OMG !
This killed me …
Bullshit. It’s not an “assumption,” it’s an objective observation.
In short: what Diogenes said.
It’s not an assumption; it’s an observation of the way she’s marketed herself since emerging from obscurity (and before, actually; she was a beauty pageant contestant which is practically the definition of using looks to get ahead). Her flirtatious behavior in front of cameras, her wardrobe, he posting for photos like the one in question to begin with - all of these things are Palin using her looks to get attention.
As far as I’m concerned, that’s not in itself a bad thing. If I were in her position I’d be using every tool at my disposal to get people to notice me, oily nylons and all. But she can’t do that and then turn around and complain when someone uses photos she posed for to imply that she’s a bimbo.
If Barack Obama had posed shirtless on the cover of Men’s Health next to the American Flag draped over some goofy prop, the right-wing media would plaster that image next to every single mention of Obama until the end of time. And that wouldn’t be sexist either.
When have looks hurt anybody? Watch the news world wide and you will see very pretty female talking heads. Look at Fox and CNN, the same thing. The Republican defenders are a cadre of really pretty women. Showing her in shorts will do her no damage.
Most of us on the SDMB may not consider looks to be an asset for a leader. Voters do. Consider the following Presidential election results in the televised-debate era:
2008: Youthful, good-looking Barack Obama handily defeats John McCain and his liver spots.
2004: Physically fit though somewhat chimp-like George W. Bush defeats John Kerry’s giant head. In the absence of an attractive candidate, the interesting one wins.
2000: Physically fit though somewhat chimp-like George W. Bush defeats then-nondescript Al Gore. In the absence of an attractive candidate, the interesting one wins.
1996: Ladykiller (not literally) Bill Clinton defeats old, flaccid, somewhat Nixonesque Bob Dole.
1992: Young, hip, good-looking Bill Clinton defeats nondescript George H. W. Bush.
1988: Nondescript GHWB defeats even less attractive Michael Dukakis.
1984: Aging but still lovable Ronald Reagan defeats… googles… I have no idea what Mondale looked like at the time of the election, but he’s not looking so good now (though admittedly probably better than Ron.)
1980: Tanned former matinee idol Ronald Reagan defeats Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer with the funny accent. Okay, so maybe the better looking guy lost there.
1976: Jimmy Carter defeats Gerald Ford, well-built former offensive lineman Gerald Ford… but come on, he pardoned Nixon. People were pissed.
1972: George McGovern. Amnesty, abortion and acid, etc.
1968: Richard Nixon defeats Hubert Humphrey, who looked a bit like Winston Churchill. That’s not a good thing. Er… and George Wallace, who wasn’t bad looking but had a fuckin’ ugly soul.
1964: John F. Kennedy (swoon!) defeats sweaty future President and felon Richard Nixon.
This is completely ridiculous. A belief in the inferiority of one sex to another is the definition of the word.
No it isn’t, but that reminds me of an anecdote I once heard from a friend of my mom’s who happened to go to Yale at the same time as Hillary Clinton. He held a door for her once when she was coming into a building with both arms full of books. She started yelling at him that she didn’t need anybody to hold doors for her, and he was a sexist, blah blah blah. She demanded that he let go of the door so he did. The door swung shut and slammed into her, knocking all the books out her arms.
True story. So he swears, anyway.
No, YOU are. Evceryone who says the cover is “sxist” is saying that Newsweek is sexist. One thing necessitates the other. You just don’t have any rebuttal to it, that’s all. It’s not a starwman. It’s a valid question that you have no answer for.
Pretty sure everybody figured it out, seeing as it was the oppsite of everything else you’ve been saying.
It would first be necessary for a male politician to pose for the same kind of picture. If you can’t cite any analogous male politicians then you have not located an inconsistency.
Not only that, but you ALSO can’t cite an example of Newsweek doing this with another FEMALE politician. It is only specific to Palin.
The photo speaks for itself, and the word “populist” in the article is code for “appeals to morons.”
You first have to find male politicians who have POSED for similar photographs. Newsekk can’t use photos they haven’t posed for.
Yeah, I know. If voters did not respond to good looks, they wouldn’t be an asset. That much is baked into the reasoning. Some of us may think it is superficial, but that does not imply sexism.
I agree to a certain extent, but its a lot easier to cast a hot woman as a bimbo than a hot man. The word bimbo has female connotations for a reason. An attractive woman in a position of power is more vulnerable to charges of using sex to get ahead than a man.
There’s a certain male heterosexual-centric mentality at work here. Some men like Palin because she’s attractive and find her engaging because of it. And some men dislike her because they resent the appeal of her attractiveness. Both camps think of sex when she winks, when they’d never make that association with a man, even a cute one. Both camps think of sex when she poses in shorts in a runner’s mag, when they’d barely notice a man showcased comparably. The key difference is that her fan-boys like how she arouses them and her opponents are bothered by it. And so she is trashed on those grounds, when really it’s people’s own perceptions that are to blame.
If the strongest evidence that Palin actively exploits her sexuality is her winking and posing in workout clothes for a fitness related magazine, it’s time to assess what’s really going on here. Weren’t people accusing her of that long before that magazine cover came out?
I think it’s also probably fair to say that Obama has used his looks too, albeit in a much more subtle way. He dresses well, he knows how carry himself, how to stand and cock his head just so. He knows he’s photogenic, and I think he probably knew that he would be photographed in swim trunks on the beach. Even though he didn’t officially pose for them, I don’t think it bothered him that people would see them.
One thing about Obama, though, aside from being much more low key and less ham-handed about it, it’s also not all he’s got. His looks are a garnish for him, not an entree. With Palin, that’s the only thing on the plate (other than the flag napkins).
he also hasn’t done any photos that make him look as ridiculous as that Palin shot does.
Well, not by me, but your point is taken.
ETA: that was a response to ywtf.
Exactly. Her gender has zero to do with this. It’s all about her total lack of self-awareness.
Uh? This was in 1960. In '64, tall lanky Texas-born Johnson upsy-daisied blunt, protolibertarian Goldwater.
:smack: Of course it was. Not sure what I was thinking there.
The Kennedy-Nixon campaign is still relevant, though, because it’s the canonical example of how looks can affect an election.
I totally agree, Diogenes. To an extent most politicians are highly aware of their image. Granted, most politicians are hideous and don’t have to worry about getting compliments on their looks like Palin and Obama do…
But that’s different. She’s trying to give us boners, and some stupid hicks are too powerless and stupid to resist voting based purely on whatever she wears or however much she winks (and that’s why they voted for Dubya). Only gay men and women would even notice men’s looks, and they don’t read news magazines!
Though I despise them both, politically, I bristle at mention of Palin’s looks as much as I do when someone bashes Ann Coulter’s fuckability. Why on earth do you need to even mention it when there’s so much fodder for criticism? And if they are ‘using it’ to get ahead, doesn’t that say more about their fans and voters than themselves? Palin’s pageant past was ripe for mocking, true, but it troubles me that doing that, or posing for an athletic magazine, opens some gates that cannot be closed, if only because I think a lot of women experience that sort of thing (e.g. sex workers who want to take things slow with a date, sexually inexperienced models, having large breasts and wearing a tight shirt to the office).
As for the discussion of the cover, I’m glad someone quoted someone regarding ethics and context. Just placing a photo in a certain spot on a newspaper page can change its entire meaning. Putting that photo – when, as I’ve mentioned, they’ve run few others like it (except a naked pregnant woman) – was done with purpose. Sure that was probably to sell magazines and only to sell magazines, with no specific intent to degrade women who dare look attractive, but that doesn’t make it any less sexist.
That being said, reading the comments about this issue on another site is making me hate myself for having to defend Palin, even incidentally.
That photo had no different meaning in its original context than in this one.
It’s by a huge margin the most sexist magazine cover in the history of this universe, all the universes that came before it and the universes to follow.
Palin, however, remains a problem in American politics.
I’m not so sure about that. I think that the image on the Newsweek cover adds a veneer of absurdity and mockery that isn’t present in the same image in Runner’s World. I say this way the caveat that I didn’t actually see the image in its original context, I just assume that it was presented in a less critical manner than it is on the Newsweek cover.
It doesn’t have to be an obvious belief. Somebody can be sexist without thinking they’re sexist. As you, apparently, are, if you think that “chivalry” isn’t sexist.
See, now that’s funny. However, to the point: if he was holding the door for her because she had an arm full of books, it was polite; if he was holding the door because she had tits, it was sexist.
I find it interesting that you don’t think that treating me like a fragile and delicate flower solely on the basis of my vagina isn’t sexist.
I have answered it, repeatedly–it just doesn’t fit your narrow definition of sexism (which also, apparently and conveniently, therefore excludes you from being a sexist, because you don’t think you hate women but you also think they should be treated differently from men). The person who selected the Palin photo can be treating her differently than they would treat a male public figure in the same position without actually thinking that they hate women.
Rich white guy is walking through a poor neighborhood at night and crosses to the other side of the street when he sees a Black man walking towards him. It doesn’t necessarily mean he hates Black people–but it is racist, because it’s treating the stranger more suspiciously solely on the basis of the color of his skin.
No, it really doesn’t. Especially not when the “message” of the photo and the “message” of the article don’t match up. Let’s look at the last paragraph of the article:
Nothing in there is “Palin is making the GOP look bad by making an ass of herself.” As I keep asserting, the thrust of the article is “politicians on the far ends of the spectrum must learn to work with instead of against the middle.” So what does the photo of Palin in her running clothes have to do with her far-right political positions?
ETA: A promise is a promise. So, Dio, why do you support dog-raping?