I’ve never been extremely thorough about pursuing political current events, but I’m finding myself ever more personally withdrawn from American politics now that I’m living in Sydney and no longer living in America. However, I actually feel more knowledgeable about American politics now than I did when I lived in New York City, mostly because local people here won’t stop asking my opinions on things.
It’s funny to me, how much Australians are interested in the happenings in America. I suppose that makes sense, but as an American who (like the stereotype) never really realized how much of an influence America was to the rest of the world, it’s taking me a little by surprise.
Anyway, needless to say, I’ve been keeping up (a bit) with the Democratic national primary. It’s hard not to. The whole world was practically sitting on the edge of its seat wondering who will win. A black man or a white woman as candidates give rise to only two topics in the right’s conservative hypocrisy: racism and sexism.
This was such a heated race that I’ve even received regular emails from some people in my extended family about it. Their emails are extremely strongly-worded short essays with arguments as to why I should or shouldn’t vote for Obama or Clinton (though mostly only because of the candidates’ opinions on Israel, which I couldn’t really care much about anyway). I’m thinking of telling them to start a blog.
I really have no opinion one way or the other about the merits of either candidate—I’m simply not very well informed. That said, Debra Haffner linked this 5-minute video produced by the Women’s Media Center showcasing myriad clips of all the sexist remarks made about Hillary during her campaign. I rarely link videos in this blog, but this one is worth your time.
There’s a lot of sexist language harassing women in this video, since its goal is to showcase how the media is sexist against women. However, that’s just half the story. There’s at least an equal if not greater amount of sexist language in today’s media against men since, obviously, most public political discussion happens about and between men. Where’s the highlight reel of political pundits proclaiming that some candidate “doesn’t have the balls” to do something brave?
One reason I’m more than a little withdrawn from politics is because I know I’ll never be elected to public office. Even if I had the aspirations, I would simply never survive a smear campaign. I mean, look at this blog!
Indeed, back in the “good old days” when I used to stay at Paddles, the local NYC public BDSM club until 4 AM, that was even a joke. The lot of us, my friends and I, would stumble up the stairs in the dark and then burst out onto the street like mole-people, bleary eyed from a long night. We used to joke with another, “Well, I’m certainly not running for public office after tonight!” the implication being that we’ve done yet another thing that would get us booted immediately if the word got out.
While this threat is meaningless to me, since I don’t want to be in public office anyway, I have met more than a few people over the years for whom this is a real concern. They remain anonymous to this day precisely because they do, at some point, want to be in public office in order to make our government better, and most of them don’t even want to get into the areas of sexual rights. They’ll never have a blog like this, though, because having a blog like this—doing what I’m doing right now—means I’ll never win a race for public office.
But hey. I still get to vote. And of course, I will.
by alterisego
10 Jun 2008 at 14:39
I’m an Obama fan and I have still paid close, appalled attention to Clinton’s mistreatment in the hands of the sexist majority. I think there is something to be said for the argument that people can get away with sexism directed towards Clinton where they could never get away with a similar degree of racism directed towards Obama. (And the way Clinton has had to paint herself as an essentially dominant woman, a “man’s woman,” is further evidence of that sexism.)
I feel terrible for the politicians who have to live secret lives. It’s sad more than anything when sex scandals come out.
by BBW Switch
11 Jun 2008 at 03:45
Personally, if our country allowed for a third term in the presidency I would vote, again, for President Clinton.
Did I think ethically it was right for him to cheat on his wife? No, but what does the relationship between a husband and wife have to do with politics? Secondly, what does ethics have to do with politics? That is a contradiction in terms.
Honestly, the man was running the country so well that he had time in his schedule for a blow-job, that to me, is a reason for re-election.
Historically sexism has worked in favor of male candidates, take for an example JFK. I would debate that his good looks and charm was a formidable force in bringing women to the polls to vote for him. So, there such a thing as “positive resulting sexism”.
The negative sexism directed toward Hillary Clinton is simply out of fear because in general men are not capable of valuing a woman without a sexual baseline. To be blunt, if they don’t want to fuck her, they don’t want to deal with her.
Unfortunately, women also fear her because women view their own value from a sexual perspective and are afraid of having that threatened because it would mean recreating an identity that is not sexualized.
Just my nickel’s worth. :)
by maymay
11 Jun 2008 at 03:54
Interesting comments. Thanks for your thoughts.
Don’t feel too sad for these people, alterisego. Some of them end up with very lucrative book deals. Frankly, if I were in politics and I were wanting an easy out with lots of money, I’d choose to have a sex scandal and then write about it. :) But I guess this blog kind of preempts that second bit, doesn’t it?
I can see where you’re going with this, BBW Switch, but I’m not sure that alone can be correctly classified as sexism. The fact that good looking people are simply more likely to be well-received by a large population is simply an evolutionary fact. See also Penelope Trunk’s “Plastic surgery is the next must-have career tool. Maybe.”