The hypocrisy of Fox News vis-a-vis whining about sexism.

The BBQ Pit
1

As anyone knows who’s watched much of Fox News lately, the network has very recently discovered sexism as a political cause and has decided to pretend to care about it. Their grasp on what sexism actually means is quite sketchy, but they’ve still been right out in the middle of the street ready to fight it with broken beer bottles if they think it will give them a political high horse in this election. This means that any criticism of Sarah Palin, no matter how far removed from gender, is automatically “sexist” just because she’s a woman.

One of the things they don’t seem to grasp, though, is that sexsim is not defined as “attacks on Sarah Palin,” but also includes other women as well – even women that conservatives don’t like.

I was watching a Fox News show called “Red Eye” tonight. If you’ve never seen it, you haven’t missed anything. It’s one of the worst shows you’ll find on television. It’s supposed to be a political comedy show, I think. It’s always on at ungodly hours, is hosted by an unbelievable tool named Greg Gutfeld. If you click on the link and instantly feel an urge to punch him in the face when you see his picture, you’re not alone. He is hands down one of the most obnoxious personalities anywhere on television. I defy anyone to watch him for more than ten minutes without wanting to karate chop him in the throat.

Anyway, the show waants to be a right wing Daily Show, I think. It’s got a panel of the most unfunny comics you’ll ever see making witless, right wing jokes about liberals.
So tonight, I’m flipping around, and I land on this coaxial cow pie, and morbid curiosity compels me to watch. They’re all complaining about poor Sarah’s yahoo account getting hacked, and from there they somehow get into some kind of jokes about nude pictures of Hillary on the internet, a couple of the guests make crude jokes, and one of them says 'I wonder why those didn’t get spread around more," and the alpha tool, Gutfeld says, “They thought she was a baby elephant.” [yuk yuk yuk]

Now imagine if someone at MSNBC or TDS had made that joke about Palin. It would be the outrage of the week on Fox News and the whole right wing radio/internet echo chamber in general.

Hillary is still fair game, though. It’s not sexist and despicable if it’s about Hillary.

Fucking fraudulent, disingenuous, hypocritical assholes. If you’re going to pretend to be offended by sexism, at least pretend to be offended by ALL of it.

2

I thought that conservatives were now championing Hillary Clinton to woo her supporters. Wasn’t Palin supposed to be the 18,000,001 crack in the glass ceiling? Wasn’t it just shameful how the Democrats treated Clinton, and wasn’t their best recourse to strike a blow against Sexism voting Republican?

I guess old habits die hard.
The real sin here to me is the existence of that show “Red Eye.” Being funny can justify a lot of political incorrectness, but there isn’t any funny on that show.

3

Holy crap, I clicked the link and I do in fact want to punch him in the face. Also:

Urge to punch, rising…

4

As near as I can figure it, conservatives always have misunderstood what sexism is, and it’s obvious now in their gallant defense of Palin: they think sexism means being unkind to women.
Their understanding of “sexism” means it worse to be unkind to Palin, because she’s pretty and has five kids, than to be unkind to Clinton, because she’s older and only has one kid. Plus, she’s not as effeminate as women should be, and that’s just asking for it.
And as they see it, women already have 100% equal rights; but for some reason they want special treatment (protection from unkindness i.e. sexism) on top of that. And while no effeminate woman should go to war, the butch ones who want men’s job should have to go. Because after all, they already have equal rights, right?

5

Eh, this isn’t just a right-wing thing. You ever want to see some really nasty sexist crap, go to one of the major “progressive” blogs and read the comments on any article criticizing Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, etc.

Liberal guys tend to think that Sexism Is Bad, in theory, but will pull out just about every anti-woman trope there is to use against conservative women.

Pisses me right off, it does. Gods know those two are vile human beings, but for the love of sheep! There’s enough to criticize them for based on their views and actions without bringing gender into it.

6

That’s ok. The past few weeks have made it painfully obvious that liberals don’t understand what feminism is.

7

And neither do you.

8

That’s cute. You guys think you know what feminism is now too.

9

Perhaps you can explain it to us.

10

Ooooh ooooh I know. Since we won’t bow down and adulate the gloriousness that is Sarah Palin…and Palin is a woman…we hate women. It’s simple. See?

11

They think feminism has something to do with shooting a moose. They think we “liberals” don’t appreciate what a tough, self-sufficient gal she is because she hunts and is a working mom. The fallacy there is that liberals appreciate that just fine. We also notice that she’s anti-feminist in some of her political policies (her weird hostility towards rape victims being exhibit A).

12

I agree. The liberal mainstream may be less sexist than it used to be, and less sexist than the conservative mainstream, but in the Oinkless Zone they do not as of yet live.

13

Has anyone noticed that all these sudden right wing charges of sexism have not been accompanied by any definitions of sexism or any calls to improve the situation of any woman or women who are not Sarah Palin or Ann Coulter?

The righties haven’t a fucking clue what sexism is.

Well, at the risk of educating righties until the point they turn into raging moderates, sexism is treating women differently than men. It’s that simple. (And no, you retards, I don’t mean separate public restrooms or whose on top. Don’t be obtuse.) It means different pay for the same work, dismissing as shrill a woman’s speech because she speaks in a higher register or calling her a bitch for making a good argument.

14

Let me help you with this, because you seem a bit clueless yourself. Feminism is NOT giving a job to a woefully unqualified person just because that person happens to have a vagina. That is, in fact, the *opposite *of feminism.

15

Right. Calling Hillary ugly is sexist, calling Palin a bimbo isn’t. What ever happened to calling a spade a spade?

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=10146652&highlight=bimbo#post10146652

Oh wait, this is **Diogenes **we are talking about. I don’t know why I was expecting consistent logic instead of hypocrisy.

16

What’s sexist about calling Palin a bimbo?

17

I don’t want to tell you your business, but your cite pretty much refutes your point.

18

Zing! Next time, go ahead and go with the rubber and glue thing.

Let me help you out - if you’ve ever called Sarah Palin a “dingbat housewife,” you might not be a feminist! If you’ve intimated that she should stay home with her children, you might not be a feminist! If you’re a stunning mysgonist, you’re probably not a feminist.

Disrespecting a woman who is qualified simply because she has different viewpoints of what certain people claim feminism is, you mean? 'Cause that’s what’s happening.

Yes! There you go! Let’s compare Biden raising his children with the comments about Palin raising hers. Thank you for proving my point. Glad to have you on the Right side.

19

What’s sexist about calling Hillary ugly?

20

It wouldn’t be done to a male candidate.