Tag: Barack Obama

Sexism Leading Up to the Elections

The big day is coming up. Pundits, politicians and trolls have a lot to say about it.
The race is so close, that the candidates and their parties have gone beyond the mudslinging phase into a spastic political dance. We’ve moved beyond a two-step and are now doing a politicking polka.
Democrats obnoxiously pander to women, but the GOP manages to surpass them all with outright ignorance and embarrassing insensitivity. Here are some of the more recent things that conservative leaders have been saying about women the weeks leading up to the election.

  • Newt Gingrich realized the problem that Republicans have been having with outrageous rape comments! It’s not that conservatives are holding too tightly to antiquated and harmful assumptions about sexual assault. It’s that women are not responding well. Regarding ignorant comments; Gingrich said people need to “get over it.” In response, women all over the country sigh a breath of relief, and realize they don’t have to get worked up over assault any more.

  • If you have come late to the political party and weren’t ambivalent about the Republican’s stance on women’s health, Richard Mourdok is here to clarify. He said that pregnancy resulting from rape is something “God intended.” He followed that up with a shrug-it-off comment that “you can’t put toothpaste back in the tube.” That seems to indicate that the toothpaste – which here would probably represent the GOP’s real stance on rape and abortion – is no longer within the tube – or the presentation of the GOP’s position on women’s health in a way that is palatable to the general public.
  • Candy Crowley moderatedthe second presidential debate largely because of a petition started by three teenage girls. These girls wanted to see a female moderator since there hadn’t been one at a presidential debate for 20 years. Crowley got mixed reviews for how she managed the debates – some saying her correction of Romney was good journalism, while others said it was an inappropriate intervention. Unfortunately, the reaction to a woman playing such an important role in this fundamental part of the political process was all-too-predictably sexist. 

#Irrelevant&Sexist
The Twitterverse was lighting up with live tweeting coverage of whatever Obama and Romney threw at each other. Tweets trying to catch and ride the next meme latched on to Crowley’s weight.Tweeters managed the internet-version of heckling by all-capsing their disapproval of Crowley’s shape and size. Crowley is the chief political correspondent at CNN. She’s covered war, natural disasters and elections. How she looks is totally inconsequential, and we can make a pretty good guess that the reason her looks were an issue was because of her gender.
There are four days left until the election. Who wants to bet we will have to deal with yet another sound bite or internetstorm of sexism before November 6?

Presidential Debate Update: Where Are the Women(‘s Issues)?

The first presidential debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama

The first presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney was much less intriguing than every pundit and media ogler alike was hoping for. We wanted zingers and gaffes, but had to settle for the mildly miffed, but embarrassingly unassertive, Jim Lehrer. The NewsHour host may have gotten memed even more than the candidates since the debate. But, sorry Big Bird, even an outraged PBS isn’t that interesting.

Yes, many media followers, long for the days of primary debates when tom-foolery and missteps abounded. Those were the days when follow-up commentary was bountiful and hilarious. The Ricks, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich may have outraged feminists, but damn they made our job of dissecting dickery easy.

Yes, the debate was “wonky” but all three men involved didn’t seem keen on bringing up the social issues that have been driving political discourse this year.

So, we feminist bloggers have to talk about what wasn’t talked about. And, frankly, there’s only so much fascination I can draw up from between the lines. Women’s health was not just glanced over, but completely ignored. And that was a disappointment – not for gossip’s sake, but because our candidates should be representing these issues as valuable. No, women’s health and reproductive rights should not be categorized as a distracting issue, but should be recognized as fundamentally intertwined with the issues determining the health of our country.

See, our candidates seem to consider economic and health care issues separate from social issues. But, marginalized folks understand via experience that they are not. Moderate Romney and Moderate Obama both stuck to taxes and the role of government while referencing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Dodd-Frank but not addressing how social issues are connected.

Discounting social issues and focusing on the “real” issues like the economy misses the point that these issues are not exclusive. No, the economy is not more real than women trying to cover the costs of their health insurance while looking for work in a bad economy.

The ACA makes it illegal for insurance companies to discriminate among genders when providing coverage. And it makes contraception more easily accessible. It basically stops allowing the practice of treating men as the generic sex – as in; people should get good coverage for the same costs regardless of gender and/or sex. This is a pretty important aspect of the ACA that was not looked at during the debate.

So we can hope that we see these discussions happen in upcoming debates. Hopefully our candidates and moderators don’t shy away from these issues. Candy Crowley, we’re looking to you.