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Aug
29
For the record, I’ve witnessed three instances since 10am in which I believe sexism has played a role in reporting on John McCain’s VP choice. One from the right, one from the left and one from the MSM.I am begging, begging, begging anyone who writes about this election, refuse the easy sexist references and impulses. Say no to the bad juju. Do not do it. Nothing good will come from it. And if you do it, I can only interpret it as misogyny – because after what was done to Hillary Clinton before everyone, we know. We know now, we’ve seen it now. It’s been called out. If you want examples, just type in “sexism clinton.” Then argue with those videos. I’m not here to teach you if you don’t recognize it.
Neither Michelle Obama nor Jill Biden would expect or accept it in the name of their spouses’ victories and since I’m supporting them, I don’t really care what Cindy McCain would sanction (her husband laughed when a woman asked how to beat the bitch – so you know, Cindy, I’m not so interested in her opinion on this).If you are looking for a place to say, “But the racism is so much worse, this is nothing!” go somewhere else. No room at the blog. All full up – with issue and relevant and gender-neutral ammunition, thank you.
And by all means – if I slip up, and I most definitely could, because I know that I’m a class privileged white woman, tell me. Tell me straight. And we’ll see what we can do about that.
This has been a message from the WLST Emergency Warning system and I approved it.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 7:04 pm August 29th, 2008 in Announcements, Sexism
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24 Responses to “Don’t make me start the Sexist Watch”
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Its part of the change process.
She is going to have positive affect on the republican campaign.
I like her and I cannot ask myself if I would I like her if she was a man, I like her for who she is.
She has reckless disregard for the glass ceiling, there is all kinds of messages coming through this nomination.
For instance you say, he had nothing to say on the anniversary, he did not, but his action spoke volumes.
Then you have ANWR and woman do drive SUV’s.
Then you have Regan democrats 1 in 5 of the Clinton voter base, that’s what 20%?
This will shift the polls, even her insistence to fire the ex-brother-in-law state trooper is right-in-line with defending the rights of woman, trust me he was abusive or she would not have gotten the nomination. Common sense how can he still be in law enforcement is he is harassing his wife?
Twisting things around will not work, Palin is common sense the norm in normal.
Gov Palin would seem to be the definitive answer to how much the Republicans think experience matters.
This is going to be a difficult season and I am saying this without snark.
I try to be very careful about jumping into the race discussion because I am white. However, since I am a woman, I am a bit less likely to see things as off limits. I am in no way condoning the over-the – line attacks or gaffes (like Buchannan constantly referring to her as a “gal”) I also thought the Matthews comments regarding Hillary were over the line (although I’m still not sure why people felt a need to punish Obama due to those comments.) What are your thoughts about discussing Palin’s role as a mother? I have to say I would seriously feel better if her husband quit his job. Having healthy kids is one thing, a special needs baby is another.
Oengus – I couldn’t disagree with you more – I do not see what you say will happen happening.
I’m not sure what you mean by McCain’s actions indicating what he thinks about women’s equality day – he doesn’t give a two cents?
If Palin is the norm in normal, that’s all the more reason why she doesn’t belong in the VP slot. Voters want to have the experience resonate, but no good president is normal – if he or she was, they wouldn’t be running for president. It takes something out of the norm to be ready to lead a country of 300 million facing what we face, wanting what we want, needing what we need.
She spent barely four years outside of a state that is separated geographically and ideologically and needswise from the rest of the country. She speaks in terms of doing what’s best for Alaskans.
Oengus – she knows nothing of Ohio or Ohioans, let alone any other part of this country, or outside the country, enough to govern it.
There are men and women with similar resumes in terms of “just jobs” who would be better suited – if I were a Republican – Bobby Jindal, Christine Todd Whitman.
What does this message send to individuals like that? That even their own party wants them to recognize that choosing a woman had to be done – totally, utter BLECH and that is why I even take issue with Palin taking the offer. Absolute opportunism.
I equate a Sarah Palin pick with a Bobby Jindal pick or a Mitt Romney pick. All three help solidify the Republican base and all three have a track record of reform, not just rhetoric about reform.
So why Palin, Daniel? What gave her the edge, in your opinion?
I think, if you had a short list that only included those three, Mitt Romney would have been 3rd on the list because of a personality clash. In other words, McCain would have chosen Romney if the other two said they weren’t interested/available.
So, between Jindal and Palin, availability has a lot to do with timing. Jindal just took office this year. Palin is in her second year.
Jindal has begun reforms, but is still in the middle of working on more reforms, so I think he advised McCain that he would only accept the VP if McCain insisted, if McCain was desperate, because Jindal is still trying to work through Louisiana’s problems. I think there was a time that McCain favored Jindal above all the others on the short list, because they were interacting a lot, visiting each other a lot, appearing together a lot. But I think Jindal was reluctant to leave the governorship with too much still undone. Notice that Jindal, even as a surrogate, was ruling himself out during his TV appearances, pointing to the tasks that were still in the hopper. I do think he would have taken the job if pushed, but I think he made his preference known to McCain. As a result, Jindal slipped from the short list, while Romney, the final alternative, remained on the list.
Palin, in 2 years, has accomplished more as governor than her predecessor had in 12 years. Just recently, she got a natural gas pipeline construction project off the ground that had been stalled for 30 years. She’s reached many of her reform objectives already, so she doesn’t have as many irons in the fire as Jindal. Perhaps if Jindal were in his second gubernatorial year instead of his first gubernatorial year, he would be as available as Palin.
If Palin had, like Jindal, indicated that she was unavailable, then I think McCain would have asked Romney, who was always available. If Romney had made a huge gaffe, disqualifying himself, then I think McCain would have returned to Jindal and prodded him some more, and Jindal would have agreed.
That’s the way I read the tea leaves.
What if Bobby Jindal was the parent of five children, including a newborn with special needs, and he and his wife were both employed full-time?
You seem to be avoiding that, Daniel. And it does matter. And it’s got nothing to do with gender.
Huh?
That’s like out of the blue. I’m not sure what you’re getting at.
I’m sure the response to the family situation is up to each individual and how they respond to McCain. If Palin said she was unavailable for family reasons, then McCain still had Romney on tap.
Jindal already indicated that he wasn’t readily available.
But if Jindal was available from a work standpoint, but he had the same family dynamic as Palin, then I think it would have been up to Jindal to make the call about whether he was available or not based on family circumstances.
If you are talking about family size and special needs as something that could be a hindrance, may I remind you that my mom and dad had 10 children (I’m the oldest), and that one of them (my brother, Joe) is multi-handicapped. I still don’t see how this figures into McCain’s selection process.
McCain has long had an appeal to independent voters. He wanted to campaign for independent votes. His problem is that his base wasn’t secure. Palin is one of the many who could have helped secure that base so that McCain can turn his focus to the independent voters. McCain also needed someone who would reinforce his message of reform in Washington. He needed someone outside of the Beltway with chief executive experience who had a reform track record. Only Jindal, Palin, and Romney could lay claim to all those credentials that McCain required.
Daniel – do not make me stare you down.
You wrote, “my mom and dad had 10 children (I’m the oldest), and that one of them (my brother, Joe) is multi-handicapped.”
Let’s suppose then, that in every other way your mother and father were Sarah Palin and her husband – would you support your mother being Vice President?
I am asking you, as a parent, or as a sibling, or as a child, how do you respond?
Maybe the answer is that family values have been overvalued and so that is why you can write as though it’s a non-issue.
Then the conservatives must say that – say that they were wrong in ever suggesting that a women’s place is in the home or as the primary care-taker.
They will have to say they are wrong about women being not being fit for being on the front line – what is more frontline than being CIC? How will troops feel about her being in charge of them – even with her 18 year old entering the fray?
Daniel – there is no prescribed answer I’m looking for, but I am asking you to be level with me, as a parent, a husband, a father, a child of a mother.
If my mom had been asked by a (potential) president to serve her country as a vice-president, I’m sure my mom would have answered the call to serve her country. That’s just the way my parents are.
We, as a family, would have made do. We always have. The older siblings chip in to help the younger ones. The kids learn to take responsibility at an early age (I changed diapers–cloth diapers that had to be rinsed out before laundering and had to be cinched shut with safety pins when putting them on the baby–for the first time at age 5, and I’ve changed diapers for 7 of my 9 siblings). I have lots of experience in cooking, washing dishes, doing laundry, mopping floors, dusting furniture, mowing lawn, taking out garbage, scrubbing toilets, and babysitting.
How about as a husband and father? I accept these as your answers, even though I feel they do not coincide with the family values pushed all along by the right of center leaders.
When I was married, I helped my wife get elected to the school board in Oberlin. If she had wanted to run for governor, I would have helped her do that, too, even though she’s Democrat. She has one child from a prior marriage who is very easy to take care of, but I could have taken care of more children than that. Remember, I helped take care of 9 younger siblings. I also have classroom teaching experience, where I manage up to 30 plus kids at a time by myself for up to 14 hours at a stretch (14 hours when I was working in Korea). I can handle it.
I worry that you caricaturize those on the right end of the political spectrum.
Daniel – thank you, but be fair. Maybe the impressions I’m expressing derive from a severe lack of diversity allowed to be represented by conservatives – how many other conservatives do you know who write what you just did? Who the media expose? Does the Family Research Council or Focus on the Family highlight marriages like yours?
I’m very serious here. I am very apt to say that a generalization isn’t true when I’m showing that it’s not – but you are the only conservative so far that I can recall speaking the way you just did.
If there are many more, or you know many more, I would URGE conservatives, if they are really serious about Sarah Palin fitting in with their sense of family values, to highlight people like you.
Otherwise – what you call a caricature will remain what I know to be what I’ve observed and heard.
So far – you are the exception to what is presented by the conservatives.
I recognize normal is convention and average for the most part, but many Americans default to often saying “that’s just weird” they relate to what they can understand and often get defensive to what they cannot, many times equating it to stupidity.
I think different is just different.
She has been governor of Alaska, she has constitutional obligations to her state and its best interests. Alaska’s constitution actually requires that its leaders develop its resources in order to benefit the state. It also has some uniqueness with respects to its independence and autonomy. Again her being still in that mindset is very normal.
She was on CNN and pushing for ANWR development, she was told she had the nomination on woman’s equality day, by McCain personally, did you miss that? That gets into what gets publicized in the media and then again what they just simply choose not to cover.
I am not seeking the opinions of those with pen and paper, I am looking at the people on the street, they can relate to her many can. This is more about natural resources and the war than about gender. She has done some fast track acclimating in Alaska and she is very aggressive against the good old boys network.
I do not understand why you believe she knows nothing about Ohio, if so she can confer with Voinovich?
She is dealing with Alaska a unique micro economy of the US, she is dealing with a simpler less complex part of the US and very well it seems, what her role would be as VP is undefined other than pursuing the development of natural resources. That’s what I am seeing in her, it would be difficult to say she has no respect for the environment. That is real a real agenda that speaks to many Americans on big issues.
She is a Washington outsider and not seeking notoriety at least not yet.
The issue is that a republican president with democratic majority in both houses gets nowhere. Compared to a democratic majority and where that will get us?
Its better not to get into the number of men that will vote for her because she is hot or the number of woman that will not vote for her because she is prettier than them.
I cannot vote McCain/Palin to me it will create grid lock? But then I think can Obama veto something faulted? Does he have the tenacity?
Legislation often has positive intentions that never gets fully realized in society and often is surrounded in denial of responsibility. Never do they say we tried and it does not seem to be working, they keep calling themselves heroes and patting each others on the backs. Or it all becomes a series of twisting manipulations devoid of reality.
In a global economy its best to produce more and consume less.
Eventually those benefiting by consuming less and producing more catch up, a balancing of economies, but this was all thought out with little regard to the depletion of natural resources and the inherent inflation that comes with it and also the environmental destruction as well. The competition for the resources will heat up international concerns and the potential for wars related to them.
If we tested all these political on an understanding of what is linear and spatial relationships they may all fail miserably.
Women play very influential roles within the Republican party in northern Ohio. For example, Helen Hurst, the chair of the GOP in Lorain County, has been a party-builder in Lorain. Marilyn Jacobcik is the assistant director at the Board of Elections, and is prominent in Elyria Republican circles. Jennifer Fenderbosch is the one who keeps the communication channels open among the Avon Lake Republicans. Jennifer Wasilk is the one who does much of the organizing among Amherst Republicans. During the past academic year, the president of the Oberlin College Republicans was a woman. In Erie County, the top Republican official, Commissioner Nancy McKeen, is a woman. In Huron County, the Republican who networks the most is Joyce Houck. The top of the Cuyahoga County ticket this year is Debbie Sutherland, who’s running against Peter Lawson Jones for County Commissioner. I’m surprised you are unaware.
Correction: Helen Hurst, Lorain County GOP Chair, is in North Ridgeville, not Lorain.
Before I forget, Summit County resident Mary Taylor is State Auditor, the sole Republican elected officeholder in Ohio’s executive branch. Without women, the GOP in Ohio would be a shambles.
Jill, I invite and encourage you to get past your attitude that race is a partly off-limits subject simply because you’re white. To me, that kind of racial guilt is so passe and self-defeating. On a more practical level, it prevents you from really engaging with and writing meaningfully about this election, or indeed about much of what’s going on in the country at this moment in our history.
Race is an essential element in the mix, and there’s no getting away from it. When it’s shoved under the rug out of politeness or fear of being thought racially insensitive, it becomes a looming undertone rather than a subject that can be dealt with in the open light of day, where it can be honestly debated. I would argue that your understandable attitude, shared by tens of millions of white Americans, only makes it harder to reconcile the races, because it puts the real stuff off limits for discussion, and ends up setting an environment in which whites ultimately patronize rather than really talk to their black neighbors and fellow citizens.
John – why do you think I think race is off-limits partly because I’m white? I’m totally baffled.
What understandable attitude? I think you are picking and choosing which posts of mine you’re reading. I spoke at a conference in San Fran on race and gender – I don’t think any of the hundreds of folks who’ve read or listened to me on the subject (and I didn’t ask to be speaking on it – they asked me) would describe me in the exact opposite way – as someone who goes out of her way to ask questions and engage.
Eek – what is giving you this notion that I want to avoid it?
Woops. I misread Kathryn’s comment in #4 above as being from you rather than her. That’s the source of my misunderstanding, thinking it was you rather than her saying “I try to be very careful jumping into race discussions because I am white.” It didn’t sound like you, which is what prompted me to write that.
Let’s try out the use of public office to benefit familial connections as a disqualifier. That is exactly as corrupt as government gets, period. I don’t care spit what is alleged about ex-bro in law, there is a process and it isn’t the Governor acting on sis’ behalf and firing a public servant who wouldn’t. What? It doesn’t count if you’re a Republican?
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