Letters to the Editor
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Young women are frustrated....
That men and women making their own individual choices? Is that the must of thrust?
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lojs1118 deserves a Red Star
Please give him three red stars pronto.
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@David Sugarman
i think more likely they are anti-male, with black men just being a subset of that
I would have thought that until recently to, but the slew of Obama hit pieces, the constant denial that racism is being seriously employed against him, the laughable claim that being black is an advantage for him, the recent Seal Press debacle in BS - it has me wondering. Obama was ok until he got uppity and threatened there golden child. Blacks are fine so long as they don't demand to sit at the dining room table.
Mainstream (white) feminism in the USA has never seriously addressed its own racism - the thought that they could be oppressors is just intolerable.
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Just think long and hard...
At the risk of sounding like a bossy,boring second wave feminist I just think young women need to give a lot of thought to why they are so afraid to express even mild feminism.What are you afraid of exactly? I could make some guesses but I don't want to presume.Thanks Rebecca for this article. I will send it on to my daughter like I have so many others you have written.
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They say that only 5% of the population truly thinks for themselves
And it shows generally and generously here in these threads.
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Re: lojs1118 deserves a Red Star
Agreed. Are we really talking about equality here?
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If Hillary were a man she would not be treated the way she is
If Hillary were a man she would not be treated the way she is.
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Woke up and smelled the Kool-Aid
At first, I thought it was generational -- classic second-waver refusing to Get It. Then, I noticed progressivism as a fashion statement; a number of the same protestors posting repeatedly, epigrammatically, and with a kind of nastiness I've only seen on flame-wars (and I have seen a LOT of flamewars). I've also seen a number of false syllogisms and, to me, more telling yet, the "I'm not a sexist but..." coupled with some personal attacks (but again, I'm pretty good at that, so I wrote it off for awhile)...
It summarizes thus: I've seen what Rebecca Traister has noticed for a long time. But jast as during Second Wave, I used to get Portentous Condemnations for calling fashion statements for what I thought they were, I suspect I'm going to get them now, especially from the repeat posters, yapping on the ether like so many Chihuahuas, wetting themselves with glee.
I've also noticed a tendency that I saw and still see: "that's not true; that's ridiculous; you're wrong." Invalidation used to be a technique practiced by men with power on women without, or parents with power on kids who had none. From this I conclude that power must be spreading out (unlikely and counter-intuitive); some people are using magical thinking (and I expect the "tu quoque" here); or people have simply gotten used to Internet tactics of swarmping and screaming (which are tactics I know myself).
To me, this is like "I'm not anti-Semitic, BUT..."
It makes a GREAT opportunity to let the rage out. I've also noticed that this type of rage appears whenever the economy is particularly dicey; you get the exception-to-the-rules-girls (who are NOT like those other icky women and actually believe it), mixed in with liberals who are vocal and honest and have made an honest choice.
Rebecca Traister: I know that you, as you point out, are 32 and Cool. Your radar is way slow, sorry to say, if you hadn't seen this coming.
To me, it's nothing so much as "well, why WON'T you?" and on and on and on.
But I too am going on and on. People: because you have silenced someone does not mean you have convinced him. Or her. And I wouldn't count on the silence either.
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If hillary were a man
The fact that she lied about military service (sniper incident) would have forced her out of the race long ago
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Gender and Power
While the gender vibe (as I call it, unscientifically) has been present in *some* media treatment of Senator Clinton, I think it's reductive to equate passionate Senator Obama support and strong emotions against Senator Clinton to pure mysogyny.
While there is undeniable discomfort with not-subordinate women in male dominated power professions, I think many progressives--both male and female--express passionate discomfort with Senator Clinton primarliy because her rationale for staying in the primary is flawed and dispiriting. She is not making pro-Hillary arguments. She and Bill have subtly and not so subtly denigrated Obama--not his positions or campaign, but his personhood and his supporters, as if those who chose to cast their ballots for him were at best motivated by delusion and at worst, to quote Traister, something "dark and funky". To argue that a figure who rallies tens of thousands, who has motivated the elusive youth vote (and activism!), and who has broad appeal across party and racial lines seemed ludicrious to me even Obama's victories have made it impossible for Senator Clinton to win without a coup de Superdelegates at the floor of the convention (and the momentum is not in har favor on that front either). In my humble opinion, were the tables turned and Obama were trailing and vowing to fight to the floor, the outcry would be far more vicious.
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Ok I don't get this
Everyone on this thread is so defensive! I've read the article twice, and in no way does it (or any other similar article on Salon.com) say that criticizing Clinton automatically makes you sexist. It's all very clear to me.
If an individual, male or female, comes out and says "I don't like Clinton for reason X or reason Y", it's completely reasonable. Most people would probably agree with you, too.
However, a lot of critiques of Clinton just consist of name-calling and thinly veiled misogyny, making it easy to suspect ulterior motives. As in the example given:
"I spoke to a guy friend who said, 'You're being ridiculous. I'm not not voting for her because she's a woman; I'm not voting for her because she's a bitch!' He could not see the connection between the two things at all." Valenti said he explained away his comment by declaring, "I mean 'a bitch' in the sense that she's not good on this or that issue."
Why didn't he just say "I'm not voting for her because she's not good on this or that issue" in the first place? I feel that as soon as you pull out the b-word, yr credibility is gone!
Plus, aren't most writers on Salon, including the author of this, Obama supporters anyway? If I lived in the US, I would vote for Obama, but the amount of shit that Hilary gets - which is completely irrelevant to her political stance - is astounding.