As We Exhale, How We Reached the “Letterman Limit”
June 23, 2009
by Amy Siskind
|This piece is posted at The Huffington Post.
This is part 3 of a 3 part series including Sexism Against Conservative Women is Still Sexism and Letterman Quietly Ushers in the Next Wave of Feminism.
Timing is everything. Throughout his illustrious career, David Letterman had a knack for timing the delivery of his words. Unfortunately for Letterman, his timing with the national psyche was not so fortuitous. Had he delivered those same jokes a year ago, the words would have simply vaporized into the air with roars of laughter at The Ed Sullivan Theater. Yet in June 2009, these same words will forever stain his legacy. For unbeknownst to Letterman and his “boy’s club” of writers, our country was about to draw a line in the sand – the “Letterman Limit.”
The Letterman Limit is about crossing a threshold. By insulting, belittling, objectifying and jeopardizing our daughters, Letterman gave the final poke to our country’s sexism slumber. And with the awakening of many, our country is embarking on a new way forward. And with this new way forward, the landscape has been forever altered.
Letterman, sadly, is the casualty of the new way forward. Sadly because before we reached the Letterman Limit, he would hardly be considered among the serial sexism offenders. Letterman’s undoing came with the carefully penned words of his boy’s club of writers. With the utterance of the writers’ pre-scripted words, on two separate nights, Letterman began to descend in flames back down to earth. Who could imagine that his descent would unleash the tsunami of the Next Wave of “Feminism”?
While Letterman is descending, Governor Sarah Palin is seeing her star rise. Some may disagree with Governor Palin on political issues; but few will disagree that Palin is a gifted politician. And whether she had sense of the cultural shift underway, or just had incredible timing, the Letterman Limit has catapulted Palin to a new level. She somehow understood that the people of this country would have her back as she went to battle. When she spoke out to defend her daughters, millions of mothers and fathers heard their own voices.
At The New Agenda – an organization considered by many to be the Next Wave of “feminism” – we’ve been taking stock of how far the country has moved forward as we reach the Letterman Limit. Letterman’s jokes would barely have registered on the “sexism richter scale” that Governor Palin and her family endured in 2008. Last fall, as a new non-partisan organization,The New Agenda spoke out, most often alone, for Governor Palin. We stood up for Palin while she or her likeness were hung in effigy, knocked unconscious, called the c-word and, raped in words; and when the media questioned Palin’s abilities as a mother, and launched endless attacks on her children. Back then, it would have been politically unwise for Palin to speak out. Back then, these same types of attacks were also routinely launched at Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Cindy McCain and Nancy Pelosi. Back then, this level of misogyny, sexism and double-standards were accepted practices in our culture.
But after the 2008 misogyny-fest, our culture started to shift. This cultural shift was hardly sudden nor unexpected. Many in our media speculated that a new movement was about to be born. And it was. But unlike rising stars and falling meteors, cultural shifts never occur at warp speed. Changes in our culture take root, spread slowly and grow sight unseen until something causes the roots to break through the surface.
And what caused the breakthrough was the collective outrage at these words. Our protective instincts for our daughters and granddaughters. They need our help. They are facing a crisis of being treated as sexual objects and we can no longer remain silent. Women and men from different political parties, religions, races and sexual orientations were able to join hands, unite and take collective action. Alliances were being formed all over the blogosphere.
Perhaps the most important take-away from the Letterman Limit is that the American people are no longer willing to remain silent: the Next Wave is upon us. The Next Wave is about unity and collective action and speaking out against ALL sexism – be it targeted at women and girls of the right, left or center. This time the action is not on the streets where our media can conveniently film it and show it on the 5 o’clock news: which likely explains why many have such a limited understanding of the Next Wave and its impact. The Next Wave will be fought on the blogosphere with tens of thousands of protest emails and countless phone calls. Suffice it to say that major Letterman sponsors have dropped out. And Letterman apologized not once, but twice – the second time with a message for all young women. And an entertainment executive took out a 2 page ad in the Hollywood Reporter to announce to Hollywood that Sexism Against Conservative Women is Still Sexism. The Next Wave revolution is officially underway.
We made good use of this teachable moment. Let’s be ready for the next one and not wait to talk to our girls, support and protect them.
And advice to those in the national media who have become accustomed to incorporating sexism and misogyny in their daily routine – you might want to consider finding a new line of work. Our county has officially reached the Letterman Limit!
I sure hope your are right Amy. I have no faith in the men who run this country’s Media Cartel. I think it is time for women to be encouraged to cancel cable TV and to download only the content they actually want to watch so that they can stop subsidizing the mountains of sexist content that come with a cable subscription.
I really hope what you say is true, Amy. and… I think it may be. As we have seen sponsors pull advertising from the Letterboy’s show. (I honestly can’t refer to him as a man any more.)
In this society, really, all that matter is if we can get sponsors to recognize the risk they are taking by advertising alongside misogynists. Because we saw Conservative women, PUMAs and… yes… even *some* Liberal women unite… THIS TIME we reached a critical enough mass to make Hellmann’s, Embassy Suites and Olive Garden take note. ( I think I got the three pull-outs correct there??)
Conan, I am told, is dusting up the floor with Letterboy’s remains.
Now it remains to be seen… will Conan himslef show respect for women…. and the children of pols? Or will he also get cocky, and need a lesson…..
Well it ain’t happening overnight, but let’s all recognize the very significant progress we have made. Unity works – plain and simple.
If any of you are feeling particularly gutsy, head on over to HuffPo and leave a comment. They could use a little balance over there.
I think I’ve done my HuffPo duty for a while with this trilogy – onwards!
Thank you for writing this. This last election made me so sick. I have worried abt our little girls, how will they cope if we don’t put a stop to it !! What Letter man did could cause serious damage to a young girl-mentally-emotionally. Had it been me and mine—we would be in court.
It is unfortunate, in my own view, that Sarah Palin was so quickly defended by women as if she were equivalent to Hillary. If only Hillary had as many open and public defenders as Sarah had. Again, in my view, Palin is a weak politician who does not always demonstrate intelligence in her public interactions. Hillary’s intelligence was never questioned, even by her enemies and yet, her few public supporters were way outnumbered. Sorry, I know this site is a strong Palin supporter but it would be nice to support a better politician than she. I am not talking about her politics–which of course, I do not support.
A-Nell,
I only wish that TNA existed when Hillary ran – it was so painful watching what was done to her and not having a way to speak out. That is why TNA came into being.
We are about defending ALL women against sexism. No woman is more or less deserving of this defense – in the end when we let any woman we subject to sexism, we allow a permissable level to live and breed and we get nowhere. We need to eradicate it all!
I hope this is the start of a new agenda that leads to the elimination of the objectification of women. Perhaps it is at least a ground swell that will be referenced in years to come over what was really at stake with the “Letterman Limit.”
Sadly, none of this came to national prominence because of the misogynistic nature of the joke (which was really more about the public’s perception of promiscuity; A-Rod’s as much as Bristol’s). Sadly, it came to the attention of the mass media because a nationally recognized politician made false accusations, based on a misunderstanding, accusing Letterman of making rape jokes about a teenager.
I think the energy was lost when people championed the wrong issue of “rape jokes” that were not really made. Not enough time was spent bringing attention to the real issue of trying to eliminate misogynistic humor in today’s society.
So the “Letterman Joke Issue” seemed only to be hyped by the media for all the wrong reasons. And Letterman was chased by a witch hunt based on a misunderstanding followed by false accusations. But I agree, it may still turn out to be a turning point as some people are now sort of discussing the real issue at hand… and at the very least, maybe this will be a good reference point for future dialogue about this important issue.
-JC
(*I swear this is not joke or trying to be rude: But is the “TNA” thing meant to be irony? If not, then I agree with the person above — may wanna work on the name.)
Congratulations on the successful effort to hold Letterman accountable and thank you for building an organization that finally gets it. It being that using gender to tear a woman down collaterally damages all women. Sanctioning the use of sexism/misogyny is akin to sanctioning torture – the wheel never stops turning, and what goes around, comes around.
As a long-time fan of Letterman, I was sorry that he provided the teachable moment, but what he said about a teenage girl, any teenage girl, was unacceptable and indefensible. So I wrote a ‘Dear Dave’ letter as a fan and as a member of the liberal/progressive tribe who’s left the reservation, and will again, anytime another woman needs someone to have her back against gender-based attacks.
A couple of other women need to be congratulated for standing up during this episode – Governor Palin and Mrs Letterman, otherwise known as Dave’s Mom. Palin did exactly the right thing in shaming Dave for making rape jokes about her daughter, and not letting Lauer and others get away with trying to make Dave the victim. If you go around making jokes about other grown men raping teenage girls, reasonable people will naturally assume you’re a skeevy old perv. It’s amazing a grown man needs to be told this, especially by his octogenarian mother. But tell him she did, and luckily for him he listened and stopped digging the hole his Favreau-like writers helped put him in.
Letterman’s not the worst of the late-night sexist prats on the tube, IMO, but it was high time one of them was called out. As for Conan, he christened his first show with a word from Hillary Clinton – a split-second blip of her saying the word, “hello”. That was probably about all Dude Nation could handle. There’s still much work to be done on the media front, and economic sanctions are definitely the way to encourage them to become women-friendly. Besides, it’s just good business – most people are women, and they do most of the shopping, so it doesn’t pay to piss them off!
HeroesGetMade on June 24th, 2009 12:53 am : “Palin did exactly the right thing in shaming Dave for making rape jokes about her daughter”
/sigh
OMG. Enough already. You derail will keep derailing the real issues here by saying that. Again, he did NOT make rape jokes.
-JC
I hope you are right. The “feminists” I talk to (middle aged, middle class, professional, some lesbian) still loathe Palin and think any attack on her is justified. They just don’t get that the *means* used are as important as the end (the means always are: they make the ends), and that sexism deployed against the women they hate demeans all women. I have been thrown out of forums of democrat women for arguing this. It’s essential to stand by one’s principles here, however.
Amy,
You say change isn’t going to happen “overnight”. Well, we’ve been fighting this battle for hundreds and hundreds of years. The question is “just how many nights do we have left before there is no time left to obtain equality for women?”
I believe we are going to have to take on the same kind of strategy that Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson used to push racism front and center and get the kind of attention it deserved in order to bring about real change. However, I think racism was and is easier to erradicate simply because racism includes “men”, not just women.
So, in order to erradicate sexism/misogyny, we are going to have to be more deliberate and unyielding than even Al Sharpton, because when even Al was questioned by Sean Hannity as to why he wasn’t there protesting against Letterman, he responded with a non-answer that any lawyer would have loved — Letterman didn’t demean an entire race, just 2 women!
Wasn’t it MLK who said, “injustice to one is injustice to all?” Well, we better face the fact that the boyz — whatever color they are — will not stand with us as they did for each other and we should be prepared to respond accordingly with the kind of strategy that gets results quickly, rather than at a snail’s pace. If we are serious about change coming before time runs out and America is no longer a free society and such protests are outlawed in the name of National Security!
With an Obama Nation, I am truly frightened that such a possibility does exist.
Sarah Palin continues to mix it up and surprise her critics: with exquisite timing provided by the Letterman incident, yesterday she signed into law a bill to expand participation in the state Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. Simply shocking to those who consider her such an anti-feminist!
http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=10584643
On a related note, I just returned from a scientific conference where a male colleague used the line “Alaska, the coolest state with the hottest governor” as a joke during his opening remarks. As I listened to the chuckles in the audience, I sighed and shook my head…and I’m still wrestling with whether or not I should speak up to express dismay. Is this harmless banter taken from the headlines or subtle, damaging sexualization of a public figure…who happens to be a woman?
Thinking about this now for many years, I find it difficult to really come to a black and white way to view this issue of sexualizing one another — Recall the photos of BO in Hawaii sporting his pecs. As an artist, I have attempted projects to draw the female nude in a non-sexual way (i.e., I removed long hair, posed the models in non-erotic poses, used models who are not the current male ideal of “sexy.”) But after the project, I realized that we are in fact sexual beings. I don’t know if I’m off the topic here, and I’m willing for dialogue, but this is a fact. It’s how we respect one another that is at issue. I do believe that a lot of mysogyny springs from men’s fear of women (recall: vagina with teeth). I also think Americans tend to be puritanical when it comes to talking about sex, thus you get this underlying suppressed crap that Letterman or that short guy Maher likes to spew.
I guess my fantasy is that one day we could get past the idea of gender and sexuality within politics. I’m not sure how this is accomplished without major cultural change. I suppose the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, here, at TNA. And to say TNA is a bad choice of initials is to give in to that infantile puritanical mindset. Americans need to grow up. Maybe we all need some sex education.
Since Letterman isn’t fired, devoting one of his programs to education about the sexualizing of young women is in order. How do we do that?
IMO Tina that joke was sexist and frankly disgusting. Palin was elected to serve the people of Alaska to the best of her ability and her physical appearance does not have a damn thing to do with her ability to be a Governor.
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