Good post, it deserves more attention. Especially as people are calling on feminists to stand up for Michelle.

Thanks Destor - can I get a Rick Flair WOOOOOOOOOOOO?!

Reposted:
Here's a clue. Identify what your particular issue is with her OR him and address that. Don't use bitch as a shortcut because you are too lazy to get to what is really bothering you. Of course if gender is what is really bothering you, bitch is probably the right word to use. I'd hope this applies not just to Hillary but to all people.

I believe the counterpoint of bitch is dick for the males. I could call David Axelrod a dick or I could call him an obnoxious arrogant windbag. Obnoxious arrogant windbag is more specific, gets my point across and avoids demeaning someone in gendered term.

Feel free to spread this technique to others.

I thanked you for adding this comment on another thread. I hope you saw it.

Ooh! My fave is Tucker Carlson, saying he involuntarily crosses his legs when he hears Hillary's voice. What a witty guy little Tuckie is!

Though this isn't a funny subject, there was a pretty hilarious segment on The Daily Show, done by Senior Women's Issues Correspondent Kristen Schaal, that gives a montage of some of these incidents. I hope you'll watch and enjoy:

http://www.newscloud.com/read/Sexism_The_Daily_Show?skipSplash

Maybe you're so much younger than I am you truly don't know about this.

I remember arguments between my parents when my father would angrily declare that he wore the pants in the family, dammit. Or when the fights were really ugly, my mother was a castrating bitch.

I think that is (or was) a common term used for powerful women, or women who wanted to be the man of the family, or women who wanted to otherwise take power away from men.

Trust me, Bunnycat. It's an extremely sexist reference.

How many of those offenders were Republicans or women? Where is James Carville for saying Hillary had three balls and the Clinton surrogate who credited her testicular fortitude?

Why is the Obama campaign being held accountable for things the talking heads said? How many of these sexist remarks came from the Obama camp?

What is the difference between Hillary and Michelle - because Hillary was running for office and Politics is a contact sport, at least according to Bill.

It's as if Hillary believes that she got no benefit from being a woman in the campaign - any votes she got was solely on merit, but all of her detractors couldn't see anything other than her sex.

John McCain is regularly being judged on his appearance, on how old and beat up he looks, how he talks and stumbled, how bad his teeth are. I remember the John Edwards hair combing vid from four years ago that everybody was mocking him over.

I went to the link and reviewed the list of 'sexist' comments. There are several that I don't believe to be 'sexist' - snarky perhaps, but not sexist.
Out of the less than two dozen remarks listed, I'd agree perhaps half could legitimately be labeled 'sexist'. But not all, such as ....Charlotte Allen claims, "[Hillary Clinton's race was] marred by every stereotypical flaw of the female sex." (An allegation only - not evidence.)
'Andrew Sullivan tries to turn feminist voters away from Hillary.' Did he make sexist remarks in his argument that this group shouldn't support HRC?
While I agree sexism - racism - ageism and all the other bigotted 'isms' are still sadly impacting how people vote, interact and think in every arena -IF this list, culled out of all the media coverage, is the best proof that can be proffered to support an argument that HRC was a victim of a multitude of media's sexist assaults, in my opinion, this list doesn't get the job done.

Thanks for the link to the NOW site.

I had fun participating in their jihadette and provided them with some evidence/ammo. Of course, it may be a bit confusing to the recipients because the sources are Israeli.

But, what the hell. It's always a good thing to enlarge one's circle-of-outrage, right? Who knows? Perhaps NOW can internationalize their Hall of Shame.

BTW, I don't expect that NOW or any other diehard Hillary supporters will defend Michelle Obama and would be shocked if they did. After all, the proud feminists at noquarter are leading the charge to bring Michelle down.

I think one of the worst examples of sexism in this campaign was the response to Pfleger's rant. The media just didn't get the incredibly obvious sexism of ignoring HRC's gender and claiming she's in some kind of privileged position. If a preacher said the opposite about Obama - "I'm a man! I'm entitled! A woman is stealing the show!" - we'd all be talking about what a racist idiot he is to not see that Obama faces huge challenges because of his race.

BTW, none of this is a criticism of Obama. He handled the situation correctly. It was the media who didn't get it.

As stated above, exactly what the hell does this have to do with Senator Obama's run for president. Not only did Senator Obama run a campaign centered on 'winning is not the only thing' at no point did he demean Senator Clinton in a 'sexiest' way.
Your suggestion that a black man in american had more advantages then a white former first lady is really disturbing. Please show me the images of 'white women' hanging from trees because of sexism, or being attacked by german shepherds because of sexism, or getting 'rodney kinged' because of sexism.
Why the assumption that the best way to beat sexism is by supporting the women candidate. That's like assuming a black person is incapable of black racism. A condition of self-hate that is all to common and one rendered very accurately by the 'Uncle Ruckus' character on Boondocks, i.e. Waun Williams, J.C. Watts. Clarence Thomas.
You want to fight isms, then sign me up. I'm for an all out war on all this divisive crap. Just quit trying to insinuate that Senator Obama 'used' sexism to beat Senator Clinton. It's a position that flys in the face of history. Point of fact many women who suffered the ignominy of sexism, had no problem with the indignity of racism, as fictionalized in 'Driving Miss Daisy'
However to misquote Shakespeare 'the lady doth protest to much'. There may be other dynamics at play as to why dijamo finds it almost impossible to support, respect, or give credit to someone like Senator Obama. In certain circles of the black community it's well known that 'black men ain't shit'...right girl friend?

My main frustration with the talk of sexism by the media in this campaign is when people then point to how Obama had such an easy time with the press by comparison (which is horse shit...if you think otherwise, all I've got to say is "lapel pin."). It's particularly infurating that a minority of those same folks then try to use that as a justification for voting for McCain. While I think there's some validity to the criticisms of the media, attempts to lay the media's faults at Obama's feet are just silly.

I agree that there was a lot of sexism in the media coverage of Clinton, particularly the photos they chose to run of her (almost always unflattering, yet we never saw unflattering photos of her male opponents); making big issues of her laugh; and some of the comments on NOW's media Hall of Shame page.

I can't say I agree with all of NOW's Hall of Shame entries. Jack Cafferty, for instance, saying:

"She says that she will debate him any place at any time, adding that it could even be done on the back of a flat-bed truck. He would probably prefer to run over her with a flat-bed truck at this point."

Seriously, substitute "he" and "him" for "she" and "her" in this little ditty, and you'll see what I mean. This could just as easily have been said about a male opponent, and it really has no gender component to it.

On the other hand, take any of the bitch comments, or "she sounds like my wife," and obviously you can't do a gender replacement and have it make sense. To me, that's one of the tests. It's not foolproof, but it works a lot of the time. You have to consider intent. The Olbermann comment -- for as much as people think it's a horrid sexist comment -- to me doesn't necessarily ring true as one. To me, it's sexist only if his intent was to illustrate beating up women. His intent might have been to illustrate beating up a perceived stubborn opponent. But we can't know his intent, can we?

I also look at the past history of the Clintons. There are, unfortunately, a lot of media types who simply don't like the Clintons. They're "used" to bad-mouthing the Clintons -- either one of them. I think this might be what makes it "okay" in their minds.

Some might think I'm making this more difficult than it has to be, but I really do consider intent in such comments. Thus I don't think that everything that was ever said about Clinton was sexist, but I absolutely believe that a lot of the coverage was indeed sexist.

Hillary did not lose because of sexism.

And it's difficult to "bitch" about being called a "bitch" when you celebrate being called a "bitch" one moment -- Tina Fey -- and then whine about it later.

Sexism... sorry... piss-poor campaign, absolutely.

Whooooooo!

DIJAMO:

seriously. please purchase a life.

or go join the troglodytes down at hillaryis44.

everyone here has indulged your bullshit for several months now, and you have yet to add to the quality of dialogue on any of these posts. you're a parrot that has learned one phrase and simply repeats it time and time again.

i have yet to see proof that you know about, care about or might possibly be interested in any other topic. is there anything else that moves you enough to write about it? a bit of diversity of subjects might go a long way towards improving your profile on this site.

perhaps you can write about how the sexism that hillary faced is negatively affecting our troops' morale. or about how the fall of the housing bubble was a cosmic sign of the impending sexism that was to be hurled at hillary.

no. those won't work either. well, touche, our one-trick pony. keep fighting.

The coverage probably galvanized a lot of her supporters and brought her more supporters

And as an experienced politician, she plainly knew that would be the result. Which is why she let each individual comment go unanswered and instead chose to paint ALL of the comments as a conspiracy against her and, more importantly, against all women. This was by design. She used this in a very calculated and strategic way to divide the party and gather her supporters around her. What's distressing to me is that since she conceded, she's done little to nothing to address the damage caused by her dangerous, divisive gambit.

I don't think it can possibly be argued that the volume of racist undertones in the media were less prevalent during the primary than the volume of sexist overtones. Race was (and continues to be) the elephant in this room, many of them perpetrated by the Clinton campaign itself. If the volume of 'isums' being injected into the campaign was the determining factor in who won or lost, Barrack would have lost! He was able to win in spite of the poison introduced by Fox news, some of the pro-Hillary pundints, and Hillary herself. I find it hard to feel a lot of sympathy for the idea that she was unfairly disadvantaged in her quest for the nomination due to sexism

Interesting comment, and it points to something that hasn't really been addressed. There's a difference between sexist language and sexist attacks.

There were some definite sexist attacks, like the bitch and whore comments. And then there was sexist language, such as the three cojones comments - used to demean both candidates.

In some ways, the general sexist language is more disturbing. The attacks are deplorable, of course, but they're also obvious and easier to fight against.

The general sexist language is what hurts us all, in ways that are subtle, yet deep. Carville's three cojones comment, for example, is taken as a joke, but it reinforces the idea that women are less powerful just because we don't have little sacks of genetic material swinging between our legs, and it reinforces the idea that powerful women like Hillary are some sort of freaks of nature, that they somehow acquired physical qualities of manliness.

It all reinforces a patriarchal frame that associates power and strength with maleness and denigrates femaleness. One of my problems with Hillary has been her willingness to buy into that framing. If she were not so eager to portray herself as being as tough as the boys, she might not be so hawkish, and she might even have had the courage to vote against the war.

Great Point. Why don't they get it yet? I wish these high-minded feminists could turn their ire to those who are smearing Michelle Obama right now.

As to your point about a patriarchal frame, I think you nailed it. But no one needs to accept the frame. I think Hillary already knows that politics is a lot less of a man's game than she's pretending to believe it is. I don't believe she's buying into the framing. I think she's just exploiting the fact that others have. If she and Geraldine Ferraro didn't sit down together with a bottle of whiskey and work this whole faux outrage strategy out together, I'd be mighty surprised. Hillary is not stupid. She knows how the game is played.

Thanks for your comments on this thread and the other one too. Thanks also for some gender neutral derogatory terms. Can we add assacious to the mix for the highest level of ass-dom?

Another side benefit to thinking though insults rather than just hurling deogatory names is that it helps our insults to be more direct, pointed, and impactful. You'd think journalists would have enough of a vocabula to not just settle fo botch if they have a genuine issue with someone.

Tucker Carlson has manly bits? News to me. Oops. Sexism rears its ugly head once again. My bad.

Can't fight the seether, baby.

Pussy-Hare,
You don’t mind me calling you that do you? Rabbit-kitty seems a bit effeminate and what do words mean, anyway? I kid, of course. But even to ask if “cunt” is offensive shows an argument that is desperately stretching even common rationalizations.

Now since Clinton didn’t really push the sexism issue and Ferraro was let go just because she compared it in the same breath with coverage of race, it’s doubtful they hatched a plan to somehow benefit from the sexism. And to say that sexism is okay if it applies to the person in question is patently ridiculous. Ever heard any of those old bigots-“I don’t think all blacks are n*ggers, just some…” If you think women have an open playing field in politics, do you think the same is true of minorities?

It isn’t that politics is a man’s game, either. We’re talking about the media here (even you might be shocked at some of the stuff on the blogs) and the atmosphere where a reporter feels comfortable calling a former President and a senator who is a candidate for president pimps, there daughter being the whore, is not one where you can say it’s just politics. Clinton has been subject to this character assassination for decades and it has subconsciously influenced a lot of people.

When they see Hillary being put down on the networks by the likes of C.U.N.T., they think well that’s not really sexist because she is one! Usually when asked why they think that, people say it just comes down to a “feeling” or they just don’t like her. If pressed, they go to the sexist caricatures. Some ascribe it to politics, like her vote on the AUMF, but wouldn't that apply to all the others who voted for it. Why would political stances characterize someone personally? If anyone political figure is a “bitch” in some kind of generic sense, it’d have to be Cheney, right? (He’s already a Dick). Funny, I’ve never heard him called that.

I can't help but wonder if anyone who is seeing malicious sexism in the media coverage of HRC might also feel a bit uncomfortable by the comments of her male supporters with regard to "testicular fortitude" or the alleged number of balls she has. They're supposedly complimenting her by attributing male physical characteristics to her, which we're fairly certain she doesn't actually have. Do feminists see this as praise? If a woman is seen as strong, must she then have male physical attributes?

Totally agree that there shouldn't and couldn't be some hierarchy of victimhood. But we do have to look honestly at how the media acts and that includes admitting the fact that sexism seems to be more accepted than racism. It is a historical and cultural fluke of the times, I imagine, but there's no question that this has been evident during the primary. It will be interesting to see if that changes now that Clinton is out. Was it something particular to this race and these candidates? Fox "News" aside, will the press return to straight reporting and analysis or will they continue to inject their own biases into the public dialog?

Oh --- I thought that comment just showed how "delicate" and "timid" Tucker was. Seriously. I saw it and felt it made him look rather silly but was just reinforcing exactly the strong, assertive, take-charge image of Hillary that she was trying to put forth.

If he'd said "she scares me" or "she makes me shake in my boots" -- then that would have implied exactly the same thing about her but not, I don't think, been sexist or even offensive. In fact it would probably be taken as a compliment. Correct? So was he being discriminatory toward Hillary or prejudiced against her ... or just making a poor word choice?

"On the other hand, take any of the bitch comments, or "she sounds like my wife," and obviously you can't do a gender replacement and have it make sense." I'm not sure of that. Picture a glowering, angry John McCain and some woman pundit saying "Gosh, he started to remind me of my ex-husband when we met in the lawyer's office." Pretty much the same effect, I think. Maybe the only problem is that there aren't enough women pundits (or that the ones there are have learned to watch what they say better than the men do).

I'm also generally disturbed by the idea that Hillary lost because of sexism because--well--it implies a woman can't win, and I think by playing that card

The fact is, Hillary lost for a few reasons--her war vote, a bad campaign strategy, misreading the mood of the electorate, and a challenger who came out of nowhere and read it perfectly. To say its sexism takes away everything Hillary did. Women get to screw up, too, they get to run bad campaigns and hire Mark Penn and run as the establishment candidate in the wrong year. They get to be the frontrunner and have people gang up on them in debates.To treat her campaign as somehow "other" devalues what she has done.

She would have won if not for any of these circumstances, and it's not like the country was just dying to elect a black guy. The exit polls showed more people voting against Obama's race than against hillary's gender.

This is the first time I have posted down-steam on a blog that I haven't read any of the responsses. So I apologize if this has been covered:

Sexism exists, as does racism, ageism, and all other forms of prejudice. We cannot outlaw them, but we can fight them through information and education.

Hillary Clinton, who got just a few less than half of the democratic primary votes can hardly claim sexism because of her percentage of the votes.

Oh, I would go on, but I am really tired right now.

I agree with you, anneeliz, that blaming Hillary's loss on sexist media, is at best a distortion. She could have, and would have, won with better strategists and better strategy, and competing in caucus states. She didn't lose by much. It is true that there are people who would not vote for her because she is a woman. But they were not egged on to their decisions by Chris Matthews or Father Pfleger. They were already not going to vote for her, just as those who would never vote for a black man were not convinced by Bill Clinton's Jesse Jackson jab in South Carolina, not to vote for Obama. However, there is a monumental difference between attacks coming from your own side of the party, and lopsided or prejudiced coverage in the media. The media bias against Hillary as a female candidate did not break her candidacy. However, she could very easily have broken Obama's candidacy by attacking him as unfit to serve as commander in chief and comparing him unfavorably with the Republican candidate.

Here is someone else with absolutely no idea as to what NOW does, she just hates them because a few of them wore buttons which she interpreted as meaning NOW supports vigilante killers.

Well, I'm reserving my right to call people bitches. Male or female. I'll keep it out of the public discourse, naturally. And it has no place in the media either.

Undoubtedly sexism played a role in the campaign. Where reasonable people may disagree is on whether it was the decisive factor in the race.

I tend to think Senator Clinton's strategy of running as "inevitable", combined with her vote for AUMF gave Obama an opening. And when she failed to knock him out on Super Tuesday, indeed when he actually eked out a slight lead in delegates from the day, I thought he was likely to win.

I had that opinion, though, because Hillary is a lightning-rod, or a Rorsach test in our political culture. Few figures are as polarizing as she is, and I thought the large anti-Hillary vote would make it very tough for her to win once she didn't "close the deal" on Super Tuesday according to her strategy.

A number of people (including my mother*) have said that they would be happy to vote for a woman for president, just not that woman.

To such people, their opposition is not sexist, at least not consciously so. But Hillary's divisive personna is in part a product of years of sexism directed at her personally. So it's ridiculous to say it had no effect.

Yet not all opposition to Hillary is inherently sexist, just as not all opposition to Obama is inherently racist. My opinion is that there's more evidence that Clinton tried to use Obama's race against him than there is evidence that Obama tried to use Hillary's sex against her. That perception is one small reason I favored Obama, and I don't expect Clinton supporters to share that view; indeed those who perceived the opposite would use that as a reason to back Hillary.

I also believe that Clinton suffered more overt sexist coverage from the non-Fox media (e.g. Castellanos, Matthews, Carlson, cleavage, the cackle, et al.) than Obama suffered racist coverage. So Clinton supporters can point out that Obama didn't have to try to play the sex card, since so many in the media were doing it for him.

* My mother was saying that she simply couldn't vote for Clinton in the general election, and we argued about this several times. She saw Clinton's race-baiting as both obvious fact and unforgivable sin, and I was unable to convince her otherwise. As Hillary's chances to win the nomination waned, it made less sense for us to fight over it. And while I'm confident I could have convinced her not to vote for McCain, I'm not sure I could have gotten her to vote for Hillary, even though she's in Hillary's target demographic - white senior-citizen female.

Count me in to fight sexism. The media would not have been able to get away with such comments of a person of color. Though I think the campaign wasnt successful for other reasons, I do believe it is important to stand up to this for any election or any part of life. Anyone spewing sexist garbage is on my list. Ferraro is on another list.

Of course sexist garbage would include those Hillary supporters who were voting for her in large part because she was a woman.

Okay someone obviously failed reading comprehension so allow me to assist. I never said Hillary lost due to sexism. I never ever said that. However sexism did indeed play a role in this campaign and the democatic community was largely silent or those on the more vicious side (and this includes you Jade) contributed to it.

This post is NOT about Hillary. Her campaign is over. It is about the follow-up question I asked in the original post: "I hope people and especially democrats in time will be able to look at what happened dispassionately and say is this what a female politician, presidential candidate, public figure should expect?"

And when these types of sexist attacks are committed against Michelle Obama will that be acceptable as well?

In this case, since it's against Tucker, we'll letcha slide! ;-)

Phoebe, I agree with you about the cojones comments and the need to avoid sexist language in general. The testicular fortitude is intended by the ass who said it to prove Hillary is tough and aggressive, but it just continues the stereotype that strong assertive women are somehow masculine.

I do disagree with your assumption that her vote on the war may have been different if she wasn't trying to prove herself as one of the boys. There were women and men who voted for the authorization against Iraq war and there were women and men who voted against it. No matter what side a woman came down on, she is subject to extra scrutiny for her vote that men are not. That to me says sexism.

Hilarious! Thanks for the clip :)

Well, I think you're probably right that she had this opportunity because she had the name recognition due to her time as a very visible and engaged first lady.

But this advantage is not necessarily gender specific. In a non-sexist society, any spouse, male or femaile, would benefit from the same set of circumstances.

I felt sorry for her when that doofus made the "testicular fortitude" comment. Jeez. That must have been embarrassing for her.

Take a bow because many are now giving you a standing ovation! Thanks for putting it so eloquently.

I have given credit to Senator Obama many times but FYI I don't vote my skin color, I vote my policies. Hillary was much closer to where I stand policy wise on true universal healthcare, foreclosure policy, foreign policy etc.

Most black men I have grest respect and admiration for. I tend to judge people individually by my interactions with them and I can say with certainty judging from your ignorant ass comments that you ain't shit. And I am NOT your girlfriend.

No - that was certainly an asstastic comment by a Hillary supporter. I think that is sexist and demeaning as well.

call me nuts but the racism felt by obama during this campaign has been ignored by the media also...obama's campaign itself downplayed this very obvious fact for political reasons, but it didnt go unnoticed by many of us...some examples that come to mind includes, but not limited to the media's stupidity in repeating hrc's talking point regarding obama's "white blue-collar problem" when in fact, it was an appalacian problem dogging obama partly b/c hrc gave the already bigoted folks cover to explain away their fear of the scary black man. not once did anyone ask hrc how she intended to win over black folks who were flocking to obama in 90% range. if obama had a white working class problem, clearly hrc had a black problem....

next was hrc's charge that hispanics would never vote for a black man...again making it ok for the bigoted hispanics to find cover for their racism...yes it exist in our communities too...we may secretly like obama and if he was not being challenged by a white something, he just might get our votes, but when faced with a white choice, we feel that the white choice is just more qualified b/c well it has always been that way...look at the majority of latin countries and you will see that those in high office look more caucasian than indian or mixed or oh oh "black"..

the most damaging that comes to mind was delivered by hrc herself-"obama is not electable".....translation? obama is black and the white america is not ready to vote for a black man, but they will begrudgingly vote for a white woman....in her defense, appalacia proved the point that a white woman though not a first choice is by far more palatable than a black anything, but obviously obama doesn't have a "white anything problem"..i hate to go on a tirade, but those same folks would not vote for hrc if their first choice is a white Mccain!!!..

to be frank there are some folks who wouldn't vote for a woman anything and certainly not for a black and/or brown anything, but the voting public has proven that those folks are not the majority...if they were, obama would not have been the nominee...with all the breaks and advantages hrc had going into this thing, she should have won, but obama prevailed with one hand tied behind his back while he fends off hrc's kitchen sink and mccain's attacks.....

obama has made to answer for every cat and dog who ever said hello to him while stroling the park...the other non-black candidates were not scrutinized as much..the sniper tale didn't get play by the media until it became unbearable to ignore...lest we forget, "a white person is innocent until proven guilty" and rightfully so..the problem is obama being non-white is guilty first and never ever could prove his innocence once sullied by a smear regardless how trite it might be...there will always be the lingering "could it be? is he innocent? is he undercover planning a coup on the white way of doing things? ..

now here is the thought that makes me proud-america is not as behind in the times as we once thought...they voted for a black man in record numbers and in states where black people were non-existent......i hate to go there, but obama's base is solidly for him.....i am worried about hrc's converts b/c they are not reliable and could cause much problems for obama....obama needs to keep bringing new people into the fold to combat fake dems who pretend to prefer hrc over the issues and experience, but turn around and threaten to vote mccain without batting an eye...those people scare me b/c the ugliness of their aversion to obama is impossible to define. or is it? the attacks by the republicans will worsen as obama gains on mccain and we cannot afford to be waffling with our support..at the first sign of negativity, i fear those hrc supporters will balk and say "see we knew all long that he was not to be trusted and hrc would have been the better candidate for the job"...appearing as a house divided will do us all in....don't be fooled there are blacks who cannot see themselves voting for another black person for the highest office either...that is called the "white man's ice is always colder"...believe me, i know all about it....my own people who are brown unconsciously say and act the same way and one particular member on this board comes to mind for being afflicted with that syndrome.

ok this was way too long of a post ..

There are a lot of men out there who are really afraid of or hate women. I don't even think it's a conscious thing with most of them.

But think of the boys who, when they don't do well enough in a game, are told that they play like girls. And what, are they going to cry like little girls?

This attitude pervades not just this society but most societies. Why else do Chinese and Indian cultures feel that it's less valuable to bring a girl into the world than a boy? Why is there a perception that when parents knowing the sex of their child in utero, it's possible the child will be aborted, just because it's a girl? Why must a woman's body and face be covered, so that men will neither be tempted nor offended by them? Why is a 20-year-old female who has had 10 sexual partners a slut when a 20-year-old male who has had 10 sexual partners a stud? And why is male homosexuality blamed on an overbearing mother? Why are men happy to have as many sexual experiences as possible before they marry, but when they marry they want only a woman who is a virgin?

These are bizarre cultural biases that have existed for centuries or merely years, but they persist because not only do men buy into them, so do women.

If all women thought that women should have equal rights, equal opportunities, and equal pay, the Equal Rights Amendment would have passed. But women like Phyllis Schlafly fought against it harder than anyone, even though those women who gained prominence while fighting against the ERA flouted it with the very influence they exerted. They became what they denied to other women.

If all women believed that household duties and childrearing were meant to be shared equally between men and women, no men would have the perception that it's more a woman's job than a man's, because all those men's mothers would have taught them otherwise.

Whatever creates the fear and hatred of women in men creates self-abnegation and self-loathing in women. The one cannot exist without the other, but eradicating one would eradicate the other within a generation. The people who need to make the change are women, because the harm to women is arguably worse than it is to men. I say arguably because it is harmful to the entire society it infects. And I choose women to make the change because there's too much evidence over the course of history that shows women adapt to changes better than men do.

Once women stop negating their value and hating themselves for what makes them women, they will be the ones to teach the next generation that different talents and traits do not mean unequal value. Once women are not ashamed of "womanly" emotions, ways of thinking, bodies, and preferences, those aspects of women will be cherished. And once cherished, women will not allow men to mock or devalue those aspects.

Then strength, ambition, and decisiveness will not be masculine traits any more than empathy, cooperation, and intuition will be feminine traits.

The way to start the process is to stop sexism in its tracks wherever you see it. Call someone on belittling a boy for his sensitivity, and call them on labeling an ambitious woman a ball buster. If you let it go, you're part of the problem. And if we all let it go, the problem can never become part of our past.

laurajordan, when that doofus made the testicular fortitude comment it was the second such one . remember carville's wanting to give one of her balls to obama so they both would have one? see... carville...see...she wasn't embarassed...she encouraged it played both sides of the sexist stuff. at once victim and then showing she could be testicular with attacks that obama could not fully respond to without being a scary black guy assaulting the white lady. and hillary loved it all. all the time. all the while making her own provocative comments on race and history and condoning the many such grenades of surrogates. have the discussion about gender and sexism. BUT DON'T LOSE SIGHT OF THE FACT THAT HILLARY HAS NO INTEGRITY OR ETHICS AND THIS CAMPAIGN PROVED IT ONE AND FOR ALL.

Why do you talk about Obama being a scary black guy? He doesn't seem scary at all. Isn't that sort of dismissive and condescending of others? Like you're the only one not scared or something? But then you do seem to be scared of Hillary Clinton. I don't get it.

and then there is the iraq war vote. and yes that was a woman's issue. those of us who instictively oppose war, feel that way, because in war people get killed, people get maimed, people get traumatised, people get sick, people get homeless. and guess what? alot of those people are....WOMEN!!!so hillary clinton voted to authorize george w. bush to send thousands of john mccsames in their macho airplanes to drop some shock and awe all over the land of iraq. NOW THAT IS LOOKING OUT FOR WOMEN"S RIGHTS! how does hillary clinton feel about cluster bombs? is she worried about the children playing in our cluster bomb fields? and how did the freeing of iraq from saddam work out for the ladies of basra? fine if they don't have a problem with wearing a headscarf on pain of DEATH.

julian smith one last bark. yeah i am condescending all right. to idiots who voted for and defended hillary's unethical campaign. and to the hard working whites of particularly kentucky and west virginia! so there!

Can you list some examples of racism in the media in the democratic primary campaign that outraged you? Not what someone in Hillary's camp said that allegedly played teh race card, but the media & journalist themselves.

I am having a very difficult time becaus ethe media has been VERY careful when it came to race and not so much when it came to gender. The only thing I can think of is the Obama/Osama errors in typing or speech that were immediately apologized for and wasn't an attack based on race. If anything I'd argue that's islamophobia.

Yes, Hillary had the advantage of being Bill Clitnon's wife when she ran for Senate and President. She had a hand in the formation of policy in her husband's White House (as he had told voters would happen) and performed substantive policy work outside of the traditional first lady duties. If Laura Bush or Barbara Bush ran for president no one would take them seriously because on their own they have no qualficiations in the politics or policy realm.

I wouldn't call that sexism - I'd call her advantage neoptism or family connections. FYI - this has been going on for ages. My particular favorite example is Teddy Kennedy. And if you want to talk about nepotism, let's look at Ted Kennedy: In 1960, John Kennedy was elected President of the United States and vacated his Massachusetts Senate seat. Ted would not be eligible to fill his brother's vacant Senate seat until February 22, 1962, when he would turn thirty. Therefore the President-elect asked Massachusetts Governor Foster Furcolo to name a Kennedy family friend Benjamin A. Smith II to fill out John's term (under the authority of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, and state law). This kept the seat open for Ted. In 1962, Kennedy was elected to the Senate from Massachusetts in a special election. He was elected to a full six-year term in 1964 and was reelected in 1970, 1976, 1982, 1988, 1994, 2000 and 2006.

When Teddy was "elected" to the Senate, he came straight out of law school with no qualifications other than being JFK's little brother. I am sure that you are outraged by this and this causes you to consider Teddy completely unworthy and unqualified to be a senator or a Presidential candidate.

If I had to compare Hillary to anyone, it would probably be Bill Bradley who was also a brilliant man famous for playing basketball. Elected to Senate because of high name recognition, but he had true intellectual heft and policy wonkishness. While his fame may have been a factor, he was no less deserving in his own right of the Senate seat.

Same with Hillary - she may be well known, but she's qualified in her own right and to dismiss her as having this opportnity jest because she's a woman or just beccause she's Bill Clinton's wife is insulting. In fact being Bill's wife probably made things harder for her in the long haul anyway.

I take issue with some of the NOW examples:

Keith Olbermann, "Somebody who can take her into a room and only he comes out."

Tucker Carlson is scared of being castrated by Hillary?

Bill Kristol thinks white women are the problem.

Daryl Cagle draws violent imagery of Hillary Clinton as the slain beast.

Jack Cafferty conjures up the image of Obama running over Clinton with a truck.

Seriously, I realize these are merely "nominees," but doesn't that underscore the point? A small number of narrow-minded assholes within the right-wing media (and sometime surrogates at the non-FOX networks) intentionally said things that slurred Hillary as a woman, and this was to be expected -- not condoned, but certainly expected. There were a few people who got bent out of shape by campaign events and spoke without considering the full impact (or at least neglecting to properly filter what was emerging from their mouths). I put Randi Rhodes and Ferraro on this spectrum. And then there were journalists who made some clearly off-color comments, none altogether dissimilar from those evoking negative male stereotypes in previous political history ("Wimp President?" on the cover of Newsweek describing GHWB is one such example). It's unfortunate that male dominance of the political scene has denied us a gender-neutral pundit vocabulary. If you called Hillary a wimp or a dick, or a soft-handed effete, or implied that she could not "lead the dance" of negotiations, you could be accused of denigrating her because she's not male. We really should be working toward a neutral set of expressions, but this is a shared problem -- the media is only one component. Hillary's camp trying to have it both ways (emphasizing connections to ground-breaking women, while balking at any attempt to associate them with negative aspects of femininity that are in the culture) made it difficult to arrive at the proper lexicon.

Could Obama have come out in defense of Hillary? Sure, but that could have been counterproductive on multiple levels. Obama could have been painted as condescending, attempting to call attention to and perpetuate the misperceptions that underlie the comments. Clinton could have suffered further from criticism that she needs men to defend her. Obama could be seen as deprecating and weak. Michelle could have been a more effective vehicle for this message, but after SC, I could see how she might be resistant to don that mantle. Ordinarily, I think BO is bigger than that and would say the right thing, but I honestly think that he was concerned about the potential backlash and was frankly disinclined to further protract the primary race. I'm disappointed, but I hope to see this rectified in coming weeks.

We need the same sorts of unflinching discussion on gender that we have already seen about race. We need a better political songbook, and we need people to be clear-headed in separating what's sexist from what's merely blunt. Being drawn too ugly in a political cartoon is the sacred right of any elected official or candidate. Let's allow them to retain that.

How can we tell the difference between a gender-specific insult (bitch, dick, prick, etc.) and sexist intent? A "bitch" to me is simply a horrible female person, just as a "prick" to me is a horrible male person. And no, I don't want to do it all PC and give up my right to call a bitchy woman a "bitch" (and god knows there're lots of them around) and use a "horrible person" instead - it's absurd. Ironically, the objections to the use of the word strikes me as sexist - it is considered inappropriate because, well, we're supposed to be nice to women, and saying "bitch", that's not nice to women. Well, nasty women do exist - eg. Ann Coulter is a BITCH. There, it feels better.

I also take issue about the so-called "sexist" comments about her cackle. Personal traits have always been fodder for pundits, so if Dubya's "smirk" is held against him, why is Hillary's cackle off bounds? Personally, I HATE her cackle not because it's an awful sound, but because she clearly fakes it to avoid answering some of the tough questions out there, eg. Bill's $800K speeches paid by Columbia and the conflict of interest with her position on the Columbian Free-Trade deal.

“Hate crimes against women...do they exist?”
What the hell are you talking about? I never said hate crimes against women didn’t exist. This is the typical straw-man diversionary tactic used by the intellectually dishonest. Not only do hate crimes against women exist, under slavery black women suffered double. Since white women didn’t get the same treatment as black women during slavery I will assume that being black was a bigger problem then being a women.

“Are women the victims of lynching?”
What a stupid question. Yes, plenty of ‘black-women’ where indeed lynched!

‘I've enough pictures of naked, raped women thrown down hills and in gutters and ditches to think that lynching is more than hanging from a rope.’
That seems like such a strange thing to collect. If some man on this board admitted to collecting this type of material, we would all justifiable wonder what his problem was, but since you are a women I’m sure it’s ok.
The question again is not does sexism and/or racism exist, of course they do. Would a black women with no coattails to ride have a tougher go then a black man in a similar situation, I have no doubt she would. That is not the situation, however. So once again your position that Senator Clinton had a tougher go, being white, a former first lady, $250,000,000 in funds vs. the black Senator named Barack Hussein Obama is delusional.