS (from three fifty to seven frigging bucks) or….a teeny weenie little GAS TAX. Just to fix the roads, of course. And pay off the Big Dig debt.
Yeah…that’s one of those little taxes that NEVER goes away. Ka-ching. No doubt the feds will start adding on here and there, too…as they do.
I’m guessing income taxes will take a hit as well. Deductions will simply be reduced, or disappear, and that’s how they’ll say “But..but…we didn’t RAISE your taxes!!!”
How can you lose when the game is rigged against you? Soertoro ran a bad campaign and was still given other candidates delegates to get him closer to the finish line; which meant stopping the vote count at the Denver convention just like the Supreme Court stopped the vote count in 2000 when it got too close. Even if they had given Soertoro every vote in the U.S. he still wouldn’t have won anything…or at least that is what our government tells us about landslide election victories for dictators.
Wow, rewriting history, are you?
The nomination was stolen from her. Anyone who paid attention knows that. And those of us who did pay attention aren’t about to forget it, either.
The good news for me is that I get to keep more of my money as a consequence of the theft of the nomination–the DNC is just going to have to find loyal cash-donating supporters amongst the MTV, pot and pizza crowd, because I’m done with them.
I’m an INDY now, and my wallet likes it.
me too!
I’ve dumped all of ‘em — the DNC, the progressive orgs, MoveOn, NOW, PP, NARAL
I have money and time for ME!
Now let the MTV generation get off their asses and work at the shelters and serve food to the poor instead of getting fat at home eating turkey on Thanksgiving!
Dale Dale Dale –
Hillary did not lose — the nomination was STOLEN from her.
She won the popular vote and the DNC had to steal delegated FROM 0-zero in order to drag him across the finish line.
And then 0-zero “won” the GE — because the ultra conservative Republicans threw the election to the Dems by NOT voting.
Obot sexist pigs always come out of the woodwork — when there is a discussion about 0-zero’s blatant sexism.
Dale
Sweetie, cut the Obamacrapola before it bites your ass and leaves you braindead!
HIllary did not lose the godam nominaiton. HILLARY’S NOMINATION WAS STOLEN BY OBAMAMARAMA!
Where have you been, dopey? The CAUCUSES were FRAUDULENT. Documentaries are in the process now being made. Open your eyes….
You are suffering from OBAMYOPIA! Get some corrective lenses, will you? And while you’re at it, go read BUSH TERM 3, THE OBAMANATION ODYSSEY!
Why don’t you visit another site where your intelligence will be far more tremendously relished and even rewarded with a popsicle….
KOOL-AID’S GETTING CHEAPER….
Good post Lisa!
I heard this morning that Senator Clinton will be accepting SoS.
It’s just as well I suppose, since the Senate is “brimming over” with women!
I, in the minority, think it will be a mistake for her to work for the “O”, but that is water under the bridge.
We can expect another lecture about respecting the President elect. I had forgotten, during my senior moments, how all the dems rallied to Bush in 2000!
Yeah, right!
First Clinton, then McCain, then Palin.
All that fence sitting must be starting to chafe!
Looking back to 1947, the year I was born, I can see a LOT of progress for women! And I think that gender, just like ethnicity, should not come into the equation when someone is voting unless the candidate has made it an issue. Hillary got past any problem of her gender, and Bobo allowed others to use his ethnicity to smooth his path. Of course, he’s a politician, and all pols will allow almost anything to get elected. Come on, folks–we know this. Even the Clintons play hardball at times.
Bobo now looks to me like the typical pol, and I believe he will want to have a successful administration. He’s dumped the loony Chicago folks who he used to get ahead there. During the campaign, he ran all over the place glad-handing and back-slapping everyone from Supremes to Cardinals. If he gives Hillary the nod, then he’s just given Ted the brush-off. He’ll probably get along to get along.
And as for misogyny per se, I wonder: If Hillary and Palin had not been opposing the media’s darling, then would they have been trashed so? When Hillary was first running for the Senate, there was nowhere near the level of venom that accompanied this campaign.
In a way I can excuse Bobo’s political tactics, but I can never forgive those employed by people purporting to be journalists and liberal commentators.
I can never forgive those employed by people purporting to be journalists and liberal commentators.
Hear, hear!!!!
I have to add though, that before the liberal commentators started feasting on Clinton, the conservative commentators had taken the opportunity to try to rip her to shreds as well. It’s only when they saw their opposite numbers doing their dirty work for them that they backed off. It’s their way of “growing their audience share,” by roping in the disaffected Clintonistas.
A pox on all their houses, IMO. They aren’t reporters…they are CLOWNS.
I can’t forgive Obama because his whole campaign was run on “a different kind of politics” that would bring people together.
Well, I guess it turned out partly right, his campaign sunk to new lows I didn’t realize existed until I saw them happening.
It’s way past time people that women from all walks of life are given the RESPECT and HONOR they deserve. Congratulations to Governor Sarah Palin on her historic bid to become the nations’s first woman Vice-President. May God bless her and her family too.
http://ontheseventhday.wordpress.com/
Lisa, thanks for this article. Marie Cocco stood out a few times this year as saying what nobody else would utter and doing it with style and grace.
18 million people wanted a woman for president. Did you ever think you’d see that happen? That’s 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling. Hillary may not have broken through, but she broke the festering carbuncle on Uncle Sam’s backside — sexism and misogyny pus poured out in the open for all to see. That’s the road to healing.
I am a married man with only one child, a boy without a daughter inspite of a lot of prayers and efforts. My son is married now, and our daughter-in-law is now also a long sought daughter for us.
I read NQ regularly and seeth with anger at the trashing of HRC and Gov Palin. It must STOP – AND STOP NOW.
But to bring about the equality, we have work to do:
– Become persistant and strident in our demands as
the old time Civil Right Marchers;
– Organize next summer a Million Women (and men)
March on Washington, DC;
– Confront the MSM sexist pigs and get into their
faces nonstop;
– Stop patronizing their advertiser enablers;
– Compile a short booklet which includes the best
and most perceptive current critiques (and I do
not mean the most scholarly essays)particulary in
relation to treatment of women with HRC and Palin
as the focal points. Include in it the best
comment posts from our prominent blogs and the
worst bad mouthings and slurs and insults by the
media and the BO’s supporters, men and
women, with their pictures.
– Sell or distribute these books to all women
schools and colleges.
If this does not stop the misogyny, nothing will in this nation, the so called leader of nations.
I was laughing at MSN for purporting a hoax story.
But today? The Turkey Story with Sarah?
Tells me that she’s so not ready for prime time.
Good post. Thank you.
Well, here’s a link to what one writer expects from Michelle Obama’s new “position of power”:
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/article/20081120/LIFESTYLE/811200309/1007/news01
The link is to an article in my local newspaper from yesterday (Thursday, 11/20). That was where I first actually saw “the dress” that was so “newsworthy” for the past couple of weeks, and I have to say that the dress is abominable. The lower red part gives MO the appearance of a “baby bump”, and for anyone to suggest that this is an indication of “fashion sense” proves, to me, this is a person who really believes that the “fashion world” really exists for women larger than a Size 2. It’s really too bad that Mr Blackwell died before he had a chance to see that travesty. (Wouldn’t one of his little caustic witticisms have been the perfect way to bring down the Obama jubilation express?) I’ve seen a lot of so-called fashion “disasters” that I thought weren’t really that bad (and a lot of praise for clothes that I thought did absolutely nothing for the woman wearing them), but I don’t get how anyone finds MO’s dress to be the vanguard of a great fashion style. (Of course, the best thing about true fashion revolutions is that by the time they’re finally accepted by the masses, they’re over.)
Let’s give a chance for a President’s Comission on Gender to get started.That’s a good way to be heard and be involved.