Misogyny I Won't Miss

[DeepModem Mom]

WP op-ed: Misogyny I Won't Miss
By Marie Cocco
Thursday, May 15, 2008; Page A15

As the Democratic nomination contest slouches toward a close, it's time to take stock of what I will not miss....

I will not miss walking past airport concessions selling the Hillary Nutcracker, a device in which a pantsuit-clad Clinton doll opens her legs to reveal stainless-steel thighs that, well, bust nuts....I won't miss Citizens United Not Timid (no acronym, please), an anti-Clinton group founded by Republican guru Roger Stone....I won't miss political commentators (including National Public Radio political editor Ken Rudin and Andrew Sullivan, the columnist and blogger) who compare Clinton to the Glenn Close character in the movie "Fatal Attraction."...

***

I won't miss reading another treatise by a man or woman, of the left or right, who says that sexism has had not even a teeny-weeny bit of influence on the course of the Democratic campaign. To hint that sexism might possibly have had a minimal role is to play that risible "gender card."

Most of all, I will not miss the silence.

I will not miss the deafening, depressing silence of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean or other leading Democrats, who to my knowledge (with the exception of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland) haven't publicly uttered a word of outrage at the unrelenting, sex-based hate that has been hurled at a former first lady and two-term senator from New York. Among those holding their tongues are hundreds of Democrats for whom Clinton has campaigned and raised millions of dollars. Don Imus endured more public ire from the political class when he insulted the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

Would the silence prevail if Obama's likeness were put on a tap-dancing doll that was sold at airports? Would the media figures who dole out precious face time to these politicians be such pals if they'd compared Obama with a character in a blaxploitation film? And how would crude references to Obama's sex organs play?

There are many reasons Clinton is losing the nomination contest, some having to do with her strategic mistakes, others with the groundswell for "change." But for all Clinton's political blemishes, the darker stain that has been exposed is the hatred of women that is accepted as a part of our culture.

(Marie Cocco is syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/14/AR2008051403090.html?nav=hcmodule

[marylanddem]

1. This column is a crock of shit.

As a white feminist, I deplore this b.s. - I continue to fail to see why Hillary is perceived as some kind of feminist heroine because she is married to a philanderer and somehow managed to keep their marriage of convenience together.

[aquart]

13. "As a white feminist."

And not a bid judgmental, either.

"White feminist," LOL! Might as well call yourself a purple yo-yo by that standard of definition.

[havocmom]

2. agree with some, but also won't miss being called a misogynist for being critical of HRC

position/methods on many issues. Disagreeing with a politician who happens to be female is not misogynist. Accusing any critics of HRC of being misogynists comes close to being sexist, and it happened way too often around here a few months ago when some of us questioned inevitability and second hand experience.

[Warpy]

3. I won't miss the somnolence of younger women

who thought we'd fought all their battles for them. They realize now that there is a lot more that needs to be done, "post feminist," my flabby old ass.

I won't miss treating all women presidential candidates like their bid is a total joke and unworthy of any commentary. This was one case in which negative commentary was progress. At least they took her seriously.

And if anything good does come out of this, it will be that I won't miss the DLC campaign handlers that have ruined so many good candidates and their campaigns from the inside by trying to appeal to the mythical GOP crossover voter than to the base of their own party.

[dkf]

4. If this is the best we can do when accusing the country of sexism, then I guess

things aren't so bad after all.

[aquart]

12. Patriarchal patsy.

They sell it, you buy it. And swallow it, too.

[islandmkl]

5. my response to this post when it was made earlier by another:

will you miss the race-baiting, the 'economic class' warfare, the 'not ready' to lead...


Will you miss the kitchen-sink?

[Tangerine LaBamba]

6. Too bad HRC isn't a feminist

No self-respecting feminist would have conducted herself as HRC has, especially these last few weeks. Her macho posturing when announcing how she'd bomb Iran moved her right into - or so she thought - The Good Old Boys' Club. Belly up to the bar, boys - she's One Of Us. So what if she and her husband are Ivy League-trained multimillionaire lawyers? She has had no compunctions about painting Barack Obama as an "elitist," another code word designed to enhance her standing among her vastly white, working class constituency.

Face it. Senator Clinton has accomplished some admirable things. But she's also shown herself to be a compromiser of the first order, standing for nothing. There's not one single piece of legislation to which she can point that bears her name. Her years in the Senate, so far, have been undistinguished except that she is a former First Lady. She is also a carpetbagger who never lived in New York, but dared to run there for the Senate, banking - successfully, as it turned out - on her husband's popularity there.

She's a woman who let her husband embarrass her before the whole world and continued on as though nothing happened. To forgive the philandering that she's forgiven through the years is to damage yourself personally - you don't live a life that corrupt, that warped, that filled with dishonesty and betrayal, without enduring lasting harm to whatever you once were, when you still had a soul.

Senator Clinton gave it all up in the pursuit of political glory, and now that she sees that her dream is going to be denied, she's running down a path that leads right to the open sea, where she'll fall off and drown, her credibility and whatever reputation she had forever lost.

[juajen]

9. You're disgusting and I won't honor this idiocy with any more words.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

10. You just did......

Refute it if you can. Name-calling and running hardly constitute a meaningful response.

Tell me where I'm wrong.

[aquart]

14. "Macho posturing"?????????

I guess a good feminist would simply ask if you want sugar or lemon in your tea.

Damn low standard of "feminist" in these here parts, I must say.

[Captain Hilts]

7. Only 2 out of 16 WP op-ed writers are female. No sexism at the Post....nt

[asjr]

8. Bravo to Marie Cocco--

She has said what needed to be said a long time ago. She is a journalist I can admire. Those of you who do not support Hillary Clinton will never stop saying crap about Clinton because it makes you feel good. Throwing mud is the exercise for haters.

[texastoast]

11. Just goes to show you how far women have to go

And we thought surely the idea of feminism will take hold permanently. It is constant vigilance that women have to maintain. Sad to say.

[aquart]

15. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

And today's young women have no idea what they've just thrown away.