@Robert Gentel,
Robert Gentel wrote:
nimh wrote:Thats a bit of a straw man. I dont think anyone has argued that whoever, whenever calls Palin a hottie in any context is sexist.
T-shirts or bumper stickers saying McCain/MILF, VPILF, or Hoosiers for the Hottie, however, are.
What I'm saying is to assert that those comments are
invariably sexism ignores that there are other reasons people might display them and projects your own. [..] This is just political correctness at it's most pedantic and if you actually listen to what they have to say it would be much harder to portray them as sexist.
For example I looked it up to see who was wearing them, and it sounds like women came up with the idea and just plain reject the notion that they are reducing her to a sexual object.
Ok, I think we are talking past each other.
Remember that "sweet old lady" of O'Bill's? Was she a sexist? I think we agree that no, she wasnt a sexist person. Did she intend to pass a sexist judgement? Of course she didnt. Is the argument she used, nevertheless, sexist? Finn argued that yes, it was, and a bunch of us agreed, dunno about you.
There's the rub in our conversation, I think.
I think it is wholly possible for someone to use sexist imagery or arguments, without him- or herself necessarily being a sexist, or having sexist intentions.
It's the same as with racism. I had a friend, a decade or so ago, a nice girl, with whom I once had this conversation about Africa. Turned out that she thought it was one big country. Also, that the people there still mostly lived in the wild, hunting game, and sitting round campfires in the evening in their loincloths roasting boar meat. And so she was afraid that there was little anyone could do about all these brutal civil wars, because, you know -- what could you expect, kinda?
I'm not shitting you. She was in her twenties. Now she had not a bad intention in her bones, and she would have been as kind a host to African guests as anyone. If anything she wanted to help Africans, that was what the whole conversation started about. But this image of today's black Africans as some kind of wild primitives is racist, yes. She herself had no particular attachment to the belief that Africans are inferior by nature or anything, but she had bought into a profoundly racist image of the wild, primitive African.
All of that analogy to say, in response to your quotes, that yes, sure, even the best-intentioned young women can end up trafficking in sexist stereotypes. Their good intentions do not make the stereotypes themselves any less sexist.
These women wont be the first ones who promote a woman's chances (or their own) of getting a weighty or important job by touting how she's a "hottie" or the like. And believe it's just another way of boosting her, rather than a way of reinforcing the sexism in how even top women are seen or approached. Whatever works, right? But, yeah - and? There's black men touting the image of the uniquely virile and lustful black superlover too, doesnt make the stereotype any less racist.
McCain/MILF, as bumper sticker, reduces Palin to nothing more than a **** object. That makes it sexist. Now whether every single buyer of the sticker is a sexist, I dunno. I have a hard time imagining anyone but total sexist pricks slapping one on their car, but who knows - it could be used in irony, or as in-joke, or whatever. But yeah, and? Doesnt make the
sticker any less sexist.
I'm repeating myself...
