Harold Ford Keeps Up Sexist Rhetoric
February 4, 2010
by The New Agenda
|12 Comments
Seems Harold Ford Jr. just can’t help himself. Can’t hold back the sexist rhetoric.
Skip to 4:15 and hear him refer to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand as “young lady.” Well, technically Mr. Ford, Senator Gillibrand is 4 years OLDER than you. Just sayin!
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
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So once again Mr. Ford: Get Your Sexism Out of New York!!!
He’s a jackass, but I didn’t hear him say anything sexist. Referring to Gillibrand as a young lady doesn’t strike me as sexist!
No comments because what do you say? With Democrats it happens again and again and again. How do party leaders get so dumb they can’t figure out that 52% of the population is female and females vote in larger numbers than males?
Bes,
Women are tought to hate each other and the pols count on that!
why is being called “young lady” is sexist?
the usual terms of sexism in partisan politics was dumb and pretty or ugly and old. both can be portrayed as bitches. gillibrand is not old, not ugly and not dumb. neither of these would go, she is not seen as that beautiful to be used in direction porn. all Ford has left, is that she is not old. despite that she is older than him. in that setting young lady gets associated with unexperienced, given a shot into politics by the governor.
to use age is always a subtle way to discriminate women. and “Lady”. remember senator from Pennsylvania to congresswoman Bachman “Act like a lady”. as female you don’t want to be called a lady in politics. the appropriate term is the junior senator from New York and every other term is inappropriate and demeaning.
Male politicians need to refer to female politicians by their title. They need to understand that they demean themselves by with their sexist comments.
KendallJ,
I would call girls in their teens “young lady”.
To use that term on a sitting senator shows that this man has programmed his mind to demean her – plain and simple. Not to mention that he is 39, and she is 43.
How would it ring to you if Sen Gillibrand ran against, say former Governor Pataki and she referred to him as “young man”?
For those of you who don’t understand the implication of calling a grown woman, a US Senator, “young lady” it’s a bit like calling a man, “boy.” It’s intended to disrespect and put them in their place.
O.K. I get your points. I just don’t want to be some one who over reads into things. Nowadays any critique of Obama is considered racist, whether it is or not. They over-reached to accuse the Clintons of being racist at every turn. They did the same thing to Palin. I think we should be careful not to do the same here. If Gillibrand was say Barbara Boxers age, clearly much older, I’d be pissed, but I think this is borderline and not blatant at all. With that being said, I can see your points and on some level agree with you all.
I was at my alma mater the day after this piece aired on the Report and it was the “topic” of the day with the female PhD students. They realized that “young lady” was used as a demeaning term. These women are in their 20′s and they find it offensive to be called “young lady” by anyone. Two of them commented to me that it was a term used by their parents when they were being disciplined as teens. It would be like Gillibrand calling Ford, “little man” as one might when describing a child in an endearing way because he has done something man-worthy.
He should have just called her an old lady.
This is overt sexism; it is neither subtle or questionable.
Calling a woman over the age of 25 a “young lady” is demeaning. It is demeaning to anyone over 20, but sometimes there can be confusion as to whether or not she is a teenager.
Calling a woman of accomplishment a “young lady” is sexist, and meant to change the issue from an objective topic to subjective ones, such as the woman herself, where men can wield sexism. Using the word “lady” among professionals at any point in time is simply not dignified.
He has clearly used the words “young lady” to demean women around him. I’ve had men do it to me. That men cannot treat women who are in their professional league in any way different than they treat women in their personal lives is a topic worthy of discussion.
Sometimes, the context determines whether or not a certain word is sexist. When I was still working at Wendy’s, I had a different manager – a man – for a few days. He kept referring to me as “Sweetie” If he was my boyfriend or my husband, I would probably consider it cute and endearing. However, his comment constantly irritated me, and I kept thinking, “We just met. I don’t know you.” Fortunately, he stopped when I told him it bothered me.
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