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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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 for office. How is this credible and non-sexist? Has anyone ever said the same thing about a father with underage children running for office? Does anyone know how many children Biden actually has? I don't. No one criticizes him for his children, if he has any.
If the criticism is truly credible, it will easily stand up to charges of sexism. If the only defense/evidence is, "Well, calling it sexist is actually sexist," then maybe it wasn't all that credible to begin with.
Don't get me wrong. There are many, many reasons to critize Palin. But that doesn't mean no one has ever made a sexist statement about her.
Let's also remember that we're voting for President, McCain and the GOP is using all of this to distract from McCain's own shortcomings.
That presumes we pay attention to what McCain has to say. I for one don't. I'm very capable of getting offended without needing McCain to tell me that I should be. The best way to cut him off at the knees is to refrain from making sexist attacks in the first place. Then when he says, "That's sexist!" the response can be, "Then how is it not sexist when you said the same thing about Biden?" McCain can only build a case for sexism if there are actual sexist attacks going on.
For that matter, why not attack McCain's shortcomings directly? Then he certainly couldn't cry sexism.
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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 years later, and they had a daughter in 1981.
I'm pretty sure that there has not been a previous candidate for president or VP in the last 50 years who was campaigning while having an infant under a year old. Certainly not one that won -- First Families become pretty famous.
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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.
Thank you for the information about Biden. It might be an important part of his story, but the media has not been hammering it as they have Palin's eldest daughter and youngest son.
First Families become pretty famous.
And I have huge ethical problems with this.
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Not while campaigning, but JFK's wife gave birth to a son in 1963, during his term in office.
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