Feministing’s Ann responds to Ryan Lizza’s idiocy.
This cardboard-cutout view of gender means there’s no way for female politicians to prove their “toughness” on a surface level, because that’s a trait society is only comfortable associating with men. If you’re a dude, you prove you’re a “red-blooded American” by quarterbacking a football team, you prove you’re “tough” with a tour in Iraq, you prove you’re a no-nonsense by sporting a flat-top buzz cut. If you’re a woman, you certainly can’t do those things and still be considered electable. (Well, maybe Iraq is OK. But you’ll have to talk a lot about how you missed your kids while you were away.) Your can’t prove “toughness” by talking about reproductive rights (those women who raise money for Emily’s List? Total pussies) or about better health care policy. Nope, you need a gun, a dick and some balls to show you’ve got what it takes.
Ryan Lizza’s article was so bad it is hard to choose from all the smackdowns it elicited. But Ann got right to the heart of it.
i have to say there is something to what he is trying to say
although he isnt really getting it
the american people (maybe all humans for that matter) certainly do respond to the bigger penis theory of relativity….it may be simplistic and im sure there are individuals who dont…but overall and in most cases little pipsqueaks and effeminate persons dont beat big strong cavemen when it comes to elections (dennis kucinich is an obvious anomaly here)……and i think in this time in particular when there is a certain amount of uncertainty about terrorism etc…..the people who won the last election pretty much came across as the candidates with the bigger penises than their opponents…..it just so happens a good number of them were democrats….maybe the democrats finally figured this out…so while i know what this guy lizza is saying comes off as shall we say bizzarre….its not quite as bizarre as the truth.
I can accept that your description is accurate for the way things currently are. But I certainly will NOT accept it as the way things ought to be.
This “macho man” crap is what has gotten us into the mess we have today. If W didn’t have to prove his penis was bigger than Saddam’s, we might have a lot more people alive today.
And if the only reason the Dems won the last election was that their candidates came off as having bigger penises (like to see you or Lizza make that claim about Klobuchar to name just one exception), then we’re all screwed BIG TIME.
im not saying its the way it has to be….im saying that understanding what motivates people to buy things (which is what voting is) helps you make more sales…..marketing is everything as they say (in marketing)….to deny it or ignore it doesnt change it….changing it is a much bigger job….but which comes first?
the republicans are complete geniuses at packaging and marketing their candidates….the democrats…not so good….what do you think framing is? its an attempts to market an idea or a person….look up neuro linguistic programming….totally fascinating stuff if you can slog thru it…..
i will give you a good example….look at jack murtha….this guy is far from a progressive congressman…but for some reason tons of people including progressives really respond to him……there are lots of people (feingold and kucinich for 2) saying the same thing murtha is saying but murtha, as much as i dont like him, comes off as having a giant penis he is willing and able to smack the president right in the face with….gotta give him points for that….feingold and kucinich in contrast dont come off as having big presidential face smacking penises at all……just like kerry….kerrys penis just doesnt seem half as big as bush’s penis….in 2000 gore didnt seem to have a very big penis….but now i think he does….in fact i think gore’s penis seems bigger than anyone you put him up against at this point (except possibly edwards and clark whose penises have also grown in the last 2 years)
ryan lizza’s failure is that he didnt have the balls to use the word penis instead of macho…..but i think he is trying to articulate something that is very true no matter how anyone feels about it.
I suppose all men strive to appear as though they have large penises, except those that actually do possess them. But this analogy only goes so far.
The problem for Lizza is that most of the people that won do not fit his description. He happens to pick out a few vets and a few social conservatives from Indiana and North Carolina and he thinks they are representative of the new class. But we have small businesswomen like Giffords, professors like Loebsack, social workers like Shea-Porter, we have Bob Segar’s buddy John Hall.
Not to mention the committee chairpeople who are the most progressive in the history of this country.
Shit…
Speaker…San Francisco
Ways and Means…Harlem
Judicary…Detroit
Small Business…Brooklyn
Oversight and Government Reform…Los Angeles
You get the picture.
I think the problem with your argument is lack of definition for your metaphor – and it is a metaphor. But what does “having a bigger penis” actually mean? For me, its the ultimate “bully” symbol. I think of the ongoing “mine is bigger than yours” kind of schoolyard play that so many of our current administration engage in. Looks like for you it means someone who can stand up for what they believe with the strength of conviction. In that case, I can think of many people who have demonstrated that kind of strength and yet don’t possess the particular body part.
Due to the fact that the “mine is bigger than yours” crowd has so often engaged in killing, marginalizing and oppressing others as a way to demonstrate their size, I think we are better served by a whole different paradigm.
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"http://photobucket.com/" target“_blank”>Testicle Bouquet, Christine Canepa, 2004, oil pastel on paper.
paint.
or tenors?
never was much of a chamberlain…:{)
he is a writer for tnr. Of coarse he will dismiss important issues like childcare and health insurance as being unmanly. He represents big money.
If we have manly men and womanly women in the Democratic party how come the NeoCon’s my husband works with have all their favorite jokes made around finding Hillary’s adam’s apple….and carefully crafted masculinity? I think the pie wars are proof positive that the masculinity of some of the men in my party isn’t very carefully crafted….and my husband usually says or does something at least once a year around a group of family females that gets him face planted and earns him the foot-in-mouth of the year award again. And apparently Rahm and I could have a great conversation together swearing our asses off but I don’t have a penis so I guess I had better find a new party to join because I don’t belong here.
trying to get into a competition with Steven D for ‘Master of the Obvious’ title of the day?
Ryan Lizza is a Buffoon by BooMan
This Just In: Right Wing Blogs Full of Shit by Steven D
hey everybody, make sure you check out NLinStPaul‘s diary about this worthless Lizza piece, and you’ll get a bonus thread of your humble Madman throwing bombs at the worthless Dempublicans profiled.
It’s easy to attack the Times and Lizza for this crap, but it’s important to remember that pieces like this are the result of PR put out BY THE OFFICE HOLDERS AND THEIR STAFFS, and if you’re mad because of the misogynistic slant of the article, you need to face that this is the narrative these men ran on, the narrative ruthlessly pushed by Emmanuel and Schumer, the narrative upon which the Blue Dog’s entire foundation is laid. If you’re sick of misogyny, it’s important to remember that this pile CAME FROM THE OFFICES OF THESE PEOPLE YOU SUPPORTED.
You can bet that some of the snickering about Pelosi’s pearls and the kids was coming from rightist Donkles. Count on it, and count on the Blue Dogs, the New Dems (cough) and the DLC/NDN to enthusiastically backstab progressive Dems through quotes given to hacks like Lizza.
After all, isn’t the idea to beat the Republicans by BEING like the Republicans, except to be a more “responsible” version of the chest-thumping misogynist warmongering lover of Mammon that the Republican Party has become. After all, most of these guys WERE Republicans.