Partly an Old Meme
Just found it now:
Reclusive Leftist: It's the System Stupid
James Carville is upset with The New Agenda.
“This New Agenda crowd need to get a new agenda, a new agenda of women that are losing their jobs, a new agenda of battered women and women that are victims of sex discrimination and not this kind of silliness,” he says.
This kind of silliness, of course, refers to Jon Favreau’s groping of a cardboard Hillary Clinton while his buddy forces a beer to her lips. Gee, what could that possibly have to do with discrimination against women and sexual violence?
Here’s a tip, Mr. Carville (and anyone else who can’t make the connection): sexism is a system. Women’s second-class status in society is a 24/7 deal, a full-time gig, an all-pervasive set of mores and assumptions. It’s interwoven into the very fabric of society, and every thread contributes to the pattern. It starts in the cradle and follows us to the grave; it harasses us at work and diminishes us at home. Mr. Carville wants The New Agenda to focus on sex-based discrimination - but why does this discrimination exist? He wants The New Agenda to worry about gendered violence - but why is gendered violence endemic?
Sexism is a deeply learned behavior with a thousand manifestations. You can’t quarantine the big pieces of it - rape, legal discrimination - as if they exist in a vacuum apart from the rest of society’s values. From frat boy joke to date rape, from gangsta rap to domestic violence, from pink housework toys at Wal-Mart to the boss who won’t promote a woman into top management, from “Math is hard” Barbie to the physics lab where men harass their female colleagues relentlessly, from Girls Gone Wild videos to the jury that acquits a rapist because the victim was wearing a short skirt - it’s a system. A giant, all-encompassing, self-reinforcing system.
[...]
It’s the age-old cry of the man who refuses to see that sexism isn’t just a series of incidents, but a systematic bias in which his own behavior is complicit. “Focus on the important stuff!” he says, by which he means the stuff he’s not doing.
Or as James Carville says, “The guy was just having a good time!… Is this really what we’re talking about?”
Why yes, Mr. Carville, it is. It’s the system, stupid.
~*~
Oh. My head's going to explode. I'm about to down another theraflu...
Reclusive Leftist: It's the System Stupid
James Carville is upset with The New Agenda.
“This New Agenda crowd need to get a new agenda, a new agenda of women that are losing their jobs, a new agenda of battered women and women that are victims of sex discrimination and not this kind of silliness,” he says.
This kind of silliness, of course, refers to Jon Favreau’s groping of a cardboard Hillary Clinton while his buddy forces a beer to her lips. Gee, what could that possibly have to do with discrimination against women and sexual violence?
Here’s a tip, Mr. Carville (and anyone else who can’t make the connection): sexism is a system. Women’s second-class status in society is a 24/7 deal, a full-time gig, an all-pervasive set of mores and assumptions. It’s interwoven into the very fabric of society, and every thread contributes to the pattern. It starts in the cradle and follows us to the grave; it harasses us at work and diminishes us at home. Mr. Carville wants The New Agenda to focus on sex-based discrimination - but why does this discrimination exist? He wants The New Agenda to worry about gendered violence - but why is gendered violence endemic?
Sexism is a deeply learned behavior with a thousand manifestations. You can’t quarantine the big pieces of it - rape, legal discrimination - as if they exist in a vacuum apart from the rest of society’s values. From frat boy joke to date rape, from gangsta rap to domestic violence, from pink housework toys at Wal-Mart to the boss who won’t promote a woman into top management, from “Math is hard” Barbie to the physics lab where men harass their female colleagues relentlessly, from Girls Gone Wild videos to the jury that acquits a rapist because the victim was wearing a short skirt - it’s a system. A giant, all-encompassing, self-reinforcing system.
[...]
It’s the age-old cry of the man who refuses to see that sexism isn’t just a series of incidents, but a systematic bias in which his own behavior is complicit. “Focus on the important stuff!” he says, by which he means the stuff he’s not doing.
Or as James Carville says, “The guy was just having a good time!… Is this really what we’re talking about?”
Why yes, Mr. Carville, it is. It’s the system, stupid.
~*~
Oh. My head's going to explode. I'm about to down another theraflu...