Sherry Chandler

Oh my goodness! NOW we’re going to have a national discussion on sexism!

These national discussions just keep coming at us, don’t they?

Clinton Bloc Becomes the Prize for Election Day (I supply emphasis):

…Even the Democratic National Committee chairman is avidly trying to make up for accusations that he allowed sexism in the race to pass unchallenged.

�The wounds of sexism need to be the subject of a national discussion,� the chairman, Howard Dean, said in an interview. �Many of the most prominent people on TV behaved like middle schoolers� toward Mrs. Clinton.

…

Former Gov. Madeleine M. Kunin of Vermont suggested in an interview that Mr. Obama promise to appoint women to half his cabinet positions.

Ms. Steinem advised that Mr. Obama deliver the same sort of ambitious speech about sex that he did on race. An aide said the campaign was considering such an address.

Jenny Backus, a Democratic consultant unaffiliated with either campaign, wondered whether Mr. Obama might give Chelsea Clinton a prominent role in his efforts.

When Mr. Dean reached out to Cynthia Ruccia, who started an organization of female Clinton swing-state voters threatening to vote for Mr. McCain, Ms. Ruccia asked that the Democratic convention include a symbolic first ballot for Mrs. Clinton�s delegates. Mr. Dean discouraged the idea on the grounds of unity.

He has belatedly recognized the cries of sexism, Mr. Dean said, particularly when a friend showed him a video compilation of broadcasters� comments about Mrs. Clinton.

�We all get over it when our candidates don�t win,� he said. �What you don�t get over is feeling like you�ve been insulted by some of the leading institutions in America and no one said anything about it.�

…

The Obama campaign will fight back, after waiting a respectful beat or two. In conversations with Mr. Obama and his aides, �I�ve tried to make sure that everyone understood that these women have a right to feel frustrated and angry,� said Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, an important ally who is one of his leading emissaries to women. �To try to make that less than real is a huge mistake.�

As he declared himself the nominee on Tuesday, Mr. Obama cut a particularly woman-friendly figure on stage, dedicating his speech to his grandmother and affectionately bumping fists with his wife, Michelle.

Indeed, descriptions of those women, along with his mother and daughters, will be regular features of Mr. Obama�s speeches, Ms. Sebelius said. Women will ultimately choose Mr. Obama not because of symbolic overtures, she added, but because of his stances on health care, the economy and education, areas where his positions closely resemble Mrs. Clinton�s.

The key, Ms. McCaskill said, is approaching Mrs. Clinton�s supporters with utmost humility. And, Ms. Backus added, that is not always the strongest suit of the young people who are some of Mr. Obama�s most enthusiastic supporters.

�Not nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh,� Ms. McCaskill said, making a taunting sound. �We need them very, very badly, and we shouldn�t be able to be afraid to say that we need them.�

H/t Big Tent Democrat

But they didn’t need us last week. Weren’t too worried about those adolescent commentators then either.

I wonder how many women are going to see this sort of Damascus Road conversion as conveniently timed? Sort of an “I’m sorry honey. I’ll never do it again.”

They might want to polish up that humble rhetoric too. To quote Paul Lukasiak, “these women have a right to feel frustrated and angry” is not the same as “women have a reason to be angry.”

While I’m not a woman, this “right to be” language is the equivalent of an “I’m sorry that you were offended”, faux-apology — its a failure to acknowledge that the anger is legitimate, and that its not just the media that is at fault, but the candidate and the party itself.

Paul thinks this is all misdirection to distract us from the corruption of the DNC.

And, after all, it is not just women who voted for Senator Clinton over Senator Obama. There’s the question of the “Appalachia problem.”

Speaking of Appalachia, I still want policy specifics. In Bristol, Virginia on Thursday, Senator Obama got an enthusiastic response to promises that he’d provide everybody with health care but he didn’t say how he plans to do that.

Gail Collins is relatively clear-eyed about what Clinton accomplished:

Here�s where the sexism does come in. If Barack had failed in his attempt to make history by becoming the first African-American presidential nominee, you can bet we�d have treated his defeat with the dignity it deserved. Even if he went over the deep end at the finale and found it hard to get around to a graceful concession. [Ed. note: I wish people would get over this meme. The timing of Clinton's concession is well within the tradition and will be perfectly graceful. See Anglachel.]

For a long time, Obama supporters have seen party unity as something that Hillary could provide by capitulating. It also requires the Democrats to acknowledge what she�s achieved. If that makes them feel like wimps, let them take it out on John McCain.

…

Over the past months, Clinton has seemed haunted by the image of the �nice girl� who gives up the fight because she�s afraid the boys will be angry if they don�t get their way. She told people she would never, ever say: �I�m the girl, I give up.� She would never let her daughter, or anybody else�s daughter, think that she quit because things got too tough.

And she never did. Nobody is ever again going to question whether it�s possible for a woman to go toe-to-toe with the toughest male candidate in a race for president of the United States. Or whether a woman could be strong enough to serve as commander in chief.

Her campaign didn�t resolve whether a woman who seems tough enough to run the military can also seem likable enough to get elected. But she helped pave the way. So many battles against prejudice are won when people get used to seeing women and minorities in roles that only white men had held before. By the end of those 54 primaries and caucuses, Hillary had made a woman running for president seem normal.

…

For all her vaunting ambition, she was never a candidate who ran for president just because it�s the presidency. She thought about winning in terms of the things she could accomplish, and she never forgot the women�s issues she had championed all her life � repair of the social safety net, children�s rights, support for working mothers.

It�s not the same as winning the White House. But it�s a lot.

We’re not buying

Watch at YouTube

Via Wolfrum

Here’s a link to the petition

On May 23, The Women’s Media Center, along with our partners at Media Matters, launched, “Sexism Sells, But We’re Not Buying It,” a new video and online petition campaign illustrating the pervasive nature of sexism in the media’s coverage. While Hillary Clinton’s campaign has cast a spotlight on the issue of sexism, this isn’t a partisan issue: it’s about making sure that women’s voices are present and powerful in our national dialogue. If you haven’t already, please click on the image at right to watch the video. You can also read a statement about the video from WMC president Carol Jenkins. Then sign on below to join our petition campaign.

The Media and Misogyny

Too little, too late, on CNN Howard Kurtz examines the question with a panel of (gasp!) women journalists. He predicts a backlash. Ya think?:

Watch at YouTube

Link via Tennessee Guerilla Women.

I do not have cable tv, let alone HBO, so I did not watch Recount, but Jane Smiley did and she came to conclusion that Al Gore was right to concede because, in part, it allowed the Republicans to show themselves:

Winning to them trumped every other consideration. It is also evident that they learned from their “victory” in Florida that bullying was the way to go, and so they attempted to use the same strategy and tactics in Iraq. The last eight years show that ethics, law, and human decency meant nothing to these Republicans. And their current pleasure in the depiction of their own rottenness shows that they have learned nothing.

I would like to be a fly on the wall in the room where John McCain is watching Recount. In the course of the next few months, knowing that bullying, cheating, and subverting the election might or might not work, he will have to make a choice. He can run an honorable campaign and lose or a dishonorable campaign that shames him. Does he watch Recount and see Warren Christopher as a “wimp” and James Baker as “tough”? Or does he watch Recount and feel the humiliation that every Republican should feel? He is the carrier of the Bush poison now. The sooner he recognizes it, the better off the nation will be.

My thought? Maybe the Democrats should examine their own house.

Link courtesy of Avedon.

Aside: Kurtz can’t resist a bit of blame the victim in his Washington Post venue:

Somewhere in Hillary’s inevitability phase, the trailblazing nature of her effort got lost. She became the establishment candidate, the return-to-the-’90s candidate, and the wow factor–which has always surrounded Obama–simply faded.

Simply faded? How about was stomped on and crushed and still wouldn’t die? See Avedon below.

Update: Over at Suburban Guerilla, zuzu asks Obama supporters how they’re going to reach out to disgruntled Clinton supporters in the event that Obama is the nominee. Interesting lot of replies. Go read. (Short version: they got nothin’)

Daddy’s in the alley, he’s looking for food

Why Hillary Should Be Winning�

Men, It’s Not Your Place To Tell Clinton To Quit the Race. Found at Donna Darko.

The Audacity of Depression, found at Suburban Guerilla

Worst. President. Ever. H/t Hullabaloo

Climate Target Not Radical Enough Link thanks to lambert at Corrente.

U.S. Shifting Prison Focus to Re-entry Into Society. See also Jeralyn at TalkLeft.

If you happen to be in NYC this Friday.

Watch this video.

And why is it Cindy McCain hasn’t filed for divorce?

Why isn’t this abuse?. Found via I See Invisible People

Gotta add one: Don L. Blankenship of Massey Coal makes threats

The National Bank Sells Roadmaps to the Soul

Misquoting Bill Clinton — and everybody else.

Hillary reassessed. Link via eriposte at The Left coaster.

Why Hillary Should Be President. And also here. And here. And here.

Endemic sexism. Via The Sideshow.

At the Barricades In the Gender Wars. Via Tennessee Guerilla Women (my vote for best blog name)

Why Calling Out Mysogyny Matters

Rapists in the Ranks. Via Suburban Guerilla

Remembering MLK’s Prophetic ‘Mountaintop’ Speech

Dreams from Obama

The Other Obama

The Smart Way Out of a Foolish War by Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski is, I believe, advising Barack Obama.

The Liberal Media really is liberal and that’s why it’s such a problem for Liberals

Remember Dead Mule’s Poems-on-the-Odds

Dark is the night

Here is a little sampling of Lillian Smith’s writing at its most romantic. This passage is from pages 159 and 160 of Killers of the Dream, a chapter entitled “Distance and Darkness.”

While I have no doubt that what she is saying here has truth, I also feel as though we’ve strayed deep into the territory of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane or possibly a West Virginia holler movie (though they do have Yayho sightings on Droopr Mountain). Nobody is allowed beyond the confines of their stereotype:

ONLY A MAN or woman who has traveled in childhood the old sand or day roads of the South in buggy or wagon, who has stayed in the country after nightfall, can know what distance and darkness meant in the making of the rural mind of the South.

Distance was not a word but a force pushing a man hard against his memories and fears, isolating him from a world to which he had never felt securely tied. When the sun set, the night began. There were no lights; only a kerosene lamp or a pine knot burning. And always the swamp back of you or the dark hills, or empty fields stretching on, on. . . . Far off, the Negroes singing in dim lantern-lit churches, moaning their misery and shouting their joy. Sudden sharp laughter from nowhere.

City people, townspeople, have little idea what this meant and still means in parts of the lonely South. During the war they felt the wear on nerves of the blackout, but country folks have lived in a blackout since time began. Darkness comes. Sounds creep out: whippoorwill, tree-frogs, roar of alligator back in the pond, rustle of palmetto, restless, never-ending, as if an unseen hand brushes over it and it cannot let go . . . the scream of a cat in the swamp. Sounds like these weave in and out of lonely fantasies, pulling in hearsay tales, making a tight mat of facts and feelings and fancies and fears until one no longer knows the real from the unreal, and sometimes one no longer cares. The sweet things too: jessamine crawling on fences and trees, giving out a wonder of yellow fragrance, bays blooming white and delicate down in the swamp, and water lilies fattening on green pond water, making you love the loneliness you hate; making you want to stay even as you feel you must leave or die.

The chapter closes with this paragraph, which again is both insightful and patronizing (matronizing?), the paragraph stands with the “wool-hat boys and girls” but nevertheless keeps them a safely distant “they.”

Having lived my early life in a Deep South town and much of my recent life in the mountains, I have a bond with rural people which I cherish. The stereotypes built of them by those who are trying to manipulate them, are partly true, of course; but partly false. They do have little learning and can be stubborn as mules; but they have conscience. And they are close to nature and therefore close to the variables of life. They are less aware of large aggregates and samenesses than are urbanites; and more aware of differences and the unpredictability of things that breathe. They are also religious: primitively so, sometimes; but they know and feel deeply the teachings of Jesus. There is also a rough humor, bone-deep. This cannot be disregarded when we are appraising a peoples ability to change. I fear the wool-hat boys and girls far less than I do the educated leaders who fear them and therefore desert them in their need�and the demagogic leaders who shoulder the people intimately but exploit them ruthlessly.

Sweeping generalizations are dangerous things so I think I’ll just go ahead and make one. As one who identifies working class/redneck, I think part of the problem may lie in the fact that it’s easier to recognize patronizing attitudes than it is to recognize populist demagoguery. Populists tell you what you want to hear. Patronizing reformers, though they may be right, tell you that you’re ignorant and evil.

Smith recognizes that the evils of racism hurt the poor whites of the South nearly as much as the blacks. I give her high marks for pointing out that the people who benefitted most from Southern racism were the rich landowners, industrialists, and politicians who were able to exploit the cheap labor force. She is also good at deflating self-righteousness in all concerned.

On balance, Killers of the Dream was and is an important book. I just wish I didn’t find it so difficult to read.