Why We Fight
September 10, 2008
by Anna Belle Pfau
|(Originally posted at Peacocks and Lilies.)
They are so scared. More scared than they’ve been since Hillary Clinton moved into the White House. They do this every time they get this scared, and they never get this scared of a man. Other people might wonder how politics and the media can be filled with so many pearl-clutchers when there are so few women in either profession, but such is the case. Some might suggest these folks were a little too close to mamma to grow up to be functional men, if you know what I mean. Still others might suggest it’s an intimacy-issues thing, the result of being cuckolded by empowered, irritated, unsatisfied wives. Whatever the source of this neuroses and dysfunction, the result is always the same:
Gary Kamiya’s article in Salon was graced by that picture of Palin. That picture of Hillary is from Spy Magazine, circa February 1993, just a month after she and Bill arrived in Washington. This is the Fourth Estate’s enfeebled attempt to police the political class. But it only shows how distorted and mentally diseased they are, how much privilege they’ve been able to secure, which is to say, way too much. Maybe we need to run a psychiatrist for president, so we can have these images translated for the media as they publish them.
What they don’t think about, because it’s so far outside the limited borders of their bubbled brains, is what effect this sort of propaganda has on some people, especially people aware of and open to feminist sentiments. That Spy Magazine cover made me a life-long fan of Hillary Clinton at the tender age of 22, and articulated in one image what she’s had to fight as a woman in politics all her life. It also made me shed the bullshit rhetoric swirling around women in my age group at the time that feminism wasn’t necessary anymore, and was odious to boot. The sympathy it created in me spurred the birth of a barrier wall in my brain, which grew with every dirty trick Republicans of the 1990s threw at Hillary or Bill. A lot of other Americans experienced this too. This wall of static sound developed for a lot of people, so that by 1995 all most people heard when they listened to Clinton critics and naysayers was a whole lot of what Lucy and Charlie hear when adults speak in a Peanuts cartoon: Waa-WAA-Waa-WAA-WAA.
But there was a danger I wasn’t aware of at the time, and the thought of that missed danger plagues me today. The kids of the 1990s weren’t able to build that wall of static; they absorbed and internalized all of those unfounded charges and characterizations. And because they were too young to understand what was going on, because parents felt uncomfortable talking about it to them because of the Lewinsky-sex issue, the little seeds of hate Republicans were trying to sow at the time landed in a lot of young, fertile hearts. And look where we are today. We’ve got young women so stupefied from all the confusion they can’t even see overt, rank sexism before their very eyes. We’ve got other, older women so hooked in to the white male power structure they’re unwilling to risk losing anything, to risk being put into leather and chains themselves, even if just in pictures. We’ve got a lot of young men monkeying those Republicans from the 90s, even some young men ostensibly smart enough to know better. These are monsters built in the ideological ovens of the 1990s. This is the legacy of 1990s, of all those Republican hit jobs.
This is the also danger we face today. Make no mistake about it. You cannot just go back to your couch, to watching Lost and House and whatever reality TV show it is you follow. Young women and men today, my 14 year old daughter among them, are absorbing the heat of the hit jobs this year. It is baking into their very flesh. IF Hillary runs in 2012, my daughter will be old enough to vote. What choice will she make after all she’s seen this year? So far she’s still an Obama fan, even though she now understands what Hillary had to deal with, and sympathizes with me over the sexism she herself can now identify. But just yesterday, as she sauntered off to bed, she couldn’t resist snarkily throwing this little gem in my face: “Why do you want four more years of Bush, Mom?” This is where she is after living her whole life with a feminist Hillary Clinton supporter. After all she knows about what happened this year, and because I am her mom she knows the whole sorry tale (and is sorry to hear it again), this is still the argument that works for her in her politically budding mind.
This is why we fight. We fight for my daughter and the millions of girls like her who are endangered by the sexist rhetoric that passes for media these days. We fight for the millions of boys who are looking at the Progressive Dude Nation right now, at their style, their pazzazz, their irreverence, and who are wanting to posture the same stance one day if they haven’t adopted it already. There is more at stake than just this year, this election, or the next four years. There are legions of young minds being shaped, and we must inform them, using rhetoric that is natural to their intellect, of what is going on right now and what is possible for the future.
I quit my subscription to SPY after that cover photo. AND there’s a bad story some years later, of a daughter suing her SPY writer father, for sexual abuse–AND he wrote a book about it…meme chose.
Thanks for the post.
PUMA, now more than ever.
A CNN reporter this week didn’t seem to know or care that a fake photo showing a bikini-clad, rifle-toting Sarah Palin had been widely debunked days earlier as a fraud, the latest in series of incidents involving apparent misstatements or inaccurate reporting by the news network.
Lola Ogunnaike’s remarks, which came in response to a question by host Howard Kurtz about whether Palin’s status as a political celebrity might undercut Republican efforts to portray the vice presidential nominee as a serious, reform-minded governor, were posted on CNN’s Web site and have since been reported and discussed on numerous other independent sites.
CNN correspondents and analysts have also recently misrepresented Palin’s stance on incorporating creationism into Alaska’s school curriculum and falsely reported that she cut funds for people with special needs in the state budget.
Regarding the doctored “bikini” photo, neither Kurtz, a “Washington Post” columnist, nor anyone else on the “Sources” discussion panel ever corrected Ogunnaike by pointing out that the picture was a fake.
Speaking about Ogunnaike and the doctored photo, Kurtz told FOXNews.com on Wednesday that he figured everyone knew the photo was a fake.
“I thought that Lola was joking around since the bikini was so obviously fake,” Kurtz said. “I thought she was making a lighthearted reference to it.
“Lola is a very sharp former New York Times reporter so I seriously doubt that she bought into the notion that the governor of Alaska had in fact posed in a bathing suit carrying an assault rifle,” he added.
“Lola’s comments were made in the context of the tabloid rumors that have emerged since Sarah Palin’s nomination to the ticket,” a CNN spokeswoman said. “She regrets that she didn’t make it more clear that the photo was not only a rumor but a hoax.”
The infamous fake bikini shot first appeared during the early days of the Republican convention. But it was widely debunked within 24 hours, with bloggers and others quickly exposing the fraud by finding the original shot, reportedly taken in 2004 in Athens, Ga., by an amateur photographer of his then-girlfriend.
FOXNews.com was among the news outlets to report the fake.
During the show, Ogunnaike went on to compliment Us Weekly’s coverage of Palin, which has been widely attacked as unfair by critics and reportedly thousands of Us Weekly readers.
“I have to say,” Ogunnaike said, “I read the ‘Us Weekly’ story, and they were actually pretty good. They actually did some pretty good journalism there. … And this is a bigger story here. … They can’t afford to ignore this story because this story drives magazine sales. And that’s the bottom line, that’s what they care about. So if you throw Palin on the cover and you have the words ‘Baby Scandal,’ they know that’s going to sell magazines.”
Ogunnaike’s remarks are among several apparent misstatements made recently by CNN reporters.
This is a great post, Anna Belle.
Ann Bartow linked back to this from her blog, and I think her comment is pithy and perfect:
Portraying politicians as people who want to hurt you during sex seems to be a form of derogation used almost exclusively against women. Think a bit about why that is.
This is why we fight………
I read this article at Salon.com by Cintra Wilson. People are so mean and degrading.
Here’s what she has to say…….
“I confess, it was pretty riveting when John McCain trotted out Sarah Palin for the first time. Like many people, I thought, “Damn, a hyperconservative, fuckable, Type A, antiabortion, Christian Stepford wife in a ‘sexy librarian’ costume — as a vice president? That’s a brilliant stroke of horrifyingly cynical pandering to the Christian right. Karl Rove must be behind it.”
………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
“It is a kind of eerie coincidence that Sarah Palin is being sprung on the public at the same time as the bimbo/frat-boy titty comedy “House Bunny,” which features a poster of a beautiful young lady with Playmate-style bunny ears, big, stupid eyes and her mouth hanging open like someone just punched her.
Sarah Palin is the White House bunny — the most nauseating novelty confection of the evangelical mind-set since Southern “chastity balls,” wherein teen girls pledge abstinence from premarital sex by ceremonially faux-marrying their own fathers.
Oh, wow, thanks for the tip, Violet, and the compliment. I’m impressed and humbled that she picked it up. You’re right–perfect comment.
I, too, had a subscription that got canceled, Dulcy. I had that thing delivered to my mailbox. I think it was my second magazine subscription ever. Boy, did I learn how to be selective after that.
Thanks for the info ida.
Sarah Palin, as a woman….has every right to her own personal opinions, however, she’s against abortion, believing the life begins at conception, despite the fact that a zygote is the fertilization of an egg by a sperm, regardless of whether by incest or rape. She’s rigidly pro-life, and would encourage adoption, in other words, adoption is preferable to abortion.
She’s against sex education and birth control.
No one has ever thought (never mind that it’s occurred to anyone to ask her) to ask her about the ERA that may never be ratified.
She was a Mayor, is currently a Governor, careers that once were the domain of men only. In other words, feminism enabled women to be whatever they want and yet she eschews equal rights.
I have nothing against her as a woman. I do not subscribe to any of her personal and social morals where women across the U.S. are concerned.
I do think it’s incredibly sexist to be asked if she could handle being a Governor while being pregnant.
Hillary Rodham Clinton has been ruthlessly attacked by the television and print media as has Barack Obama, based on his skin colour and his middle name.
Women in politics, in North America, are treated as novelties which in this day and age, is absurd, but there you have it…..sexism is alive, well and thriving and the majority of the general public is largely conservative than liberal. Why are women and male politicians, so threatened by women running for political positions?? It must be that politics is still an “old boys’ club” enshrined in tradition.
Actually, she is NOT opposed to birth control. She is NOT opposed to sex education. She is NOT opposed to equal rights.
Except for abortion rights, which she opposes, Sarah Palin is in agreement with most traditional feminist goals. She has explicitly expressed her support for equal rights and equal opportunity. She refers to herself as a pro-life feminist.
I, personally, am deeply disappointed that the liberal and feminist media is continuing to spread unfounded rumors about her.
The moral corruption of the left cannot be demonstrated any better than by this despicable Web site on which a jackal is promising to pay Bristol Palin $25,000.00 to have an abortion.
Saving Bristol
You can send your opinions to the sponsor at his blog.
http://www.savingbristol.com/page2.html
From Michael Seitzman Posted September 11, 2008 | 11:21 PM (EST) Sarah Palin Naked
“She said “nucular.” Twice.
I realized three things tonight. For one, if you are a McCain/Palin/Bush voter, you and I do not have a difference of opinion. We have a difference in brain power. Two, she really is as ignorant as I feared. And, three, she really is kinda hot. Basically, I want to have sex with her on my Barack Obama sheets while my wife reads aloud from the Constitution. (My wife is cool with this if I promise to “first wipe off Palin’s tranny makeup.” I married well.)”
ref: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....25861.html
I find this kind of reporting or commentary disgusting and revolting.
Then after apparently receiving complaints of sexism he offers this explanation:
” “Sexism” is discrimination or unfairly diminishing someone based on gender. I haven’t discriminated against Sarah Palin based on her gender and I haven’t diminished her based on it. She’s diminished based on her intellect and experience and hubris and because they’re using her gender in such a crass and cynical manner. I’m discriminating against her based on that fact and that she has as much business on the national political stage as Alice from the Brady Bunch. ”
ref: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....26072.html
In his rebuttal he claims that he isn’t discriminating because he doesn’t care whether Sarah Palin has a vagina or a penis.
I don’t buy it.
Just as the questions being asked about Sarah’s family role and juggling ability are sexist and demeaning, so are this man’s sickening comments no matter how he tries to justify them.
Did you see where a older woman (Like me!) was used by the media ? This is how reporters are treating women like me who just can not support a man who was handed the nomination after Hillary really won it!!! Yep use us older women, accuse us of racism!!!
SEE:
A quote attributed to Sandra Cichon, a private citizen, is spreading across the internet as a living example of White Racism. Did a reporter put words in this woman’s mouth?
An article in the St. Petersberg Times, quotes Cichon as having said, “I can’t imagine having a black president . . .”
In a phone interview Saturday, Sandra Cichon of Spring Hill, Florida denied that she ever spoke with any pollster or reporter concerning Obama or about anything regarding race. Cichon was taken by surprise when phoned by this reporter, and she was not aware that she had been quoted in any newspaper.
The September 15, 2008 article Black ‘issue’ hangs over presidential polls by Adam Smith of the St. Petersburg Times Political states:
A pollster calling Sandra Cichon, a 60-year-old Democrat from Spring Hill, would hear her identify herself as an undecided voter. But is she really?
“I can’t imagine having a black president, and I think he’s inexperienced,” she told a reporter recently, eventually acknowledging she was leaning unenthusiastically toward McCain. “I don’t think we (Democrats) have a chance to be in the White House with Obama.”
Many analysts wonder how many voters answering polls hide their racial biases or mislead survey-takers about their real preferences.
The article fails to name the pollster who claimed to have called Cichon. When asked during my phone interview, Cichon denied speaking to any pollster on the phone.
Cichon explained that the only time she spoke with a reporter was in August when she went to vote in the county commission races. She said that he (the reporter) seemed nice and she gave him a catalogue for gift baskets.
Cichon is quoted in an August 27, 2008 article in the St. Petersburg Times, Russell, Mitchell, Hackworth win congressional primaries, by Rita Farlow, Stephanie Garry and John Frank, Times Staff Writers.
Many Democratic voters said they were unimpressed with the quality of the candidates.
“I don’t know one from the other,” said Sandra Cichon of Spring Hill.
Sandra Cichon shows up in another August 27, 2008 St. Petersburg Times article Dismal voter turnout in Hernando by Barbara Behrendt and John Frank. Times staff writer, John Frank, was a reporter on both August 27th articles.
Some Democratic voters said they found the experience largely unsatisfying based on the quality of congressional candidates on their ticket. . . .Sandra Cichon, 60, cast a ballot at Spring Hill United Church of Christ. She left disappointed because she couldn’t vote in the hotly contested commission races as a registered Democrat.
“I wouldn’t even have come if I knew,” she said.
In a phone call to Times Political Editor, Adam Smith, who authored the article in question, Smith said that he had the utmost confidence in the reporter, John Frank. Smith said that Frank was the reporter who actually spoke with Cichon. Smith said it is understandable that Cichon wouldn’t want to admit over the phone to making that statement, but “polls all over are showing that people are not hesitant in stating that they won’t vote for a black person.”
The progressive DoubleTake is the blog for the Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere – Los Angeles. AWARE-LA paraphrases the same September 15, 2008 article Black ‘issue’ hangs over presidential polls, by Adam C. Smith. But notice that something has been added to the Cichon quote.
Later in the article Sandra Cichon, a 60-year-old Democrat from Spring Hill, who originally identified herself to a pollster as an undecided voter, recently told a reporter, “I can’t imagine having a black president, and I think he’s inexperienced.”
Sandra then asked the reporter if she would like a fresh batch of “Obama Waffles.”
Sandra Cichon was asked during my interview today if she had asked the reporter if he would like a fresh batch of “Obama Waffles” ?
Cichon responded, “Why would I ask a reporter about waffles? This is crazy. I never spoke to any reporter about Obama. I’m going right down to the St. Petersburg Times and demand a retraction!
Times Editor, Adam Smith was asked if he had heard that Cichon had offered the reporter “Obama Waffles?” Smith said he was not aware of that quote.
a good theme, and you can read more
to be truly surprised and pleased:) Do not be believed, that even this happens:)
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