I suspect some of the reason why Clinton faces potshots that Obama doesn’t is because she defies gender stereotypes, which Obama happily meets. Obama is virile, deep-voiced, sexy, and Clinton is not feminine, soft-voiced, sexy. McCain doesn’t really meet gender stereotypes in the way that Obama does, and he does get mocked for it (Gail Collins had a hilarious column mocking him last Wednesday in the NYT–hilarious but meanspirited and detrimental to principled political discourse).
The problem, of course, is that our political culture values male political stereotypes above female. A woman who is soft-spoken and dresses in flower-prints will not be taken seriously as a politician; a woman who speaks strongly and dresses in pantsuits will be mocked for not being feminine. A man who speaks strongly and dresses in conservative business attire, on the other hand, meets both gender and political expectations. A man with a squeaky voice will not meet either expectation and will have his manhood mocked.
This is an area in which politics is unfair to women, I wholly agree.
Could be. But I usually watch all the Sunday talking head shows, and Chris Wallace is the second best moderator of them all in my opinion. Granted that Brit Hume, Bill Kristol, and the two token NPR quasi-leftists weigh the program down in the second half. But when Wallace is interviewing, he jousts equally with the left and the right. I wouldn’t suspect his production crew of that sort of manipulation as much as I would Fox News in general.
I want to jump on the Dorothea bandwagon too. while we might not always agree (and I don’t really know if we do or not at this point) your posts have been thoughtful and insightful. I think it would be a true shame if you didn’t subscribe.
You know what the interesting this about the white hot fury folks on the different message boards is. They were all voting Clinton, but when she didn’t win decided to switch teams??? Makes me truly wonder if the majority of them were dems to begin with.
It’s like being a Yankees fan, and when they lose the world series becoming a fan of the other team! Silliness!
P.S. Dorothea - don’t be frightened, we always throw lot’s of praise behind those who shed a good light on discussions. So, whaddaya think?
[I’'If Obama was in Hillary’s shoes would we be saying he got a raw deal because of his race?"*
I think the answer is probably yes. Do you doubt it? [/QUOTE]
Yes I doubt it. Obama has had plenty of opportunity to claim racism when he lost, especially when the press and Hillary started the “white working class” mantra…but he didn’t.
He didn’t when he lost KY. He didn’t when he lost WV, even when people openly said they would vote against him because of his color.
Compare his behaviour and that of his support staff, to that of Clinton.
Yep, in fact it’s getting so bad that some folks are even talking about a “presidential race”. What the hell is that supposed to be? Presidents are some kind of different race?
But the question was what we would be saying and I’ve actually heard lots of people say (with much truth IMO) that Obama lost those states partly because of racism. Indeed, Obama himself with his much-bandied “bitter” remarks implied much the same thing.
I agree that Obama has run a better campaign: more high-minded and admirable as well as more strategic but as I understand it what’s at issue right now is #1) that Hillary has been subjected to sexist and misogynistic treatment (which really angers her supporters) and #2 if Obama loses the general election I think many will talk about racism as having been a factor.
Phlosphr and Jolly Roger, I really do appreciate the warm welcome. I do think I will register but hope I don’t get too busy to participate.
Contrapuntal, don’t get me started about violins on t.v. and presidential erections
There is a difference in scope and context with Obama’s bitter comment and the recent; as in when she was desparate to save her campaign comments of Clinton.
I don’t accept that Obama’s ‘implied’ statement is the same as Clinton’s stated ones.
Second, the reason why people are crying sexism in Clinton’s case, is because she and her inner circle have made those feelings acceptable…she has feed that beast as part of a strategy to rally the troops.
And I believe that had Obama started dropping the race card, the same way Clinton dropped the sexism card, the press would’ve torn Obama a new one. He would have quickly found himself amongst the Al Sharptons and Jesse Jackson crowd; whether there was merit or not.
There is no doubt in my mind that racism and sexism played a part in the campaign. However Clinton has allowed and IMO encouraged her supporters to believe it was the main reason she lost.
It is my belief, that if Obama had lost and saw his base using racism as THE reason why he lost, he would have squashed it in order to maintain party unity and not to be seen by the press and public as a typical ‘whinner’ or ‘victim’.
Hillary Clinton has done the opposite adn that’s why some of her supporters are so angry…it what they think she expects of them.
I don’t watch that despicable excuse for a “news” network, Fox News, at all, and I only started tuning in to watch the commentary on MSNBC in the last few days of the election, so I had never seen a single one of those appalling, disgraceful comments prior to watching that clip. I kept wondering what “sexism” in the media her campaign, in particular, Bill Clinton, kept talking about. I think I’m sorry I know now. :mad:
All I can say is that that fucked up excuse, Faux News, does not appeal to Democrats, who were not deciding between Hillary and Barack based on their vile commentary. I don’t know any Democrats who regularly tune in to that network except to be armed with what their opponents are saying. It seems likely to me, therefore, that Hillary was hurt less by the blatantly sexist remarks that appeared there, than if those comments were everyday fodder on, for instance CNN. That doesn’t excuse them, just puts a little perspective on the possible impact they may have had on the Democratic primary.
Holy crap, I’m still just stunned. I can’t stand Hillary as a politician, but now I want to give her a hug. I feel kind of dirty now. Blech.
Leaving aside the issue of whether this is true, I would submit that it’s not the reason she lost. while I could point at several states where racism was the key reason that Obama lost.
I would also argue that Obama himself did not engage in sexist attacks, and the accusations against his campaign of sexism are bogus and counter-productive (Posters on that PUMA site are calling him an “abuser,” for God’s sake. That’s ridiculous. I’m suprised he hasn’t broken his spine from bending over backwards trying to praise her and show her respect).
The threats to vote for John McCain not only would be a classic example of cutting off noses to spite faces, but also play into the stereotype of women being irrational and emotional.
