Just out of curiosity, and Clinton supporters should chime in here, can anyone provide a link to a post by a front-pager within the Advertising Liberally subset of blogs that contains even a hint of misogyny?
And for bonus points. How about the same for hints of racism?
Today in Nevada at the state convention, we managed to get more Obama delegates and alternates there than Clinton was. Obama gained a delegate, she lost one. He has 14, she has 11. Later today another (special auperdelegate-like) delegate will be elected and it will most likely be an Obama person.
That’s pretty cool. I was hoping more people would have started to bail on Hillary, but there are still a few contests left and it’s not quite a done deal, I guess.
I guess maybe there’s some type of allegation or accusation in the backstory to the question, but I’m proud to say I’ve seen really none of either IMO (but maybe I’m just not reading the right/wrong blogs in question). I’m not sure what all the Advertising Liberal blogs are.
I think it’s all part of everybody’s got the fever what with the Obama (black man) vs. Clinton (white woman) thing, and everybody’s hypersensitive to everything. That particular dynamic is a first in American electoral politics, after all. We’re in crazy-making, uncharted territory to begin with. I don’t think progressives, or liberals or whatever we choose to call ourselves are very big on misogyny or racism to begin with. And in the heat of this particluar nomination campaign it’s natural to expect both sides to get a little pissy about that stuff, and I try to cut everybody some slack. Except Erica Jong. She’s a dick. You know what I mean.
After I got out of the army and went back to school, in the fall of 1973, I happened to be entering the student union at Montclair State just as Erica Jong was coming out (having given a poetry reading there). Our eyes met. I think we had a “zipless **.”
No crap? Wow, that’s kinda cool.
If you know the reference it’s just a wordless gaze. And quite honestly, for all I know Jong has had thousands of zipless thingies. After all, she invented the term. And it was thirty-five years ago. I’m lucky I remember that far back.
I knew the reference, but I didn’t know that she coined the phrase, though. I’ve always liked hearing stories of brushes with the famous or the future-famous. All I can say is I stepped on Gerald McRaney’s foot in an elevator!
At least you didn’t bite his foot.
Oy, such nightmares I’m going to have!
Yuck. I had to look. Well, I’m not mopping the streets of Vienna with that one.
Not only is there denial that Obama is winning on his merits, not only coded racist language, but total denial of her candidate’s high negatives. Hillary has not been thoroughly vetted. She’s got more problems than Bill’s sex addiction — some of which are left over from backing Bill’s agenda for 8 years and even more are from her record as a legislator for 8 years.
Exactly, because it’s impossible for anyone but Hillary to win on the merits, isn’t it?
“Sepia Brad Pitt”. That’s why she gets the big-time writer bucks, I guess.
I’ll throw another link in. This is Allison Kilkenny’s whack at the Hillary-supporting Ms. Jong in a piece over at The Beast, so I guess it ain’t misogyny. BUT BE WARNED! It’s crude, vulgar and profanity-laced, for them what care.
Well, I think there’s a bit of a generation gap between Jong and Kilkenny. I can’t speak to Jong’s recent work, but her early novels were influential in American feminism and the opening up of conversation about sexuality in the 70s (whether you agreed with her or not).
A lot of the review was crass. However, I found this bit of recap of Jong’s Huffpo duel with Taibbi enlightening:
Frankly, it looks as though Jong has been engaged in activity similar to Sidney Blumenthal’s Obama-sliming e-mails. No matter how supportive Obama is of Israel, some hardcore Hillary supporters are doing everything possible to fear-monger in the Jewish community.
Erica Jong really got crushed. Lesson learned, I hope: Don’t screw with Taibbi, because he’ll take your lunch money.
So it’s okay to literally paint Obama a particular color in the name of defending against misogyny? See, you can’t fight one form of labelism with another. It just looks entirely hypocritical.
Yeah, I generally respect Erica Jong, but Hillary’s struggle for the nomination really seems to have unhinged her a bit. (It could’ve been worse, I guess. Instead of “sepia”, she could have gone with “chocolicious”.)
misogyny
racism
neither have anything to do with this year, but since you asked.
What was the basis of the threats to Sierra? For what? Why her?
because she was a women, nothing else. a group of very nasty people in the tech community put of a sight named meankids and proceeded to attack Sierra. She had a very nice, completely unpolitical sight on designing user interfaces.
The Unapologetic Mexican had the best take on the situation. Highly recommended.
I think Booman was more asking for examples specifically relating to Clinton. kos having Issues with feminists is nothing new – I’m a veteran of Pie Fight ’05 or wheneverthehellitwas. But even he has, from what I’ve seen, treated Clinton with utmost respect. At least until her campaign transformed into a right-wing parody of itself.
see Hillary sexism watch comment and link
A quick search of the page reveals no mention of kos. While he may or may not be a sexist pig, my assertion stands: he treated Hillary with respect until her campaign crossed the line, and has not attacked her over her gender.
I didn’t see anything about Kos either, and, while he’s clearly in Obama’s camp, I don’t think his writing on Clinton has been at all unfair.
there were two examples, the first are clearly labeled as not related to this year. My comment Hillary sexism watch has this year’s examples.
Considering Kos was on the receiving end of a 200 blog flame war over his earlier remarks, I am not surprised he has been circumspect with regard to Clinton. I don’t read his site enough to know.
Booman asked for examples, I provided. You may or may not find them persuasive.
Your “misogyny” example of what Kos said didn’t strike me as terribly misogynistic. Wrong, perhaps, but not misogynistic. I think what Kos was saying — and he was right — is that crazy and hateful people say crazy and hateful shit on the Internet. Having participated in online forums for at least ten years, I can say that if I had a dime for every threat I’ve seen one person lob at another person over the tubez, even only counting graphic ones, I’d be filthy rich.
The “racism” one doesn’t seem to have been written by Kos.
What he said was these deaths threat never seem to exist, he called Sierra a liar, AFTER she documented the threat online. It was a very very very serious case of misogyny. He was saying the threat didn’t exist, and if it did, it wasn’t serious. Two contradictory ideas, and common when women cry justice. As in, nothing happened, and what happened was not serious.
When crime victims come forward and cry justice it is necessary to take them seriously. Crime victims deserve to be treated with respect. This went way beyond calling someone a doo-doo head online, this was a sustained and very graphic death threat.
It is also how women are silenced. Want to know why there are so few women in technology? Because every time one of us succeeds she gets death threats from her competitors, this is what happened in the Sierra case. And Kos said she lied, and anyway graphic detailed death threats are part of online life. Kos disrespected a female crime victim. It is an extremely serious matter.
I agree with you. Kos was absolutely wrong in the Sierra case, just like he was wrong about the Pie Fight.
Okay, rereading it, you make a fair point.
Calling someone a liar is not misogynistic though.
But, Kos merely reported the situation. He didn’t attack her unless you think he was applying the word “stupid” to her and not to her call for a blogger credo. And even if he was calling her stupid, exactly how is that sexist? I believe he’s called all types of humans stupid on ocassion. I don’t like him much for it because he applies it indiscriminately. Was that it or did I miss the part where he called her a “pussy”?
He called her a liar. He said she was making up the threat. Well, she wasn’t. The threat was documented online for all to see, moreover the FBI became involved because online death threats are a federal offense.
This is what women face, violent threats are made against women, and if anyone cries justice, they are called liars. They are told not to take threats to their physical safety seriously. They are told to shut up and take it.
It is as sexist as it gets and why and so many others lost all respect for Kos. It is the most serious form of misogyny short of physical attack.
And I get a little tired explaining that.
Men get told to shut up and take it too. Witness Jim Garrison during his prosecution of Clay Shaw. He got a lot of death threats.
If a woman wants extra protection, she can’t claim equal rights, you know?
Yes, that’s true. AliceDem is trying to cram this into the stereotype of women being told to shut up when they try to talk about being abused.
I don’t know if Kos has issues or not, but the example doesn’t strike me as actual sexism. AliceDem is reading a lot more into it than I think can be done reasonably.
This is to say nothing of the fact that at least some of what’s on that list is nonsense.
Even when people send me links, but I was interested so I clicked. Now. I’ve had 4 beers, a rum drink and and a Squirtarita with way too much tequila, but I read and re-read Kagro X’s blog and I’m lost.
Keep in mind that I do think that Kagro X has written some a line or two that could be seen as bigoted, but I didn’t think he intended it to sound that way. He’s a very nice guy and was quick to clarify it.
this is not overt racism of the George Allen variety. It the far more common condescending variety, as in black people are children and can be led around by the nose. As in black people didn’t vote for Webb in the 2006 primary because they were misled, it does not give senior black politicians, never mind millions of black voters, credit for independent thought. It just casually dismisses their concerns. It just reeks of racism. That Kargo X linked to it and quoted it approvingly gives me a really poor opinion of Kargo X.
Truly, if Kargo X volunteered to work a black precinct with me, I would tell Kargo X to find something else to do, because that post indicates a deeply disrespectful attitude towards blacks.
90 specific examples, some involve high traffic blogs, some do not.
whatever happens, there is a huge backlash coming on 2010.
A backlash from whom? Please explain.
women
not sure how it will manifest itself, but this sort of anger has consequences
But, AliceDem, I’m a 60 yr old woman! I’m not angry. I’d rather vote for the candidate I prefer — not because he’s a man or not a woman, not because he’s black or not-white, or any of the other divisions that have been thrown up. I voted for Obama because he is representing the real possibility of change.
Plus the very idea of Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton makes me sick to my stomach.
Lot’s of people voted for Obama because they prefer him, I would say most. And most of Clinton’s supporters, including WV and KY voted for her because they prefer her.
I keep saying, everyone should stay calm and let this thing play out, whoever has the most delegates wins.
sjct,exactly! me too! <<<<<Plus the very idea of Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton makes me sick to my stomach.>>>>
I would never vote for a Clinton ever, and that includes Chelsea, because I know too much about that family, their way of doing politics, the way they’ll cut you off at the knees if you get in their way, and the way they’ll lie out their asses if need be to escape something. Witness Chelsea deferring to her mother’s lie about Tuzla rather than saying “My mother misspoke, that’s not what happened” or better yet, calling her Mom and saying Mom, get a grip. You know better and so do I.
Never. I would never vote for any of them. Does that make me misogynistic? If not me, why a man then?
Or how about, “I was really nervous as a teenager flying into a war zone. But to my best recollection, the sniper fire was part of my nightmare the night before rather than the events on the day of our Tuzla visit.”
Alice, where is the line drawn? Granted, the comparison between Clinton and the character in that movie is cruel, but politics is a cruel sport. In case you missed it, they’re making assassination jokes against Obama. If Clinton were compared to Captain Ahab would it be better because she would have been compared to a man who was driven by his desires beyond reason? Or rather, a male character driven beyond reason?
Or is it that any negative or satirical commentary against Clinton is presumed to be misogynistic by Clinton supporters because Clinton is WOMAN to them? That is, because Clinton has reached iconic proportions? This would fit in with the line of commentary that Obama is in the way of the historic ascension of WOMAN to the White House. Hey, all three of my people in Congress (two senators, one rep) are women. None of the women I know out here in the Bay Area find Hillary remarkable because of her gender, or unfairly attacked. Me, I’m hoping for a true progressive in the White House in my life, and that would definitely leave out H. Clinton.
to compare Hillary’s legitimate political ambition to a violent stalker is certainly sexist. It is like women who aspire to public office are deranged. The comparison would not have been made were she male.
If you compare Clinton’s small delegate gap with Kennendy’s 1000 delegate gap in 1980, and the way Kennedy behaved in 1980, I think she is very circumspect.
I wish Kennedy well today, but he behaved spectacularly badly in 1980.
That’s silly. Wheaton was clearly talking about Clinton refusing to quit the race despite knowing it was over, not about her aspirations. The comparison would work just fine if she were male.
I took Shakesville off my blogroll after these posts popped up. It’s stupid and so much of it was just reaching bullshit. With these women, it’s so much dumb it’s almost like they’re too stupid to know what misogyny really means. To them, you hate women if:
Meanwhile, these same women who’s feelings get so crushed when they rush to defend the Order of the Ovaries, have no problem making racist/bigotted remarks, subtle or not. When called on it, they act the innocent, then justify their racism towards Obama based on sexism from some media figure.
They’re fucking morons, short and simple.
Hear, Hear.
Going to be cracking up at that one for quite a while, fabooj.
Some of the charges of misogyny are undoubtedly correct, but Clinton supporters need to drop the “psycho ex-girlfriend” one from that list. A “psycho” ex can be male or female. I had a female one years ago. Female friends of mine had male ones years ago. I’d wager that a huge chunk of the population has had a nut case ex.
And, really, it’s not the worst analogy I’ve ever read.
I also like that they respond by calling Wheaton “pumpkin,” an adorably condescending attack from the High and Mighty. And the more vitriolic Clintonistas are nothing if not an incredibly condescending group of people.
To be fair, the “psycho ex” stereotype is often applied by jerks, particularly Nice Guys, against women who demonstrate inconvenient attributes such as independent thought and action. I don’t doubt that real psycho exes do exist. I’ve even seen a couple. But most of the time when that term’s used, it’s used by an asshole man to describe a woman who refused to submit to his will. I don’t think that’s Wheaton’s intent. I suspect he’s just ignorant of the sexist implications of his language.
The least justified cases I’ve seen it used in came with friends who dated people who were a little too possessive. I’d agree that it’s used in a mildly sexist way by some, but I also think the term is perfectly applicable to men, and is often used in a way that is not at all sexist.
You’ve got very good friends, then. The only people I’ve ever seen use it were using it in the sexist asshole sense. Questionable Content has an excellent, if humorous, discussion of the term.
It’s your example; I’m not looking through all 90 to find which are from Front Pagers at Obama-friendly blogs. Could you specify which numbers are links to sexist statements by frontpagers at Daily Kos, My Left Wing or Booman Tribune?
Thanks. That’s exactly the point.
Great. Except…
And in keeping with this point, Hillary has claimed outright she has been discriminated against as a woman. Obama has never claimed to have been discriminated against in this campaign because he was black, even though he has far more reason to do so, IMO.
ugh, I clicked through a random 30 of them and now I feel like I need a shower. For the most part that’s a good catalog of the sexism shown by the media against Hillary. I will say again here that I don’t think the mainstream (mostly male dominated) blogs have spent enough time criticizing the MSM for the blatant sexism used against Hillary in this campaign. They should – it would be the progressive thing to do.
That being said, in all 30 that I looked at I only found one example of a advertise liberally blogger being called out – and that was when TPN used the word “gelding” in connection with Hillary pushing Mark Penn from power. I remember that and although I get (and got) the connection between calling her a “castrating b**ch” and the use of the word geld – I thought (and still think) there was an overreaction to that episode because I thought (and still think) that it reflected more on how people thought of Mark Penn than how people thought of Hillary. But it is an example.
Aren’t even in the Advertise Liberally group. Many of those cited aren’t even real misogyny. We get treated to ignorant people complaining for the sake of complaining because they refuse to see the actually point of a blog post; all they see is Hillary Clinton and comparison and that’s misogyny to those twits.
Should Obama lose the general, he will be up for re-election in 2010
both Obama and Hillary will be hated forever. They will both be blamed, along with Howard Dean. We have to win.
the candidate (since this thing is basically over) … I’ve been thinking about the connection between Hillary hatred and misogynism.
I always think the term misogynism is thrown around too much because by it’s very terms it requires hatred and the motivations for most actions don’t rise to the level of hatred.
But I feel very strongly that there are intensely negative feelings (some perhaps rising to the level of hatred) about Hillary on the blogs. However I completely accept the statements of people such as yourself that any negative feelings you have toward her arise from reasons not having to do with her gender. I accept that. And therefore because it doesn’t arise out of hatred (or other negative feelings toward her gender) I’ll grant that it isn’t misogynism. It’s just plain old hatred/negative feelings.
But for many women it is impossible to separate Hillary from her gender. And so it is impossible for them to see hatred of Hillary as NOT being related to her gender. You and I may think this is a flaw in the way they are thinking – but they may think we have a flaw in the way WE are thinking.
And that was confirmed for me in reading through the Shakesville links Alicedem gave above, where I found this statement by Melisa McEwan in connection with commenters who said they wanted to punch Hillary the PERSON, not Hillary the woman:
I don’t agree with her that you can’t want to punch Hillary the person without wanting to punch Hillary the woman – I don’t think that womanhood always precludes full personhood (although I think that women have a long way to go still).
But I think this is a statement that explains why many women claim there is misogyny on the male blogs when the male bloggers are, in all honesty, saying that their dislike of Hillary has nothing to do with her gender.
Thank you so much for your insight. I’d never before understood the knee-jerk reaction of some women on this issue. Your explanation makes sense. It has also led me to wonder why I think of myself as a person first and then the aspects of my womanhood follow.
But the problem with this is that it makes it impossible for a progressive to oppose any female candidate ever. If Ann Coulter ran for a Democratic nomination, this logic would require that all Democrats support her. Yet this is obviously absurd; it’s perfectly possible to dislike Ann Coulter for reasons that have nothing to do with her being female. Likewise, it’s possible to dislike Hillary Clinton for reasons that have nothing to do with her being female. Heck, it’s possible to dislike Barack Obama for reasons that have nothing to do with him being black! The problem here is that many high-profile Hillary supporters seemingly dislike Barack Obama for no reason other than the fact that he is not Hillary Clinton!
Ann Coulter’s female?
/snark
Be nice, now. There’s plenty of other things about her to criticize, there’s no reason to bring her gender into things. The fact that she’s a she is (or damn well should be) incidental.
It is perfectly acceptable to not like Coulter. It is not acceptable to attack her in a gender related way.
might it be that some of what one sees in the rabid support of hillary, vis-a-vis the “feminists”, is misandry?
pot meet kettle.
just asking.
The women for women only people scare the crap out of me. These people aren’t interested in Democracy…too many of them are taking out their childhood or young aduthood repressions out on Obama. It kills me to see these women using not so subtle racist code words to discuss Obama, then end, “You go girl!” or “We got your back.” And still don’t get why I laugh at them.
What really concerns me is the constant pumping-up of hatred that goes on over at some of those blogs. Somehow they’ve morphed Obama into this bloodthirsty, woman-hating Stalin-like figure, and you’ve got groups like No Quarter and Hillaryis44 that continue to feed the image by now associating it with increasingly violent images of black men.
It’d be funny but for my fear that one of their completely out-of-control readers is going to haul off and kill somebody one of these days.
link please?
I don’t read Taylor Marsh, I only glance at No Quarter. While I think some of No Quarter’s posts have been ill considered, I don’t remember anything like what you are describing.
You can start here. That’s a fun one, questioing Obama’s “true allegiances”. Plenty more.
Marsh is nowhere near the worst. In fact, I’ve said in the past that I believe Marsh’s allegiance to Hillary is purely selfish. She wants back on the radio, and she wants connections that will allow her to do that.
Here’s another good one from Chief Nut Case SusanHu.
Linked to that one is this one.
Lovely people, really. All in desperate need of medication.
You haven’t been there very much then. It’s impossible to avoid. Wear thick shoes if you waddling in that mud.
That’s not really what I was trying to say – that opposition itself is seen as misogyny. (Although I do think that certain leaders of the feminist movement do imply that simply opposing their vetted candidate is misogyny; but I think they do that as a power play and not as honest feeling.)
It is when there is not only an intellectual opposition but a deep seated antipathy to the person – then the question arises. Is the antipathy a result of her being a woman or is the antipathy the result of something else. I think for some feminists the fact that Hillary IS a woman means that the antipathy is ALWAYS at least partially caused simply by the fact that Hillary is a woman. (And let’s face it – for some men and women that is true. There are sexist people in the world.)
Like Reverend Wright is accused of – they can’t see that society might have moved far enough along that women can be disliked in their own right. As you say, it is possible to dislike Hillary Clinton for reasons that have nothing to do with her being a woman. I believe that. But some don’t – they cannot separate the womanness from the other parts of Hillaryness.
This leaves aside the question of people who dislike Hillary for reasons unrelated to her gender but attack her using gender stereotypes. That’s a whole other issue and those people deserve to be attacked.
Right, and I’m saying that lack of separation has been absurd, and has always been absurd. There are sexist people in the world, who oppose Hillary’s candidacy because she’s a woman. It is a provable logical fallacy to conclude from this that anyone who opposes Hillary’s candidacy is sexist. In fact, I’d say that the mentality you’re describing is sexist – it seems to conclude that any dislike of any woman ever is primarily or exclusively motivated by sexism. The manifest problems with this belief, regardless of the actual level of sexism in the world, should be obvious.
“This leaves aside the question of people who dislike Hillary for reasons unrelated to her gender but attack her using gender stereotypes. That’s a whole other issue and those people deserve to be attacked.”
This is what I was getting at in my reply to you a few minutes ago.
The women in my family can’t stand Hillary.
What does that make us?
We’re all very strong pro-women’s rights women. We’ve all faced subtle or not subtle forms of gender discrimination.
But WE. CAN’T. STAND. HER.
The women in my family can’t stand Hillary.
What does that make us?
Obama supporters.
Just like blacks who cannot stand Obama, they are Hillary supporters.
I give Democrats credit for making their choices on the issues and who they think will win.
It is just that a great deal of nastiness has oozzed into the discussion.
somehow we will get through this.
maryb you’ve articulated the problem very clearly, but I think it’s even more complicated. Leaving aside the true misogynists, a great many Democrats dislike Hillary for various reasons that are not essentially related to the fact that she is a woman. But of those, many males, BECAUSE they already dislike her, feel free to express that dislike in mysogynistic terms — thus confusing the issue. Yet if a woman was running whose personality, positions and connections they DID like, those same males would ot be misogynists.
Here’s something else. Some of the reasons people (including many women) dislike her, are in fact inextricably related to the fact that she is a woman. But she’s not just any woman, she’s still that Hillary woman. I refer to the whole complex issue of being Bill Clinton’s wife, and how that relates to her accomplishments or lack of same. Women are not called misogynists for bringing all that up.
Wow!
First, the entire creation of Western Civilization is misogynist. The judeo-christian-islamic tradition is misonynist at its core. Eve was a bad, bad girl.
To suggest misogyny does not play a part in Senator Clnton’s demise is disingenuous. Just as it is disingenuous to not credit her rise with her married name and her sex. She represents a legitimate hope for women to finally break the patriarchichal hold on power in American politics.
However, as a dramatist and rhetorician, I think Senator Clinton is one of the most uninspiring candidiates to come a long in a long time. If not for her name and her sex, what is the attraction? Her politics are conservative and her rhetoric pedestrian.
Obama may not be the great liberal us left-wingers want as president, but he certainly understands the power of high-falutin rhetoric to move people.
Clinton lost not because of misogyny but because she’s a lousy candidate with a bottom line ‘politics as usual’ approach.
imho
g.
You did the same thing I did. Strip away ‘Clinton’, strip away ‘woman’ and we have a really boring Senator…sorta like Chuck Schuber but without the seniority. I certainly wouldn’t vote for Schumer for president, so why should I bother to vote for Clinton?
I’m not sure which pejorative category this belongs to, but some idiot stationed in Iraq decided to use the Qu’ran for target practice…
McCain is older than dirt.
That is hilarious.
OMG I am laughing my ass off!!!