Guys? You're not helping (Palin sexism watch)

Hm. I share your exasperation with the campaign's perennial focus on trivia and minutiae when so much bigger things are at stake. Election after election appears to be decided by such nonsense as Dukakis looking silly in a tank, Gore supposedly having invented the internet, Bush Sr looking at his watch during a debate, etc. Now we've had endless discussions about stuff like whether Obama is too much of a 'celebrity'. And in the meantime the government is about to offer an overpriced 700 billion dollar bail-out of the banking industry at the taxpayer's expense, without nary a new oversight measure or structural change in the banks' practices in return.

But yeah, my hm here is that one of these three things you mention is not like the others. I mean, look at it: "lipstick, sexism and terrorist fist bumps". Two of those things are fabricated freakshow outrages du jour that were ginned up by campaigns with no other reason than to distract voters into trivia, without there being any underlying actual problem in society fuelling them. One is a widespread and systematic problem in society, which is still in this age negatively impacting the life of millions of women. If its manifestation of the day is in how Sarah Palin is approached with careless sexism, that's worth debating in my view -- on our own terms, independent of how the McCain campaign will also use it as a political campaign schtick -- in a way that "lipstickgate" manifestly wasnt. And god knows there were many more A2K pages spent on the lipstick thing than on this thread.

i agree.
sexism, as a general concept deserves quite a bit of discussion. it's an equal opportunity discriminator too. although less frequent, there are occasions of discrimination against men that are sexist. i saw it here and there when i worked in the fashion industry when i was young. there was the classical sexism of male big wigs not allowing women into mahogany row. sometimes it was against straight men whom some believed could never possibly have any fashion sense simply because they were straight.

in all of it's forms, sexism is bad news. like other prejudices, it keeps us all from reaching full potential as a society.

yeah, running for office is a real trial by nonsense. it's been apparent for a very long time in american politics, and the american people have allowed this jive to go on. nothing is out of bounds.

here's where i have a big problem with the palin bunch; labeling everything from interviews to colloquial expression as "sexist". it's being used in a fast , loose way to shield an arguably unprepared candidate from questions and accountability. i believe that there's a similarity to crying wolf in most of palin's citations.

bottom line is that nobody gets through the process without scarring. so if a person wants to play in the big leagues, they need to grow a thick skin and keep rolling.

so yeah, again the tee shirts and similar nasty offerings are sexist.

on the other hand, parading your kids around and then calling sexism when people ask about them isn't.

DTOM, Good post.

thanx, ci. just wanted to clarify some things..

guess i freaked some people out...

You well should have, but there are some who doesn't understand a word you wrote.

I am of the opinion who had dared to combine the word Palin and sex in able to know.
Since my threads are too sharp and irks/hurts the hearts of some participants here in Able2Know my threads were put into the dustbin.

This lady who come to the light of the corporate controlled Election drama is not
WORTHY OF MY CONSIDERATION.

Oh, come on--stop it with the sexist garbage. Ms. Palin is one of the priveliged.
Sure, the ladies say that there is a glass ceiling--and that wage rates for women are not the same as for men but there are good observable reasons for those phenomena.

l. Women do not work in as many dangerous work places as men do. That raises the salaries, of course.

2. Women usually leave the work place to have a family. This detracts from the career path of even the most dedicated women.

Look at the corporations and the Investment Banks and the large law firms and the top medical schools and the premier engineering firms.

You won't find that even Two Percent of the top people in those entities are black. This sexism thing is a strawman and a diversion.

Senator Barack Obama will become President and make America like it should be--a country which gives equal access even in the corridors of power to those who are now cheifly powerless--the 25 million Black people.

Hi barackman,

Have you actually read through this thread so far? I ask because your post doesn't seem to have a whole lot to do with what we've been talking about.

Denying that sexism exists -- at all -- is REALLY not going to help your cause. Of course sexism exists. Just as of course racism exists.

You know, living in Florida, I long ago gave up on that crazy notion that there is any such thing as democracy in this country - so I don't pay any attention to this election garbage - nor to this sexist crap that everyone acts as if they're actually surprised about. Nothing has ever changed in THAT one particular regard, and it's truly doubtful that it ever will. If it had - Hilary C would be running for President instead of Obama. No, even in spite of the tons of people suddenly registering to vote - the polls will, in the end, suddenly begin to swing toward McCain and we'll all be mystified by the fact that we'll continue to be - SPLAT (road kill) - run over by the Republican party for another God knows how many years. What wigs me out is the CEO's walking away from the blood and guts on Wall Street, their pockets lined with our money, because the Feds decided to "guarantee" mortgage loans. This is an insane country, my dear friends. Do you know in a city like Toronto, of over 70,000 people, there have been only 3 killings involving the use of a gun in the past THREE YEARS?? And people who live there don't have to worry about ever locking their doors, or fear to let their kids play outside. And the news up there is all about which federal programs are working & what's not, and what areas need the most attention & similarly "important things" instead of the newscasts being based on their ratings like they were a sitcom, for the purpose of entertainment.

Well, not especially apropos of anything, but Toronto's actually got about 2.5 million people in the city proper and about 5 million in the metro area (which is over 70,000, of course), and in 2005 had 52 firearm homicides ( http://www.thestar.com/News/article/167340 ). I doubt the rate has fallen to 1 per year since that time. Still quite a low rate for a comparably sized American city, and this was a record year for Toronto.

How did Toronto get involved with all this?

But, then, maybe she's not talking about Toronto, Ontario, Canada...

That don't help none, Boots.

You ARE Boots, right?


WHY are you Boots?

I'm striving for a power balance, with a proletarian twist.









Methinks Toronto is being confused with Windsor. Anywho, why not derail the thread?

DTOM writes


Do you feel the same level of indignation when the 'Obama bunch' labels everything as racist from using his name, referring to his family in Kenya (after he did), noting the 'black theology' of his church of 20 years, commenting on his repeated references to 'not looking like those other presidents on dollar bills', and now referencing his community organizer experience? Is there anything in that list that he himself has not expressed or that is not fair game for scrutiny?

Yes, Sarah Palin has to take her lumps as much as anybody else, but all the criticism re unfair attacks have not been labeled sexist because they all have not been sexist.

But criticizing her or characterizing her, a woman, in critical and/or hateful ways that would not be applied to a man is sexist and those doing that should be called out on it.

Why don't you address what Obama says and not what other people who are not Obama says if you want to sweep the leg.

T
K
O

Well if I was critiquing what Obama says, that would be good advice. In this case though, I was defining sexism and what is and what isn't sexism. I was also commenting on some people's indignation that Palin supporters would be concerned about sexism by comparing that with the Obama camp's concern with racism.

It is racism if a standard is applied to Obama, a black man, that would not be applied to a white candidate. It is sexism if a standard is applied to Palin, a woman, that would not be applied to a man.

What's sexist is the way the MCCAIN camp treats Palin - as if she can't take the press. Is she too weak to face the press?

Campbell Brown nails it here



Cycloptichorn

Oh I see. And the next time somebody says something really stupid about Obama that IS racist, I can use the 'he should be a big boy and take it and it is racist for you to point out the racism' argument?

That's a non-sequitur, Fox. It doesn't directly address what I said, but instead replaces it with a different argument.

Cycloptichorn