Palin, Clinton, and sexism 101
All right, boys and girls, gather round and listen up. It is time for me once again to take up my mantle as iconoclastic feminist annoyer in chief and rain on everybody's Palin-is-the-AntiChrist parade. It is truly a sad day when I am forced to defend the Republican vice presidential candidate.
So let's look at the facts, shall we?
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So let's look at the facts, shall we?
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Comments 14
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Excellent arguments, as I pointed out before. However, I DO still think that Palin was selected, at least IN PART, because of her gender. Her repeated mentions of Hillary Clinton and other female politicians supports this. So, while she was not selected solely because she's a woman, I do believe it was a factor.
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Oh, without a doubt. I just don't see what's intrinsically bad about it. I strongly suspect Biden was selected at least in part because of his gender. I have not heard anyone call into question Obama's fitness to be president for it, as has been done with McCain. There is no way that ANY candidate for president of the United States could not factor gender into the equation, since women have been excluded for so long.
There are many, many reasons not to vote for McCain. His willingness to put a woman on the ticket is not one of them.
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So what does?
I refuse to compare Palin to Obama since they are not running for the same position
I agree with you on this..
Palin also left her little town in one hell of a fiscal mess
See, now this is an example of legitimate, not-sexist criticism.
The Daily Show probably said/showed it best
I'm quoting myself here from a reply on a different post:
As to the Daily Show clip, Palin is not guilty of hypocrisy here. She said that women in politics will encounter sexism and instead of "crying about it" should just work twice as hard as men. I respectfully disagree with her, but she herself has yet to "complain" of sexism.
Calling credible criticism of Palin sexist is very sexist.Calling all criticism of a female candidate, even if it refers to her appearance or her children, credible is equally very sexist. In today's paper, there was yet another letter to the editor saying that a mother with underaged children has no business running ( ... )
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Working with national and international issues. Working with Constitutional and other legal issues. Working with interstate issues. Thinking about all those issues.
He would've even been better off with Carly Fiorina, who's never held government office, but who was in charge of Hewlett-Packard.
"she herself has yet to "complain" of sexism."
The campaign has. She could put a stop to that if she wanted to. The campaign does nothing without the approval of the candidates.
"Calling all criticism of a female candidate, even if it refers to her appearance or her children, credible is equally very sexist."
I don't think anyone is calling *all* criticism of her credible.
"Does anyone know how many children Biden actually has?"
In fact, that's an important part of his story. He had three children (around our age range) with his first wife, but his wife and daughter were killed in a car accident in 1972. (His two sons were critically injured, but recovered.) He married his second wife five ( ... )
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I agree with that.
He would've even been better off with Carly Fiorina
Eh, I would have brought up the inexperience problem with her.
I don't think anyone is calling *all* criticism of her credible. And yet whenever a particular attack is called into question as sexist, (ie the mother memes, female hairstyle/attire as signs of lack of intelligence, dowdy/fuckable/slutty) the response is almost invariably, "You call all attacks on her sexist just because she's a woman. You're the real sexist. We have credible concerns." I notice on Shakesville that whenever a blogger points out a specific instance of sexism, they are inundated with trolls who try to claim that they're dupes of McCain, even when said blogger has endorsed Obama, and even when said example should be egregiously obvious as out of bounds ( ... )
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In case there is any doubt, I am voting for Obama. But comments on Palin's appearance are, by definition, sexist.
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No matter what happens in this election, I for one am elated that we will not end up with a 100% white male ticket. The world will not end with either Obama as president or Palin as VP.
I voted for Obama because on every single issue (economy, foreign policy, health care, environment, civil liberties) he's better than McCain. It appalls me that so many say McCain's worst sin was appointing a woman. That's the only good thing he did. There are far better reasons to take issue with McCain or Palin than gender.
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