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Friday, June 20, 2008

Being a WATB: It isn't just for wingnuts anymore
Posted by Jill | 12:37 PM
Actual e-mail received yesterday:

Dear female progressive blogger:

Sadly the party unity that Democrats enjoyed during the Bush years now lays in tatters. It has been destroyed by the sexist media and the arrogant and mysoginist Obama campaign. Not only is Barack Obama dangerously unqualified to be president but he has demonstrated time and time again that he will sell out our interests (or indeed anybody!) whenever it becomes politically expedient.

The good news is it's not too late to stop this, despite what they media says. Hillary has neither ended her campaign nor released her delegates even though you might believe otherwise from listening to the Obama-loving media. If we band together now before the convention we can still have some valid options other than electing John McCain. Please join our blogroll at http://pumaparty.com/. I'm not thrilled about voting for McCain either, but like many Democrats, I will do so if Obama is our nominee. Let's work together to prevent that while we still can.


And my reply:

I am not interested in joining your group. Your organization is one of the most cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face efforts I've ever seen.

We have seen a great deal of appalling sexism in this primary campaign, but it has come from the mainstream media, not from the Obama campaign. And now they are doing the same thing to Michelle Obama, but you people don't care about that. This is not about feminism, and you folks have no business calling yourselves feminists. Here's why:

In adopting Hillary Clinton as your warrior-princess, you are holding up as a feminist icon a woman who put any political aspirations she had on hold to go to Arkansas and be helpmeet to her husband. There's nothing wrong with that, but it was her choice. Then she managed to parlay her status as first lady into a Senate seat, when most ordinary women have to climb through the political ranks. This is a woman who has put up with her husband humiliating her in front of an entire nation -- and stayed with him. I don't fault her for that; there are many reasons people stay in marriages, and often the good outweighs the bad. I believe she knows full well who she's married to. But when part of feminism has been for women not to be doormats, she seems an odd and counterintuitive choice as a feminist heroine.

Finally, I fail to see how turning Hillary Clinton into a hapless victim of the Evil Sexist Obama(TM) or even of an admittedly Evil Sexist Media is "feminist." I thought feminism was supposed to be about female empowerment, not painting oneself as a victim. Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson and John Edwards all dropped out of the race. Was that because of misogyny too? If so, how?

The primary rules were set up well in advance, and Hillary Clinton and her campaign staff agreed with them. To start squawking about it only after it no longer played to her advantage is something out of the playbook of the Bush family.

As for your little campaign to elect John McCain, well, that's where the "intelligent people of goodwill can disagree" doctrine falls apart. John McCain has a ghastly voting record on women. He is NOT pro-choice. Justice Stevens is 88 years old and cannot live forever. John McCain WILL appoint a replacement along the lines of John Roberts and Samuel Alito. You persist in this little "hold my breath till my face turns blue", "take my dollies and dishes and go home and sulk" childish tantrum of yours (and the others in your little club) and YOU will have to answer when your daughters are forced to be nothing but brood mares.

Just who do you think you're getting revenge against by doing this? Barack Obama? If you help John McCain get elected, he goes back to the Senate and Michelle Obama gets her husband back. He will be fine. The people you'll hurt are yourselves, your daughters, and their daughters.

If you are unaware of John McCain's record on women's issues, I suspect you check out the following:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/unmasking-mccain-his-reac_b_103580.html

http://www.ppaction.org/ppvotes/08_antichoicemccain.html

http://www.juancole.com/2008/06/real-question-is-would-president-mccain.html

http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2008/06/mccains-problem-with-women-part-ii.html

Unless you believe that it's a good thing to help create a country that is TRULY hell for women -- working class women, not white middle-class professional women who have the luxury of sitting around sulking because the candidate they wanted isn't going to be the nominee -- because it will let you and your compatriots wallow in your own sense of victimization, then all you're telling me and other women like me with your ridiculous club is that you are a bunch of spoiled babies.

Grow the hell up already. Hold the feet of media executives to the fire. Write the Obama campaign and demand a dialogue with them to air your grievances. Do something besides sit around and whinge about how oppressed you are.

But for God's sake, don't help to elect a man who called his own wife a trollop and a cunt in public. By doing so, you just look foolish.
4 comments
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4 Comments:
Blogger Anonymoustache said...
Brilliant reply.
6/20/08, 1:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
And another thing. If you are going to call someone "mysoginist" you might want to spell it correctly.
6/20/08, 3:00 PM  
Blogger truth said...
'Twas not sexism that forced Hillary Clinton to vote for for Bush's war of lies in 2002.

'Twas not sexism that forced Hillary to hire Mark Penn, and to follow his strategy of concentrating on the big state primaries and ignoring the caucuses.

'Twas bad judgment.
6/20/08, 3:57 PM  
Blogger elfradiowave said...
That pretty much says it all.

Aren't we pretty sure by now that all these hardcore online feminist Hillary support groups are just.... Karl Rove in pearls and stylish pumps?
6/20/08, 11:03 PM  
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