Sexism is out of fucking control lately

[Chovexani]

Real women apparently don't wear pantsuits, according to the GD braintrust.

My head hurts.

[Ellen Forradalom]

1. Oh yes. It's open season on women.

No goddamn joke. Real women don't have doctorates, either.

[gaspee]

2. Oh, dontcha know

He was just *joking*, you silly woman, you!

It's fucking 2008 and this shit still goes on. It's unfuckingbelievable to me. And hey, look, still no ERA and no talk of it even being brought up again. Nice.

[Ellen Forradalom]

3. And don't you love how

Nancy jumped in to tell everyone to lighten up and it's not serious! Quisling.

I'd like to see him say something equivalently racist and see how far he gets. OOOPS--I forgot, he did and it got him picked as running mate. Jeezus, I live in topsy-turvy world.

[Book Lover]

4. Did Twisty hear us or something?

http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/



Asinine NPR story of the week
Published August 23rd, 2008 in Politics, The Beauty Ultimatum, Mass Media and Femininity. 53 Comments

It was inevitable that, while listening to the radio during my semi-annual shower, I would hear an NPR analysis on the outfits worn by the presidential candidates’ wives. Ever on the cutting edge of popular culture, NPR hauled Jackie Kennedy’s ancient stylist out of cryogenic storage to canvass her edgy up-to-the-minute views on politics and women.

Jackie Kennedy, you’ll recall, was the last genuine hottie to inhabit the First Lady title. Among her other dainty attributes, Jackie possessed, according to the stylist, “good” arms.

Is it sexist to analyze firstladyal fashion? Not at all, says Jackie Kennedy’s stylist. Their husbands are men of action in blue-suit-red-tie uniforms, but first ladies are symbols.

Of what? Of male dominance. Of the nuclear family, of the dutiful wife, of the absolute necessity of womanly beauty practices, of the unquestionable heterosexuality of the president. First ladies must exude, in perfect balance, femininity, self-sacrifice, motherhood, a gentle, quiet respectability, and the notion that they are fairly intelligent, but not more intelligent than the president. They do this, not just by looking the other way when their husbands can’t keep it in their pants, but by selecting their fashion designers and plucking their eyebrows with utmost care. For presidential spouses, dressing symbolically is both a science and an art. It’s “walking the fashion tightrope,” says NPR.

What the NPR non-story neglected to mention is that, while first ladies get more news coverage, the fashion tightrope is not their exclusive purview. All women are symbols who are expected to prop up patriarchal myths by exuding perfect balances of impossible, degrading, bogus constructs.

Meanwhile, men are free to roam the countryside, without shaving their legs or contemplating the social implications of the plunge of their necklines, doing stuff.

[Chovexani]

7. That piece nailed it.

Especially this: "All women are symbols who are expected to prop up patriarchal myths by exuding perfect balances of impossible, degrading, bogus constructs."

Too bad that's too long to stick on a button.

[Book Lover]

8. Or a bumper sticker

But now I am thinking of working it onto a broadside and then postering SOMA with them.

[Ellen Forradalom]

11. Reminds me of Susan Brownmiller's observation

that all women are female impersonators.

[ThomCat]

5. I've been offline (involuntarily) for two weeks

but that means I'm rested up. Maybe I'll wade into the cesspool and clean out some shit. x(

[BlueIris]

6. When I tried to wade into that pool yesterday,

my blood pressure jumped way up.

So be careful.

[ismnotwasm]

9. I've been away as well

It's what, the 29th now, and the first thing I see in GD is not only sexist bullshit, but tired and so fucking OLD it has cracks, sit-on-a couch-with-your beer-belly-hanging-out-of-your-dirty-teeshirt-and-watch-the playboy-channel sexist bullshit

I just grossed myself out. Damn

[Ellen Forradalom]

10. Now they're laughing about McCain/MILF 2008 in the Lounge

Real hilarious. I threw a big bucket of cold water on that one fast.

[bliss_eternal]

12. I just saw one...

....criticizing Palin as a "bad mom" because she dares to pursue a career instead of being dutiful and staying in her place--attending to the needs of her poor Downs syndrome child.

As if somehow Downs makes her that much more of an ambitious monster. If the child didn't have Downs, they'd still say she's a bad mom. This just seems a convenient horror, allowing them to milk it for further mileage. :eyes:

(and yeah--I'm staying out of it ;))

[Ellen Forradalom]

13. Or! she's not the mom at all

but staged an elaborate coverup of her daughter's pregnancy.

It's vile.

[bliss_eternal]

16. Eeeeuuwwww.....just saw it on the front page.

:puke:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3461816

Color me officially disturbed. When did discussions on the left start to sound so much like covers of old national enquirers?

[Ellen Forradalom]

19. When the FIRST thing we zero in on in a male candidate

is his dick, his balls, his looks, his family, his parenting, and his sex life, we'll have achieved parity :eyes:

[Captain Hilts]

34. Let's talk about McCain's combover instead of his support for GWB policies.

THAT's parity!

[Ellen Forradalom]

35. Oh noes! NOT THE COMBOVER!

:rofl:

[noamnety]

25. I'll admit, I am conflicted

She is representing the party that is campaigning, in part, on the notion that women do not inherently have a right to privacy. They want to see that overturned. They've got people trying to pressure the courts into releasing the private medical reproductive records/gyno exams of women, including teenage girls, into the public domain, without any regard for how it emotionally harms the women/children involved.

The attempts to pull out a microscope and analyze her daughter's body weight are everything that's wrong with this culture ... and at the same time, I am half hoping for Palin to be pushed into making a public statement about how her family has a right to privacy.

I don't think, as a representative of her party, she should be allowed to have it both ways. My medical reproductive records are a matter of grave public concern; I have no right to privacy, but she (and her daughter) are part of the Other America, not subject to that kind of scrutiny.

I am belligerently feeling that anyone wanting to make medical records public beyond a woman and her doctor needs to be the first to pony up their own records - without any whining about their own right to privacy.

[bliss_eternal]

27. I could ask some questions here....

...because some of what you've shared, I wasn't aware of. I haven't read anything about Palin (other than what's been discussed in this forum). I'm avoiding msm like the plague. Honestly, I'm doing my best to remain unaware on a lot of this. I'm unaware of the context (or why) her daughter's body weight was addressed, by who, etc. (and I don't want to know)...I have a feeling that information would disturb me.

Aside from my need not to know (lol), I do appreciate what you've shared. You've expressed a valid concern. Why is it "do as I say, and not as I do" with their party? Will women's reproductive privacy rights issues be addressed through what's going on with Palin publicly now?

[Ellen Forradalom]

14. Oh, I didn't stay out of it

I punched back.

I'm a working mom. I don't some clueless man lecturing me on healthy attachment to my child.

[bliss_eternal]

15. I'm glad.

to see feminist moms (like you) speaking up. Too often you see the moms that are dude apologists posting--saying how they agree, blah, blah. You know the,"...I wouldn't dare to leave my kitchen, my man and my precious darlings for anything so absurd as a political career."

[Ellen Forradalom]

17. I even hate the, "Don't hit me, I HAVE to work" argument

A woman NEVER needs to apologize for working to support her family.

Plus--here's a big secret--some of us go back to work because it's what we went to college to do! WE LIKE IT! Oh that but's prima facie evidence that we are BAD MOMS, so we have to give a wishy washy excuse.

Not me. Smart working mom with a great kid and PROUD OF IT.

[bliss_eternal]

20. That one makes me cringe...

...it shows just how strong the societal programming that a woman should stay home with the kids is. Having a uterus doesn't mean a woman "should" be a parent, anymore than sperm and a penis means a man should procreate. But no one questions a man if he chooses not to have children.

Apparently pointing out how sexist it is to ask a woman in the music industry about her children and family is what made the media label musician Bjork as "difficult." But how often are male musicians asked about "their children?" :eyes:

[Ellen Forradalom]

21. The "Mommy Wars" is just more sororicidal warfare

Women keeping other women oppressed. I despise it.

[bliss_eternal]

22. I'm just glad to know...

...there's a name for it, and that some women are aware of it. When I was still trying to befriend women that weren't feminists I found myself constantly frustrated by that crap.

"Why the fuck do you care if I procreate or not?" felt like my battlecry.

[Ellen Forradalom]

23. The "Mommy Wars"

are the flame wars between stay-at-home mothers and working mothers, both misnomers as all mothers work like demons at home.

There are some very ugly sexist, classist undertones to them.

The unacknowledged subtext to the SAHM's argument: You have something I don't, a job and money, and I hate you for it. Therefore, I will pull the bad-mom dagger on you.

The subtext of WOHMs: The demands of baroque-capitalist corporate America and society's demands for perfect motherhood are tearing me apart. Since I was socialized to have no self interest, I have no adequate response other than guilt.

[Chovexani]

24. There are also issues of race that don't get brought up in these discussions

I really resent the bashing of working mothers because there is so much privilege behind that judgment. Most women of color have not historically had a choice to stay home and raise the kids. We have always had to work. My grandpa was a longshoreman and my grandma was a maid for a rich Jewish couple (who were very nice people, btw; they traveled a lot and always made sure to bring me back something when I was little).

Hell, my mother was a single parent. When she went to nursing school on the GI Bill she took my older sister (who was very little at the time) to school with her. She worked two jobs to put my sister through college and me through a private school that my father didn't contribute a cent toward (the shitty, unsafe neighborhood public school was just fine as far as he was concerned).

Classism is rampant in the discussion too because, let's face it, in this day and age if your partner is pulling in enough bread that you can stay home, y'all are not exactly hurting. Working class, poor mothers never had that choice. Back in the day poor women of all colors used to take the babies into the fields with them (and still do in many places). There is just so much ignorance on this topic.

[Ellen Forradalom]

26. Oh yes. There's not a double standard, there's a triple standard.

1) Rich? You can do no wrong. Princess Diana was a working mom.
2) Middle class? You heartless bitch, quit your job and go home or you don't love your kids.
3) Poor? Get off your lazy fucking ass and get a job.

[MountainLaurel]

33. That's the long and short of it

The hypocrisy and double-speak never fails to amaze me.

[Ellen Forradalom]

18. Ooops! I may be passionate

but I don't need to say it twice!

[Captain Hilts]

32. God forbid politicians have rotten kids. Tell the Roosevelts - both - and Churchill that.

FDR: You can say that again!
ER: Oh dear...

[Chovexani]

28. Perez Hilton presents the Maury Show, still in full effect

Baby Bump Watch 08 sees no signs of slowing. :banghead:

[Ellen Forradalom]

29. those internet-porn wankers

wouldn't know a normal female body if it bit them on the ass. Apparently teenage girls can only be either anorexic or pregnant.

On edit: So she is PG. None the less there are photos of her merely a bit chubby which were taken as "proof."

[Chovexani]

30. LOL!

"Apparently teenage girls can only be either anorexic or pregnant."

:rofl: :rofl:

Ain't that the truth.

[Chovexani]

31. LOL!

"Apparently teenage girls can only be either anorexic or pregnant."

:rofl: :rofl:

Ain't that the truth.