Protect Male Ego: Blame the Woman
January 28, 2010
by Karen
|The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
The blame continues, along with a lesson for all of us. Perhaps Martha Coakley should switch to the Libertarian party? I wanted Martha Coakley to win because I found her to be an impressive woman with a record of championing women, children, and the working class. The state’s first female Attorney General, she has proven herself to be a strong winner. Yet, she lost the election.
Why is this?
Many Democrats, including the White House, are pointing the finger at Coakley herself for a poor campaigning strategy. Yet Coakley spoke to the needs of the citizens. Her comprehensive and detailed strategy for job creation would have put more power into the hands of the people and would have focused on local industries such as fishing and farming as well as improving access to education.
In her plan, she stated:
I support the bipartisan Helping Invigorate and Revive Our Economy Act (“HIRE America Act”), which will further stimulate job growth. Currently, the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (“WOTC”), which creates tax incentives for small businesses to hire certain new workers, is set to expire on August 31, 2011. The HIRE America Act will increase the tax credit and make these provisions permanent. The bill will also create a new tax credit that would apply to all new hires, not just those workers who are part of groups who are currently covered by the WOTC. It will also provide additional funds to businesses that hire veterans.
….
In order to create jobs, small businesses need meaningful access to capital. Currently, almost 60% of small businesses resort to using credit cards to finance their growth. The recently passed credit reform will help lower interest rates, but what small businesses need is access to fair business loans, not more credit cards.
Martha Coakley has proven herself to be a strong winner in touch with the needs of the people, so why did she lose?
David Axelrod blamed Coakley: “I think the White House did everything we were asked to do. Had we been asked earlier, we would have responded earlier.”
Pelosi also blamed Coakley: “We’re always in touch with our members. In the House, we don’t have surprises when it comes to elections.”
A memo from the Coakley campaign turns the blame around to the Democratic party and the current administration:
— Coakley campaign provided national Democrats with all poll results since early December
— Coakley campaign noted concerns about “apathy” and failure of national Democrats to contribute early in December. Coakley campaign noted fundraising concerns throughout December and requested national Democratic help.
— DNC and other Dem organizations did not engage until the week before the election, much too late to aid Coakley operation
The Democratic party is out of touch with the citizens, so why should it be in touch with a woman whose primary concerns were the citizens of Massachusetts? Martha Coakley never seemed to have the support of the Obama administration or the big money Democrats in the primaries and even Pelosi endorsed Capuano.
The fact is that politicians are always considered under the light of their party’s main figures. Coakley lost in part because Obama and his ambitions are rapidly losing support.
In the bluest of blue states, the election was seen, at least in part, as a referendum on Obama, on health care reform, on the Democratic majority that had controlled two of three branches of government for a year.
And the Republican candidate was surging.
…..
Somebody had taken the seat for granted, had underestimated the public’s anger over the economy, over the Democrats’ health care overhaul, over plain old arrogance in Washington.
Of course, this is unacceptable to the Obama administration.
at least among Democrats, all the fingers will point at Coakley; besides allowing Democrats to vent at Coakley, blaming her will have the effect of insulating President Obama from criticism that the election was a referendum on his policies, particularly the Democrats’ unpopular national health care plan.
Rather than the administration accepting responsibility for the defeat in Massachusetts, it continued to disrespect women and its female candidate:
Democratic strategist Mike Shea, who advised U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano during the primary, noted that while Coakley had to fight to win the nomination, Brown was gearing up for the general election.
Even so, he added, “Certainly if Mike Capuano was the nominee, no one would be decrying his lack of passion.”
It is easy to believe Coakley’s own party betrayed her. The sabotage from the Democratic party is even more evident when a strategist for that party
spoke approvingly when he quoted a fellow Democrat who said, “‘I’d rather have Scott Brown for two years than Martha Coakley for the rest of my life.”
Our country needs women like Martha Coakley. The current administration does not.
Coakley may have had a nice plan, but she did nothing to communicate it or excite the voters of Massachussetts. She campainged as though the seat was owned by the Dems, held one-third of the campaign events that Brown did, and came across as aloof and disinterested.
Having a plan is not enough. You have to convince people that your plan is in their best interests, and Coakley didn’t.
Tom65,
And John Kerry excites the voters of MA? Wow!
Unfortunately, because the number of women in Congress is not high enough to get the kind of support she deserved from the DNC. She was the sacrificial lamb so that the boyz could run for cover from their horrific HCP. If she won, obama would, naturally, take credit because, as he told Reid, “I have a gift”. His gift was lacking not only in MA, but also in VA and NJ.
So, the boyz in the other two states that lost (and BO went to NJ 3 times way ahead of election day) to help his buddy corzine, but corzine lost big time. Same thing for Deeds in VA, but I don’t hear the WH blaming them for the loss!
Women have been the whipping post for male incompetence since the beginning of time. The world is in the abysmal state it’s in because of male ego and the need to conquer and control, instead of work to build consensus and learn how to share, so that everyone has a piece of the pie without fear of some guy coming along threatenging to take it away from them.
It’s always been about male ego. Otherwise, the sexistm/misogyny spewed ad nauseum throughout the dem primary against Hillary and then in the GE against Sarah would not have occurred.
None of obama’s plans have been in the people’s best interests, but for the corporate best interests. The results in MA are the people’s response to Obama, not Coakley. It was the shot heard around the country to the rest of the country that if MA can shut down the most democratic state in the union and turn it red, then so can the rest of the country.
It’s the only way we can stop the insanity that is the obama administration. Don’t blame Coakley for the boyz incompetence and total indifference to the people.
John Kerry excites the voters of MA?! Wow.
Don’t blame Coakely for being the sacrificial lamb for the obama administration. The boyz lost in NJ and VA and no one is blaming them for the losses. Obama went to NJ 3 times, way before election day, to help his buddy Corzine and he still lost it big time. So did Deeds in VA.
The election in MA was the shot heard around the country urging other states to stand up and fight back the only way we can against an administration that has totally lost touch with the people they are supposed to be working for. obama has used his first year to help the corporations and banks that put him into office. Its nothing more than Chicago pay to play politics.
They knew it would be easy to blame the woman to keep from taking responsibility for why MA went red.
As I understand it Martha was running well until she was forced to say she would support Obamacare. At that point in the public eye she started running as an Obama stooge, which is the only kind of candidate the Democrat party would tolerate. Any Obama stooge would have been voted down and many of them will be voted out next Fall. I am not surprised to see the Democrat Party’s contempt for women shinning through. But it is a sad state of affairs.
There is too much wrong with the top secret Obamacare bill to pass it. The provisions need to be stripped out of all the pork and voted on individually. As women we need to guard against what is the norm in health care. That is to define maleness as the normal experience and make a bill that covers male needs. So women should expect an equal supply of government financed Viagra and equal access to cradle to grave prostate care but any thing having to do with female cancers, childbirth or birth control prescriptions would be outside of the normative male experience and therefore women would need to cover this “extra care” on their own dime. Also with the abortion language women were being singled out to have their health care decisions approved by other peoples religions. The pork, the irrelevancy to womens real needs, and the discrimination against women making their own health decisions were what doomed Obama care and Martha.
I completely agree with this post. This election had nothing to do with Coakley and everything to do with voter’s frustration with Obama and the Dems.
There is a cultural dictate or a bit of societal training that makes people want to blame women for all the evils in the world. Hillary, Palin, Pelosi, Coakley, it really doesn’t matter who the woman is, she will have more venom and public outrage directed at her simply because of her gender. When something goes wrong it’s almost as natural as breathing to find a woman to blame. Women get all the responsibility and none of the power. Look at Palin, she’s not even in public office and yet many people insist on attacking her as the greatest evil ever unleashed on the country. But heck, never mind politics, look at how the country reacted to Carrie Perjean, the former Miss Ca who opposed gay marriage. Look at how we respond to Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohen. Misogyny is about hating on women. This country is marinating in it.
Amen to yttik, Karen, Wynne and Bes
Yttik raises a good point. I don’t think people are aware of their biases. I really don’t. I think they are quite ignorant. It’s very surprising the degree of willful ignorance, and I say willful because if there was any amount of introspection, they would uncover their own biases, or admit them, face them or something. I don’t think people will actually change their biases, because holding these biases means survival and is the difference between success and failure in the system. And the most surprising fact of this all is that the bias is abject hatred. How do you hide that from yourself? It’s hatred of women at a very base level. Who knows where it originates, but I truly believe that it is inherent in the male, in the genome, and taught to the female. People truly have to do an enormous amount of mental acrobatics to hold any acceptance of their personhood relative to morality; to still believe they are good and honest people. People’s knee-jerk, reactive dislike for women gets rationalized as “well it’s just that woman.” or it’s something she did or didn’t do. This is when it’s just abject hatred and people getting off on it because they do that too. And yes they blame women for everything because they need to get rid of them somehow.
Saying that men are genetically-born to hate women is analogous to saying white people are born to hate blacks, or that black people are born to serve whites.
Karen,
I totally agree with you! The kind of argument Kiuku is giving only excuses this behavior and perpetuates it.
The feminist and ex-slave, Sojourner Truth, supported herself by travelling and speaking on abolitionist and women’s rights subjects. She often faced opposition at her speaking engagements. Truth made this extemporaneous speech in Akron Ohio in 1851 at a women’s rights meeting written in her own syntax:
“Dat man ober dar say dat womin needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted ober ditches, and to hab de best place everywhar. Nobody eber helps me into carriages, or ober mud-puddles, or gibs me any best place!” And raising herself to her full height, and her voice to a pitch like rolling thunder, she asked. “And a’n‘t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! (and she bared her right arm to the shoulder, showing her tremendous muscular power). I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And a’n’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man—when I could get it—and bear de lash as well! And a’n‘t I a woman? I have borne thirteen chilern, and seen ’em mos‘ all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And a’n’t I a woman?”
AND THEN SHE SAID THIS:
“Den dat little man in black dar, he say women can’t have as much rights as men, ‘cause Christ wan’t a woman! Whar did your Christ come from?” Rolling thunder couldn’t have stilled that crowd, as did those deep, wonderful tones, as she stood there with outstretched arms and eyes of fire. Raising her voice still louder, she repeated, “Whar did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothin’ to do wid Him.” Oh, what a rebuke that was to that little man.”
This woman had the courage to speak out at a time when women, especially a black woman, were not allowed to speak openly and honestly about the injustices imposed on them by men.
While we can boist about having made huge advances since Sojourner Truth’s day, sometimes, when I see how men still treat women in the 21st century, I can’t help wondering — HAVE WE?
Men’s behavior towards women don’t need any more excuses. That is what has enabled them to continue treating women as second class citizens.
In the 1800′s, there was a woman, Sojourner Truth, born into slavery and who became a women’s rights activist, attended a women’s rights convention. At this convention, she gave one of the most unique and interesting speeches of the convention. The speech was entitled “Ain’t I a Woman?” Following is an excerpt, which was written in the syntax, directed at a minister who had just spoken to the convention:
“Den dat little man in back dar, he say women can’t have as much rights as men, ’cause Christ wan’t a woman! Whar did your Christ come from?” Rolling thunder couldn’t have stilled that crowd, as did those deep, wonderful tones, as she stood there with out-stretched arms and eyes of fire. Raising her voice still louder, she repeated, “Whar did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothin’ to do wid Him.”
Oh, what a rebuke that was to that little man. Turning again to another objector, she took up the defense of Mother Eve. I can not follow her through it all. It was pointed, and witty, and solemn; eliciting at almost every sentence deafening applause; and she ended by asserting:
“If de fust woman God ever made was strong enough to turn de world upside down all alone, dese women togedder (and she glanced her eye over the platform) ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now dey is asking to do it, de men better let ‘em.” Long-continued cheering greeted this. “‘Bleeged to ye for hearin’ on me, and now ole Sojourner han’t got nothin’ more to say.”
What courage it must have taken for this ex-slave to stand up and speak so strong words. We should never forget how many women had to suffer and die to get us where we are today and when these “little men” come into our place and try to smack us down, we should remember the words of this extraordinary woman, Sojouner Truth and speak with the same boldness against those who wish to keep us down.
The question we have to ask ourselves is “has equality for women, particularly in the eyes of men, come as far as we think it has?
I’m 21 years old, I live in Virginia and I don’t like how this discussion is going back to the extreme feminist corrective of women v men. I had to grow up with the backlash. The repeated story line of women set out to form a more perfect world murder all the men and create a lesbian cult society, all starting with women wanting equality and respect. The accusations from the boys that that was our evil plan. My comment is in response to the TNA coverage of Martha Coakley since her defeat.
If it wasn’t Martha Coakley’s flip-flop support of Obamacare (which contains Amendments that set back gender equality and even threatens the lives of women) but sexism that defeated her, then why Creigh Deeds’ defeat in Virginia. Coakley, like Deeds, had overwhelming support during the primary, they both defeated the Obama Administration backed primary candidate who was for Obamacare. Then in the general election when she, like Deeds, came out in support of Obamacare, she lost support. The support for her turned on her when she changed her vote for Obamacare. If sexism played a role in her defeat then sexism played a role in Deeds defeat–that’s how that logic works out.
The mud slung at Coakley is the same mud slung at Deeds just before and after his defeat. Obama stabbed her in the back like he stabbed Deeds in the back. (So it’s actually “Protect Obama’s Ego: Blame Everyone Else”.)
Coakley was Attorney General, she was elected state-wide for that job. Obviously the people of Mass thought she was tough enough, capable enough, strong enough, wise enough. Don’t tell me they can’t vote for a woman.
What is this about we need more women no matter what? That I should vote for a woman because she is a woman, but who’s world view does not match my own? I can vote for a woman who is pro-life where I stand for pro-choice, but one thing has to match: our world view. On Fox and Friends last week two women were brought on to discuss the Arlen Specter sexist remarks to Michelle Bachmann, one woman contended that for him to tell Bachmann to act like a lady was respectful, the other woman couldn’t disagree more that Specter was disrespectful and out of touch. Obviously these two women view the world differently, despite probably having the same life experiences with sexism, they came to a different conclusion. Voting for a woman just because she is a woman thus is supposed to end sexism because she can call it!? Guess who allowed the Stupak Amendment to a vote into bill creating the bill that manifests gender inequality? A woman, that woman’s name is Nancy Pelosi. This is the same irrational that if we vote for Obama American will transcend racism! This has not to do with one’s gender or skin color but to do with one’s concept of equality and respect, how it should manifest in our society, what policies will bring that. Both women and men can have the same world view (good or bad) despite different experiences (gender, race, economics), what’s important is to vote the people in office that will champion the world view we want to manifest in the policies that shape our society.
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