From The Chicago Tribune…
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By ignoring slur, McCain said a lot
By Leonard Pitts, McClatchy Tribune Newspapers
“So,” the woman asked, “how do we beat the bitch?” And Sen. John McCain laughed.
It was, he said, an “excellent” question. Yes, he went on to express respect for Hillary Rodham Clinton, to whom the woman referred. But not once while answering that question at a campaign stop in South Carolina recently did he suggest that it wasn’t appropriate to call Clinton a “bitch.”
Can you imagine if the Democratic front-runner were Sen. Joe Lieberman and the woman said, “So, how do we beat this Hebe?”
Can you imagine if it were Gov. Bill Richardson and the woman said, “So, how do we beat this spic?”
Can you imagine if it were Sen. Barack Obama and the woman said, “So, how do we beat this coon?”
I guarantee you, McCain would not have laughed and if he had, we would now be writing his political epitaph. But the woman asked, “How do we beat the bitch?” and McCain did laugh and now shrugs off any suggestion that he should have done more.
He’s wrong.
I get that many people don’t like Clinton. I don’t like her much myself, and my reasons echo the consensus. She seems cold, calculated, brittle.
Here’s the thing though. I find that I can’t name a single female national political figure I do like--not respect, not agree with, but “like.” Oh, I can name you many men who, their politics aside, strike me as likable: McCain, Bill Clinton, John Edwards, even cranky old Bob Dole.
But women? Not so much. Nancy Pelosi, Janet Reno, Condoleezza Rice, Madeleine Albright. I cannot see myself -- we are speaking metaphorically here -- cuddling up to any of them. They all seem formidable, off-putting, cold.
Which suggests the problem here is not so much them as me. And, if I may be so bold, we. As in, we seem unable to synthesize the idea that a woman can be smart, businesslike, demanding, capable, in charge and also warm.
Consider one of the many anti-Clinton smears now circulating online. It purports to be a compendium of profane, ill-tempered tirades she has unleashed upon subordinates. Your first thought is, what an unlikable person. Your second is -- or should be -- wait a minute. Does George Bush never use potty language? Was Bill Clinton never brusque? Does Dick Cheney always say thank you and please?
But it’s different, isn’t it, because she’s a woman? With the men, toughness reads as leadership, authority, getting things done. With her it reads as “bitch.” There is a sense -- and even women buy into this -- that a woman who climbs too high in male-dominated spheres violates something fundamental to our understanding of what it means to be a woman. Indeed, that she gives up any claim upon femininity itself.
That assessment is not merely perception. To the contrary. It has been quantified in a number of scholarly studies and papers. For example, in “Formal and Informal Discrimination Against Women at Work: The Role of Gender Stereotypes,” a research paper published this year, authors Brian Welle and Madeline E. Heilman report that the woman who succeeds at what has traditionally been men’s work -- and what is a presidential campaign if not that? -- risks being seen as “hostile, abrasive, pushy, manipulative and generally unlikable.”
Sound like anyone you know? We demand certain “feminine” traits from women -- nurturing, caring, submissive -- and the woman in whom those traits are either not present or subordinated to her drive, ambition and competence will pay a social price.
“How do we beat the bitch?” the woman asks. She asked it without blinking, without a second thought, righteously. And John McCain laughed.
That’s telling. The ostensible purpose of a campaign is to reveal the candidate. Hillary Clinton’s campaign, it seems, is revealing a whole lot more.
4 comments:
I was thinking about this earlier today when I heard someone say "You just don't like Hillary because she's a woman."
Bullshit.
I don't like Hillary because she's a bitch. And if a man did the things she's done, acted the way she does and campaigned the way she does, I'd dislike him too. And I'd probably call him a bitch.
Hillary is not just tough, she is brittle and has a reputation for bullying and violently flying off the handle. In a man, such behavior would, at the least, lead to branding him as abusive. With Hillary, such behavior becomes fodder for public amusement.
The other women Pitts named are not widely considered bitches because they don't have reputations for brittle temperaments and violent hair-trigger tempers.
In the interest of truth, I will use real life words to make a point in the next part of this post. If you are a sensitive reader, please skip the rest of this comment. I would stress, though, that if some of these words are so offensive as to be considered unacceptable to use in print, remember that these are words that are frequently used and in some cases, used exclusively, to describe men:
Brittle, bullying men with hair trigger tempers are variously known as sons of bitches, narcissists, pricks, assholes, motherfuckers, dicks, jerks, jack offs and bastards. Pretending that men aren't branded with these words is disingenuous.
It is Hillary's percieved temperament and character that earn her the unflattering moniker, just the same as a man who is on the receiving end of slurs, whether those slurs are genderized (like prick or motherfucker) or not.
In the slur derby, there are at least as many genderized slurs for male bullies as there are for female bullies.
Weak, weak, weak arguments.
There are plenty of women in politics that folks like, tolerate, accept, despise, respect, don't trust, will vote for, believe in, want to see dead, etc.
Clinton's problem is simple: She is a bad politician. She is so over-the-top obvious in her politicking that the only defense for her is "well if she were a man we'd be nicer to her..."
anybody ever say this crap about geraldine ferraro? or nancy pelosi? or jane byrne? or any of our female governors or senators/ congresswomen?
no.
because they're better politicians than she is.
hilary clinton is unlikable because her political game is sloppy, but she wants the rewards of not being called on it.
you wanna be businesslike, smart, mean, opportunistic? fine.
but be smooth with it.
hilary ain't smooth.
she's like the old dude in the hiphop club trying to pick up girls with young folks' swag--everybody sees him coming from a mile away and he's just sad.
and you'd feel bad for him except he keeps talking to people like they're too dumb to see how obviously sad he is; and the more he talks the more irritating he gets.
if hilary had 20% of Bill's smoothness, she's be tolerable, but she don't so she ain't.
Obama is the speaker Hillary wants to be and that Bill was/is.
I disagree with the way the column equates someone’s religious/ethnic background with another’s personality traits. Apples and oranges.
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