Sexist Newsweek Cover Inspires Frum’s New Scholarship: “She Asked for It!” *Updated
November 19, 2009
by Kathryn Ciano
|The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
And now, an entirely new argument for sexism: She asked for it! Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
Sarah Palin complains that her Newsweek cover is sexist. The magazine borrowed a photo from Palin’s Runner’s World interview last year, showing the fit governor in running shorts next to the question: How do you solve a problem like Sarah? ***Journalist David Frum scorns Palin’s complaints, and did not correct Judy Woodruff’s summary of his opinion during the interview when she said, “But conservative David Frum says, she has brought it on herself.” Although David Frum has since objected to the comment being attributed to him, he has yet to contradict that summary or to explain what he meant when he said,
I mean, the question I look to in a Republican president is, do you have that kind of resources to really hold the line when things get tough, and not just to talk tough, but to be tough, and not just to punch back, but actually to have the ability to keep going without punching back, while restraining yourself and your emotions?
And, although very concerned about journalistic integrity as it pertains to punctuation, we have yet to hear Frum either explain his blatantly sexist comments, or refute the arguments made in this article.***
Where have we heard
this one before?
Familiar anyone?
For such a smart guy this is a remarkably tired argument. This smacks of all the flaccid-minded men who have long attempted to control women by demeaning them, justifying their actions because “she asked for it.”
This has nothing to do with Palin’s politics. This has everything to do with an old-fashioned Salem-style witch trial. Frum’s claim that Palin “brought it on herself” attempts to pigeonhole the governor into a prefabricated conception of women that comes from Frum – not Palin.
Frum told The News Hour with Jim Lehrer Nov. 18 that “[Palin] is a woman who has got into a position of leadership by sending very powerful sexual signals. And we see that in the way that men like her much more than women do.”
Or perhaps men like Palin much more than women do because she is a Republican. Men tend to lean right at the polls, while women lean left. Perhaps the gender disparity in Palin’s fan base comes from her politics, not her person.
Frum wants to inject Palin’s public persona with a Salem witch trial mentality. She must be a witch, your honor; she came to seduce me in my dreams! But the only “powerful sex signals” Palin sends come from the base fact that she’s a woman. Once, last year, she showed a little toe cleavage. But really, David, what would an attractive woman have to wear that could spare you from discomfort?
Society has long understood that insecure people impose those insecurities on the people around them. Folks eager to be perceived as the smartest person in the room treat every conversation like a competition, talking over their colleagues and only about themselves.
Similarly, insecure men have long objectified the women around them. You need only look to how Rodrigo and Iago, and finally Othello, objectify Desdemona in Othello to see how deep this particular vein runs. Perhaps a more modern man than Othello should be able to engage with an authoritative woman without determinedly reducing her in his mind to one of those laughably-outdated sexist paradigms long after women shed those old pigeonholed roles.
It does not take a feminist to be offended by such intellectual laziness. Frum’s claim that Palin has forced sexuality on us reflects his own uncreative “scholarship”. This cheap attack is the punditry equivalent of a schoolboy dipping a compatriette’s pigtail in ink. It’s unnecessary. It’s weak.
It wasn’t Palin who sent “sex signals,” in the form of fit thighs on the cover of Newsweek – it was the magazine. Former White House press secretary Dana Perino notes that Newsweek’s decision to run this revealing cover without Palin’s permission was “worse than sexist”:
I think it is demeaning and degrading and Newsweek knew exactly what it was doing. They made sexuality a part of her performance. And this is something that if it had happened to someone on the left, the feminist organizations would be screaming about.
This is not a question of sexism versus feminism. This is a small-minded ad hominem attack by a man made uncomfortable by Palin’s femininity.
There is a special burden for women in politics. And we saw that even for Hillary Clinton. And especially if you’re an attractive woman and a conservative woman, then that burden is even greater. But the great thing for Sarah Palin is she’s having a wonderful book tour, she’s done some great interviews. She’s going to tour the country.
This has nothing to do with politics. Women should not have to wear ugly clothes because attractive suits make men like David Frum blush. Old-school misogyny stems from insecurity and will thrive in a community that does not rebuke Frum for comments like this.
Lashing out at Sarah Palin because she dared to leave the house with her face uncovered is outdated and inappropriate. Of course, if Frum would feel more comfortable around women to whom he is not attracted, that remains entirely his prerogative.
[...] This post was Twitted by thenewagenda [...]
Frum’s claim that Palin “brought it on herself” attempts to pigeonhole the governor into a prefabricated conception of women that comes from Frum – not Palin.
I LOVE this line. Sums it up perfectly!
Another excellent breakdown of what is wrong with the male punditry’s inane evaluations.
Tweeting you! Again!!
I think it is time for women to give men what they have asked for. In Texas we call it an ‘ass-whupping’ and I think it is universally understood what this is and why they deserve it. Sarah Palin cannot win, no woman can, and that is the way the game is played. BUT WE ARE MAJORITY so guess what girls we have to stop being our own worst enemy.
Our best revenge would be President Sarah, Hillary can be Queen of the World, and men–ALL MEN–can sit in the back of the bus and STFU for 4 years. no, eight. at least eight. I am growing so tired and every day when I think it cannot get any worse it does…..
WOMEN OF THE WORLD UNITE AND FIGHT BACK. NOW.
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Deepok Chopra basically called Palin a witch during the campaign. He did it under the guise of New Age spirituality. He said she embodied all of the negative aspects of consciousness. He was kind enough to suggest to his followers that they restrain themselves from burning her at the stake because their superior spirituality would over come her.
Great post! You really said it all. I wonder if the media would be as obsessed with Palin and her book tour if their favorite politician (Obama) was not falling so much in the polls. He’s down to 50% I believe, per Gallup. There is a sense of desperation or something else odd I sense coming from the media. Is it all their sexist attitude and obsession with Palin? Is it partly driven by a disappointment in Obama’s presidency? I don’t know…
“… He said she embodied all of the negative aspects of consciousness.”
How convenient for Deepak that someone ELSE embodies all the negative shit inside his own head.
I’ve got news for you Deepie: we all embody the negative aspects of our own consciousnesses ourselves. We are our own bad and good selves. You want to see the embodiment of your worst aspects? Get a mirror. You want to see the embodiment of your best aspects? Get a mirror. And get some personal responsibility while you’re at it.
David Frum himself here.
You write: “Journalist David Frum scorns Palin’s complaints, claiming that ‘she brought it on herself.’”
It’s normal journalistic practice to reserve quote marks for actual quotations, not your own personal re-imaginings.
I have stated my criticisms of the governor forthrightly in print and broadcast. If you wish to rebut me, there’s an abundant record to cite. Beyond that, you have your own heroine’s advice to “quit making stuff up.”
David -
The first quote is to the transcript of your conversation:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb.....11-18.html
As long as you’ve stopped by, perhaps you can explain what you really meant by your claim that she used her “very powerful sexual signals” to get into a position of leadership?
LMAO@ Frum’s comment here (assuming it it Frum). When faced with the charge that he has been a misogynistic tool (which I agree, he has), a very serious charge, his rebuttal is about grammar convention. I love it when they get so freakin’ petty. All those salient points to rebut, but it comes down to grammar. Such over-privileged defensive rhetoric, but I don’t expect much else from Frum these days.
David,
Wondering if you saw this story in the National Review:
http://corner.nationalreview.c.....zQ1NDViNWQ=
By Mark Steyn.
“With this line of attack, David seems to be channeling his inner Andrew Sullivan.
(By the way, when I saw her campaign in N.H., I was surrounded by moms with strollers.)”
David, you should thank TNA for publicity. I stopped reading Newsweek a little over a year ago. The only articles I read are the ones linked here. I am pretty liberal but Newsweek’s clear bias only validates the right’s complaints of a “biased” media. I always thought it was the right’s way of sulking. Starting with the primaries last year you guys, especially, made it so abundantly obvious that even many of us folks who agree with SOME of your positions have to discount your accuracy and note your extreme lack of balance.
Can anyone guide me to any newspaper or magazine that is TRULY unbiased and takes a balanced approach to reporting all the news about ALL the candidates and poiliticians. Obama is making some radical decisions while our country remains in a very vulnerable state, yet the media remains focused on someone who has the same amounting of voting power as I do. Nuts!
David, since when have men ever liked women they found attractive? Most of you resent the hell out of us for having something you want and not forking it over immediately and without conditions.
Only a man could be stupid and un-self-aware enough to imagine that he likes a good looking women. We who are the objects of your resentment and envy for being the unwanted obstacles between you and our vaginas know far, far better.
Get a grip, get some therapy, and stop imagining that we use mind-control rays to force you to want to rape us. If I had mind-control rays at my disposal by virtue of my face, hair, and figure, you’d be emptying your wallet at me, not your scrotum.
Janis,
“If I had mind-control rays at my disposal by virtue of my face, hair, and figure, you’d be emptying your wallet at me, not your scrotum.”
PRICELESS!!!
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Oy David—–So much to say, so little time. Which women are you hanging around? There are TONS of women who love Palin!! Many of us love her because she’s thumbing her nose at the establishment and doing it her way.
Saying that Palin has brought the acrimony on herself is ridiculous. That’s the same IMO as blaming a rape victim for being raped because she brought it on herself by the way she was dressed.
You can argue your obnoxious points as much as you like, but it doesn’t change the fact that the Newsweek cover was beyond sexist, and your comments were awful. If they are a reflection of your soul, where is your decency?
As a Jew, I know anti-Semitism when I run into it. As a woman , just like other women, I am an expert at detecting sexism. If you had a moral and ethical bone in your body, you would shut your mouth and open your ears and find out why what you said was beyond the pale. Then you would grow as a human being, learn, and apologize. It’s as simple as that.
Surely that isn’t the real “David Frum?” He can’t really be sitting around in his “footy pajamas” googling his name and looking for “incorrectly” used punctuation to “critique” between games of “pocket nintendo” and Sarah Palin is sending me “secret sex signal” fantasies. How does she send you these signals “David”? Voices in your “head”, ray beams from her “eyes”, email, or do you get them in “tweets”? Tell me “David”, during a Palin interview do you actually “hear her voice”, you know discussing policy etc., or do you just hear in your “mind”, a throaty “David”, “David”, “David” while you sit entranced?
David, I use to listen to your mother her talk show, “As it Happens” on the CBC (that hotbed of far left wing idiocy in Canada, another government funded monstrosity. No, I wasn’t a big fan of hers, it was just such fun to hear her come up with absolutely off the wall crap.
But I gotta tell you, you are even further out to lunch than she was.
Your sexist views are denigrating to both men and women.
I am a guy who loves to see a pretty lady, same as the next guy. Palin is very attractive. No question but what really makes her attractive, and nothing sexual about it, is her keen mind and sharp wit. She also holds values that are worthwhile. You claim to be a conservative but you keep coming across sounding like Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, shrill naysayers who appear to be scared to death by Mrs. Palin.
I have to ask you why you are so afraid of her. Is it her values? or is it that she is just so obviously more intelligent than you.
By the way, David, as the kids would say, the ladies in these comments have just “pwned” you.
Have a nice day
David Frum
David Brooks
David Letterman
Insecure men who think misogyny makes them more powerful.
We are truly witnessing something/someone historic with Gov. Palin … Most people who try to act powerful aren’t. Sarah doesn’t ACT. She IS.
Surely a “journalist” the likes of “The” David Frum has better things to do in the evening than argue proper usage of punctuation? It is telling, though, that rather than refute statements about the sentiment of his work, he decided go “Grammar Police” on them. Well done, Mr. Frum, you certainly showed those ladies what for. Truly, “Mission Accomplished”. Now get that notepad ready, Mr. “Serious Journalist”. Surely the next “powerful sexual signals” are on the way. From the Food Network, maybe? How else would Chef Rachel Ray get on a cooking show? (See what I did there? I italicized Chef to emphasize the fact that, while spunky and attractive, Ms. Ray is eminently qualified for the position, much like Ms. Palin. Women- they’re not just for decoration anymore.)
“There are TONS of women who love Palin!! Many of us love her because she’s thumbing her nose at the establishment and doing it her way.”
And many of us disagree with her on issues of policy, but will not stand by while any woman is subjected to the insane levels of sexual degradation that she is being subjected to.
Unlike David, and unlike most modern feminists apparently, not all women need to know who the rape victim was before they admit that the rape was wrong. Men like David Frum rely on the fact that a lot of women with twisted senses of self-worth find it more satisfying to watch a woman not of their “tribe” get victimized than to punish her victimizer. So they know that all they need to do if their shriveled little minds decide it’s time for a sexual lynching is convince us that their chosen target is some sort of scarlet woman who asked for it, and they’re free and clear.
I don’t have to LIKE Palin or any woman to HATE a sexist. This may disappoint you David, but there is not one woman alive that you or anyone else can victimize, humiliate, degrade, and attack where you get a free pass. There is no “Get Out Of Sexism Free” card with TNA, no matter who your target is. What you did and are doing to Palin is NEVER OKAY, never permitted, and when you get bored with doing it to her, you’ll turn it on someone else, because that’s what sexist asshats do. You’re like a polio virus — you don’t care who you infect, you just latch on. And if we’re going to eradicate the virus of sexism, we need to make damned sure that it’s smashed flat wherever it may turn up.
I don’t agree with Palin’s stances on many issues. But if you or any other virus like you attempts to bring her down, you’d better be prepared to get wiped out, because I and other women have lost patience with this horseshit. You are never free and clear, you tiny little man. So you’d better keep an eye out when you write your next column, because we’re watching.
David Frum here again. I am sorry that you find the concept of quotation so mentally challenging.
A quotation is something the cited speaker actually said. Not something you wish he said. Not somebody else’s attempted summary of what he said. But what he said.
To take Judy Woodruff’s summary of my words, put them inside quotation marks, and then claim that I said them is at best sloppy, at worst outright falsification. Instead of searching for excuses, why not do the ethical thing – also the better service to your readers – and correct your mistake?
David—-sigh—-a “sorry you took what I said the wrong way” would have been theright thing to do. Leave out the snark….
So you’re saying that she DIDN’T bring it on herself? I mean, if the nefarious TNA got your idea totally wrong … why don’t you explain it better and we’ll see if it stands up to scrutiny? What did you mean if not that?
David,
You have posted twice, both times sniggling about quotation marks, grammar and petty points etc. You’ve yet to address or even attempt to explain yourself. All the poster was doing is what you did— assume powers of mind reading and even better, projection.
More men that women like Palin? I guess I need to tell my dozen friends that adore her to stop!
As scientist, I demand you prove it with hard fact, not hocus pocus “I see dead people” crap. Give me hard data, surveys, polls, numbers. Otherwise, you sound like the ‘the EviLE woman made me do it to her’ kind of man.
That is what we’re pointing out: while owning up and discussing psychological issues and deep seated neurosis is very trendy right now, the key is admitting them, not trying to pass them off as journalism.
Elle,
I think you have missed his point. In David Frum’s sick twisted little mind he has addressed the issues–or at least the only issues that matter to him. Alleged grammatical slights in his mind are the only issue that matters. Women, truth, misogyny, pish posh he cannot hear or see or speak to these issues because they are above him. Imagine Monkey with hands across eyes, mouth and ears.
Most men cannot truly conceptualize women as thinking, much less as thinking smarter than them. It simply blows their little bitty …. brains.
I’ll give this a last try, then I quit.
Invented quotations travel all over the Internet. That’s why I objected to your inserting words into my mouth. This latest excuse above – hey you didn’t object when Judy Woodruff spoke, so that entitles me to present Woodruff’s words as your own – ignores the fact, obvious to every viewer, that Woodruff’s words are a voiceover: ie, recorded in studio, hours after the interview.
This is a dishonest practice, and when you ask why I would not want to debate the merits of the Palin case with you, I can only say that it is not a useful exercise to debate with people who concoct fraudulent quotations to advance their case.
David—-go sit in the corner. and don’t forget your blankie….
Wah fucking wah. If Davey had an argument, he’d make it. Guess he doesn’t how to defend his point when he can’t flash a little leg.
Ouch. David Frum schooled you all. Doesn’t matter really what his views are (in fact I’m not really crazy about him, either), the whole article (in fact the title of the article) is about something that David Frum never actually said. When he (I assume it was actually him) responded and said, “I didn’t say that” the author literally provided him with the evidence that defends exactly his original point for response. Pretty funny, really. Notice how the comments just stopped abruptly…
I do have a question, though. Do the people here actually think that Sarah Palin should be the President? I’m being completely serious here. Keep in mind she quit mid term as Governor of Alaska. Or is it that you just want a woman?
Okay people, if you’re the ones who consider men so incredibly pricelessly valuable as allies, then I’m confident you can and will eagerly leap to explaining this, which can be understood by a simple read through the rest of the blog, which this man clearly hasn’t felt the need to do.
Janis, Carr’s question at the end is the same statement/behavior that misogynistic women say – the women whose statements/behaviors you often rant about.
“you only want a woman”
Imagine someone said “you only want a black or hispanic or” people would cry racist and would have a reason to.
yes we want a female president. it is time. it was time a long ago. we had to many superqualified candidates shut down.
why includes the sentence a only? please anyone of you guys like David or Joseph! it is ONLY a woman. does that say it all.
and I know I speak for many here who are sick of the insults lies and inuendos hailed at Secretary Clinton and former Governor Palin. what concoction we hear about governor Palin is only in for the money. every politician needs insane amounts of money to get anywhere in this bought out democracy. but of course “she is ONLY a woman” can’t be a politician to be taken serious. we will be shouting back to you guys who think and talk like David and Joseph. it is ONLY another man who will never give credit to what women are capable of. and to these women who smooth up to Josephs and Davids. no matter how ugly you speak about other women. in the guys eyes you will always just ONLY be a woman.
I stopped reading Time and News “Weak” years ago. The latter is owned by the hideous Washington P— newsrag. I read Liberty and Reason (both libertarian oriented) instead. Both admit up front that they have a point of view. The two leftwing losers most people read (why?) falsely claim to be above the fray, down the middle, lying all the way. David Frum and Kathleen Parker are not conservatives. They make a nice living by bashing conservatives while claiming to be one.
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