Let's talk about sexism and respect for a moment [View All]

[tavalon]

I heard two interviews today and I'm going to juxtapose them for illustration. The first was with Keith Olbermann and the second was with Senator McGovern. I noticed in the first one that Keith kept talking about Hillary and Obama. After the third time he mentioned it, I asked my husband if he had noticed that Keith used Hillary Clinton's first name but Barack Obama's last name? He hadn't but then he listened and sure enough, it happened a fourth time. It's a very subtle form of sexism and disrespect. Tonight as I was driving home, I heard an interview with Senator McGovern regarding his decision to move his endorsement from Senator Clinton to Senator Obama. He mentioned Hillary and Barack a couple of times and each time used both of their first names. That seemed reasonable and not the least sexist. It was balanced and made it clear that McGovern knows both of them personally and when he mentioned who he had spoken to in the Clinton camp, he mentioned Bill.

I remember a number of months ago making an agreement with myself that I would match the candidates names, using first for both or title and last for both, sometimes even initials but it would have to be for both. When I realized that lately I've been occasionally calling McCain, Senator McCain, I made the decision that I would from now on address each of our candidates by their title and last name and when we start going after the Senator on the other side of the aisle, I'll come up with some cute, derogatory nickname for him, unless I'm actually discussing policy differences and then I'll use his earned title.

Anyway, I would hope each of you would consider the subtle ways in which we dig at the candidates just by the imbalance in how we address them. No one would call Barack Obama "boy" and neither should we diss Senator Clinton by addressing her by her first name while using the other candidates last name. In each case, we are dealing with an "ism". Let's not go that low with our own candidates.