Which demonstrates that this has nothing to do with women’s rights or respect for women, and in fact is contemptuous of them. There’s a real, live woman involved, not a theoretical one; and I keep seeing her and her desires waved away as irrelevant. The people taking offense over this in the name of women have about as much concern for actual women as a “People’s Republic” has concern for the actual people it rules over.
I rather doubt that. I expect that she’s pissed at being used like this, and having her friendship spat on.
You don’t know what Ms. Harris’s desires are. You have no idea what she felt about the President’s comment. Unless she comments publicly on the matter, I doubt any of us will know.
Those of us who object to benevolent sexism do so because it is demeaning to its object and diminishing to other women.
I didn’t tell you her desires don’t matter. I told you that you don’t know what her desires are.
To be honest, I was going to speculate on her feelings myself, but I realized that my theories are as unsubstantiated as yours, so I didn’t base my argument on them.
If you believe that being reprimanded for rudeness is treating the object of the rudeness as a political pawn, then we will have to agree to disagree.
When it’s a matter of telling her that she’s not allowed to decide if she’s offended (and telling her friend that he has to treat his female friends worse than his male friends), then yes, it’s treating her and her friendship as a political pawn.
She’s perfectly allowed to enjoy or cherish the comment, but whether she likes it is irrelevant to the overarching problem of benevolent sexism. Something can be pleasant but also unfair or damaging in the long run. There’s a disconnect between what she likes and what’s right. Right now what we need is for people to hold off on those comments, because regardless of being complimentary and flattering, they’re damaging – not even necessarily for her, but for other women. If she was flattered, great! No hard feelings. He still shouldn’t have said it, though.
And like most of us have said, this isn’t a humongous problem. Life goes on, it didn’t trash anybody’s opinion of Obama if they already liked him. It’s a tiny thing that people should watch for, not a cross to crucify them on.
If everyone but me was getting such compliments then yes, I’d feel insulted. And that’s what people are saying that Obama should have done. That he should have singled this woman out by not complimenting her.
It’s fucking sickening that there are people here arguing essentially, “well it’s ok or it doesn’t mean anything wrong if Obama compliments a male friend on being good looking, but he definitely shouldn’t be saying those things about a female friend!”
It’s absolutely bizarre that people who are fighting for equality between the sexes would espouse such a ridiculous and frankly hurtful double standard.
Benevolent sexism IS a problem, but this is about as far from benevolent sexism as you can get. It was a genuine, light hearted comment tossed on top of other praise BY A FRIEND TO ANOTHER FRIEND (one of whom happened to be a female and the other doing the praise happened to be a male).
I feel genuinely sorry for you folks who can’t recognize that yes, benevolent sexism is a real problem in our society, but that no, this is not, DEFINITELY NOT, benevolent sexism.
Again, it’s not the fact that he said it about a female friend – it’s the volume at which these comments are directed towards women. If it wasn’t directed that heavily towards women, combined with the history, it wouldn’t be bad, but unfortunately that background and context is there. All we need to do is cut down on it. Once it’s as rare as it is towards men, then it’s fine. The problem isn’t that Obama said it, so much as Obama contributed to the overwhelming volume.
Once it’s rare, it’s okay. All people are saying is that people should be conscious and not use it until the zeitgeist changes a little – not that Obama needs to be crucified for daring to complement a woman’s looks. Hell, I understand your position, and I can see what you mean and agree on a certain level that it’s a shame that the comments are construed in a negative light, but unfortunately I think it’s a reality that they need to be cut down on. And again, I don’t think him doing it isn’t a huge deal. On a rank from “meh” to “national incident” it rates a solid “meh”. It really shouldn’t have been news, IMO. I don’t see why you see mine as “fucking sickening”. It’s an incredibly minor disagreement at best.
Like I said in an earlier post – most women I know who support not making these comments do admit that it stings not getting them. But they view it as a case of “ripping the band-aid off”. The discomfort and anxiety that comes from not getting the complement now is worth getting rid of the fixation on women’s looks in the long run.
That’s never going to happen, short of altering human nature. At most you’ll be able to flip society into one where female beauty and the appreciation of it is condemned as sinful. You’ll end up with something like Afghanistan under the Taliban, not an egalitarian Utopia.
Nothing wrong with it other than the fact that she was offended by it and Obama should have known she’d be offended by it. It sucks, but a lot of feminists have a problem with their own gender and sexuality. It sucks because it undermines their otherwise correct or at least arguable positions.
It’s really pretty basic. Would it be wrong to say it to a guy? If not, then it’s not sexist. To claim otherwise is to be sexist yourself. It’s saying that women are too fragile to understand that, like guys, some are less attractive than others.
I have the same problem with the Nostalgia Chick, who has given up on feminism because people would make comments about how attractive she was. Because of these feminists that teach this bullshit, she’s unable to focus on the huge number of people who tell her how great her work is. Nor can she realize that people can find her attractive and still think her work is great.
But, anyways: Obama is not trying to change feminism, so he should have just went with what he should have known that his friend would prefer. It’s either that or make a lot more mistakes so people wouldn’t focus on this insignificant one. It worked for his immediate predecessor, after all…