What has happened in Hillary's campaign that is "deeply offensive to millions of women"?

[RiverStone]

Hillary Clinton 5/20/08:

"It's been deeply offensive to millions of women," Clinton said told The Washington Post in an interview, in which she pinned blame primarily on tolerant attitudes in the media.

"I believe this campaign has been a groundbreaker in a lot of ways. But it certainly has been challenging given some of the attitudes in the press," Clinton said of the contest that will crown either a black or a female presidential nominee for the first time in history.

Clinton said she did not believe the campaign had been tainted by racism, adding that racism is apparently less tolerated in US society than sexism.

"There should be equal treatment of the sexism and the racism when it raises its ugly head," she said.

"It does seem as though the press at least is not as bothered by the incredible vitriol that has been engendered by the comments by people who are nothing but misogynists."

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jg64HtQeTtsvLlKkcO5nx1glqldw

I do believe sexism still exists in our culture; in fact, there are plenty of "isms" to go around. Add age, sexual preference, race, and weight among others.

Though it seems from this observer that Hillary is laying a disproportionate amount of blame on sexism for her failed candidacy. In my heart of hearts - given the same rethug tactics, I'd feel equally turned off by the candidate regardless of gender (I'm a man).

I have an 18 year old very independent thinking daughter. A strong young woman who took it upon herself to organize a Civil Rights Day at her high school. She is passionate about Obama and his message. I have an equally strong mother, an artist still working and teaching well into her 70's, and she loves Obama. My girlfriend is a working mother of 2 school age children and she put herself back in school (as a single mother) to get a masters in teaching with no help from any man. She also works tirelessly for Obama and what he stands for. All three woman I love and greatly admire and never have I heard them decry Hillary's fall or Obama's rise to sexism.

I could be missing something here, but could someone please tell me what specifically has happened during the course of Hillary's campaign that is deeply offensive to millions of women?


peace~:)

[PoliticalAmazon]

1. Hillary's faux sexism claims have been DEEPLY OFFENSIVE to me. n/t

[mamalone]

2. Watching for the answers to this with great interest!

I am unabashedly an Obama supporter... but also being an older woman, I am very tuned into sexism. I have seen very little sexism in this campaign. I think Hillary has had very little to complain about.

Of course that won't keep her from complaining... or from convincing as many other women as she possibly can that they have been insulted and degraded and that a vote for Obama is going to set women back a couple of centuries:eyes:

[Aloha Spirit]

3. I could tell you, but I pledged not to be critical of Hillary for three days.

[AtomicKitten]

4. No, Hillary, the way you have run your campaign is deeply offensive to ALL Americans including women

[MidwestTransplant]

5. Imagine if Obama didn't win the nom and blamed racism. There is NO doubt that some didn't vote for

him simply because he is black. I am sure he would have never blamed racism. I am not sure were sexism has come into this. The cleavage and cackle BS only lasted a couple of days.

[otohara]

18. Can't List One State Voted Against Clinton For Being a Woman

WV, KY, PA, OH comes to mind as states who voted in large numbers against Sen. Obama for racist reasons.

[VotesForWomen]

55. uh, you don't know why they voted against Obama. you scream racism, but at hill folks had the sense

not to scream sexism was why she lost Utah.

[VotesForWomen]

54. where the freak have you been???? they say that every time he loses a primary, and they'l

they'll sure as hell say it if he loses the GE.

[MidwestTransplant]

56. Who is "they"

[ShortnFiery]

6. " ... racism is apparently less tolerated in US society than sexism."

Yeah, think that while trying to hail a cab or being an AA driving through an upscale neighborhood. :crazy:

[TexasObserver]

7. What Doris Kearns Goodwin said about that ...

“When people look at the arc of the campaign, it will be seen that being a woman, in the end, was not a detriment and if anything it was a help to her,” the presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin said in an interview. Mrs. Clinton’s campaign is faltering, she added, because of “strategic, tactical things that have nothing to do with her being a woman.”

[Captain Hilts]

12. DKGoodwin and her husband are Obama supporters. nt

[DCofVA]

17. "it will be seen that being a woman, in the end, was not a detriment and if anything it was a help"

Boy, do I ever agree with Doris Goodwin on that. Honestly, if Hillary was just another white guy, she (he), would just have been a face lost in a crowd of a thousand other white male candidates, and Obama would have locked up the nomination weeks ago.

[MidwestTransplant]

22. Plus it would mean that Bill Clinton was married to a man so he wouldn't have been elected in the

first place! :)

[DCofVA]

28. True

:)

[TexasObserver]

37. She has certainly run as Mrs. Clinton

[mamalone]

45. I loves me some Doris:) nt

[butterfly77]

8. What really offends me is...

her always using sexism as an excuse and she is really saying vote for me because I am a woman..

[tabatha]

9. Probably the fact that Obama supporters

are in most part inspired by his message, and do not even take Hillary's gender into account.

[Warren DeMontague]

10. Maybe it was the unfair sexist slurs, like, "Hillary voted for the IWR and refuses to admit it was a

mistake".

Don't you understand why women everywhere would be outraged at such vile, sexist language? :crazy:

[speedoo]

13. Of course. How did I fail to recognize that?

For years, I believed she cast that vote in a calculated way, to make herself look tough, like a good, electable Republican.

How stupid of me.

:sarcasm:

[havocmom]

11. All the snivelin, excuse makin, kitchen sink throwin, wind sock in the wind blowin tactics

that HRC campaign and supporters have engaged in have been pretty offensive to me.

havocmom, older, hard workin white woman not crazy about Hillary and gender has nada to do with it

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

16. As a black woman and a proud feminist, I was highly offended

by her exploiting BOTH race and gender to bolster her claims for why she is best suited to be president.

I grew up during a time when Atwater was employing his Southern Strategy to exploit white racism in the south.

But now she is trying a different tactic: using claimes of misogyny and sex discrimination to create anger and discord among women--particularly white women--so that they will vow not to support Obama. The objective is to run his negatives up so high that he is battered for the General; and it sadly appears to be working.

I suppose that it is most disheartening for me as a woman that other women cannot see what she is doing.

There are a good number of up and coming female politicians currently serving in the halls of government who are just as qualified, if not moreso, than Hillary Clinton. Women shouldn't be so distraught that they fail to look to these up and comers as future leaders.

[REACTIVATED IN CT]

19. Absolutely right !

"There are a good number of up and coming female politicians currently serving in the halls of government who are just as qualified, if not moreso, than Hillary Clinton. Women shouldn't be so distraught that they fail to look to these up and comers as future leaders. "

Its not like she's the last hope for a female President. Obama might even select one to be his VP.

[RiverStone]

25. A question for you....

Thanks for your thoughtful post Liberal_Stalwart71

You said --- I suppose that it is most disheartening for me as a woman that other women cannot see what she is doing.

This may be tough to generalize, but why do you think some women see it and others don't? What makes the difference between seeing it for what it is, and not seeing it at all?

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

52. I honestly don't know. I've been trying to figure it out...

I can understand the urgency of women who are my mother's and grandmothers' (both of them) age. But I can't understand the women 50 and under who see Hillary Clinton as their feminist incarnate and beacon of hope. Though I once liked Hillary very much even though I never agreed with her voting record, I have grown to dislike her a great deal because of her behavior during this campaign. I no longer view her as a role model for younger generations for how to behave in the heat of adversity.

I honestly have no clue... :(:(

[ecstatic]

14. Her lies have been deeply offensive to me and millions of others

But if it makes her feel better to think that she was rejected due to sexism, then so be it, I guess.

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

15. Trust me, Hillary, I have plenty of reasons not to vote for you.

Hillary is as much a feminist as Bush is a conservative. She wants every advantage in this election, and when something doesn't go her way she blames it on sexism. Perhaps if she had stopped and examined her own actions once in a while, she might have done better.

[RainDog]

20. SHE is deeply offensive to this woman

Hillary - YOU LOST. GO HOME. GO BACK TO YOUR JOB IN THE SENATE.

[Me.]

21. I Wanted A Female President

It is past time, IMHO, for the women to have a shot at running the country. The boys club we've had in the last 8 couldn't have done any worse. Then the senator began her campaign. I first took exception to the inevitability factor, as if we had no choice in the matter. Then...she lied to our faces on a number of things, she advocated for a con over a dem and now she twists things and changes the rules to suit her. For instance...she has more electoral college votes. Well electoral college votes only count in a GE and this is a primary. Then there is the popular vote nonsense...counting Fla. & Mich., while ignoring any type of count from caucus states. Finally, her campaign has been run so badly, money squandered, her choice of Penn and so many other factors. She ran a very masculine campaign because she was afraid that as a woman she wouldn't be judged as not good enough, but it didn't work. Maybe she should've run being exactly the person who people say she really is.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

31. I think we've discovered exactly who Hillary is

and its not what we expected. Very very manipulative.

[Me.]

43. Exactly

and it bothers me no end. The 'triangulation, the win at any cost, the we deserve it and so on. What she has demonstrated to me is that she's still playing the old game, the one that hasn't worked for the benefit of we the people for a long time. I still want a woman, and sincerely hope Obama picks one, so the door will be open in 2016, despite the campaign that HRC should run. And, I've noticed that the majority of her senior advisors are men, Mayne she should've trusted women more.

[breakaleg]

23. If it was a man that was a shoo-in for the nomination and lost that huge lead, he'd be counted out

by now. We'd be calling him on all of his mistakes in throwing away that lead. It's because she's a woman and a Clinton that we are even talking about her.

[niyad]

24. gender issue lives on as clinton's hopes dim

(note the use of SENATOR obama, and MRS. Clinton, ignoring her title, but not his. no, of course, no sexism at all)

Gender Issue Lives On as Clinton’s Hopes Dim


By JODI KANTOR
Published: May 19, 2008
With each passing day, it seems a little less likely that the next president of the United States will wear a skirt — or a cheerful, no-nonsense pantsuit.


Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is now in what most agree are the waning days of her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. To use her own phrase, she has been running “to break the highest and hardest glass ceiling” in American life, and now the presidency — even a nomination that once seemed to be hers to claim — seems out of reach.

Along with the usual post-mortems about strategy, message and money, Mrs. Clinton’s all-but-certain defeat brings with it a reckoning about what her run represents for women: a historic if incomplete triumph or a depressing reminder of why few pursue high office in the first place.

The answers have immediate political implications. If many of Mrs. Clinton’s legions of female supporters believe she was undone even in part by gender discrimination, how eagerly will they embrace Senator Barack Obama, the man who beat her?

“Women felt this was their time, and this has been stolen from them,” said Marilu Sochor, 48, a real estate agent in Columbus, Ohio, and a Clinton supporter. “Sexism has played a really big role in the race.”

. . . . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/19/us/politics/19women.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=clinton+campaign+sexism&st=nyt&oref=slogin

[nomorewhopper]

26. SOUR GRAPES

not saying that sexism doesn't exist, but hrc is clearly going to lay blame on everything BUT herself.

[NJmaverick]

27. What she is doing is laying the ground work for a chasm that will not heal

This woman is a terrible person. Thankfully she will not be President.

[K Gardner]

29. Bingo. And THAT is the real OFFENSE. It is Hillary herself.

[NJmaverick]

40. Totally agree, she is extremely offensive

[bunnies]

30. I'll tell you what happened...

She lost. And she refuses to take responsibility for it. Clinton and her pot-bangers have to blame someone.

[Phillycat]

32. You're missing something.

She didn't say Obama was sexist, she said the press was. To wit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcdnlNZg2iM

And if you don't find the content of that video offensive, I submit your hatred of Hillary has blinded you to reality.

[speedoo]

34. Her surrogates say it. Geraldine Ferraro, for example.

They are lying. Why does Hillary not tell them to stop? Answer: she wants them to say it.

And IMO, Hillary implies it all the time.

[RiverStone]

39. Youtube is blocked from my workplace...

But I'll check it out tonight.

[SwampG8r]

46. im amazed you can string so much together

out of context and expect anyone to see your point through its muddied propaganda

[Phillycat]

47. It's not my video, genius. It's also not muddied and not out of context.

Here's an article or two, for your continuing education:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/14/AR2008051403090.html?hpid=opinionsbox1


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/magazine/18wwln-lede-t.html?_r=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

You definitely need it.

[jsmirman]

51. Try this video. Now THIS one is hilarious

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skIlZflDs9Y&feature=related

[nichomachus]

33. So, those of us who oppose

Elizabeth Dole are sexist? Those of us who wouldn't vote for Phyllis Schlafly are sexist? I'm opposed to my own Rep. Mary Bono. Does that make me a sexist?

Hillary's comments are deeply offensive to tens of millions of people who listened to her, watched her, studied her, and found her wanting.

She ran a truly shitty campaign that even her own staffers admitted was a comedy of errors -- with fiscal mismanagement "bordering on fraud."

The fact that she can't take responsibility for her own failure just underscores how lacking she is as a candidate.

[NOLALady]

35. I find her remarks offensive and embarrassing to women.

My 'girl' has set back the women's movement.

I don't know what's gotten into her. I thought she was bigger than that.

[Vinca]

36. I must be dense as hell because I'm a woman and I'm just not seeing

the outrageous sexism. Sure, they chided her about her pantsuits, but they ragged on John Edwards about his hair. She's the one who made references like "a woman's place is in the kitchen and I'm comfortable there" (paraphrasing - forget the exact quote). The fact is, she came into the race with every advantage: experience, name recognition, tons of money, weight within the party and a husband who is a former president. It doesn't get any more favorable than that. Her problem has been that she ran a "big state" campaign and expected it to be over in February. There was zero planning after Super Tuesday. If her opponent had run a similarly bad campaign, she'd probably be winning. But he didn't. His campaign was the exact opposite: brilliant. His win should not be diminished in any way by Hillary's faux claims of sexism. I mean . . . really . . . he's a black man with a name that rhymes with Osama for heaven's sake.

[RiverStone]

57. Nobody was claiming sexism when she was the presumptive nominee..

...last summer.

Up by 25 points and she was already anointed by the corporate media.

[NashVegas]

38. "Bros Before Hos"

Sums it up pretty well.

[NJmaverick]

41. It's Hillary who is extremely offensive. Her latest stunt brings her to a new low

(I didn't think that was possible). What this calculating ammoral individual is doing is ensuring the rift in the party NEVER heals. So glad this horrible person will never be President.

[DeschutesRiver]

42. Her fake sexism claims

are disgusting because they are just tools she is using to manipulate people, in order to grab the brass ring for herself.

Nothing has happened that is truly deeply offensive to women; all women who are feeling susceptible to this kind of brainwashing please remember it is only being made into an accusation in order to further Hillary's career at your expense.

ANY candidate using this kind of crap I will always turn off when they show up on tv. Sexism, racism, don't care what ism - when it is done to fool people for personal gain, well, that is where I draw the line and those people quit being part of my universe. To make room for better quality people, who really want to get things done in their lives. Hillary is one of the biggest fakes I've seen in awhile; other than George Bush, who is her equal.

What I esp. despise about this is her transparency in this matter - only a dope on a rope would buy into this (we'll see how many are that dumb), but she doesn't care how bad it looks, and after all, dopes on a rope are exactly who she is aiming at this late in the game.

[Cali_Democrat]

44. I think we all know what she is doing at this point

Reduce Obama's female support as much as possible so Obama can lose to McCain and Hillary can run again in 2012 saying..."I told ya so."

[cascadiance]

49. And SCREW all American women in the process with a more f'd up Supreme Court as a result!

THANKS Hillary! NOT!!!

The big problem we here face with the f'd up media we have now is that we're all being USED by these parties for their own agendas. The Rethugs use the religious right, and the Clintons are USING those who sympathize with feminist ideals. They need to step back and realize that their supporting the Clintons really does NOT help their cause! It hurts it!

[Eurobabe]

48. Clintons joint problem

They always have to find someone/something else to blame for their own shortcomings. Simple as that.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

50. You could probably find a good 20 hrs worth from Chris Matthews.

I don't know anyone who can dispute that unless you have your head up your ass.

[VotesForWomen]

53. she was talking about the treatment of her and her supporters in the media, and let me ask, how many

times does the B-word have to be used before it becomes offensive? cuz i'm pretty sure one time with the N-word would be enough to offend you.

[AZBlue]

58. What's happened that's been offensive? Hillary happened , that's what.

She's been the most offensive thing to happen in months.