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Hillary Hatred Finds Its Misogynistic Voice
By JONATHAN TILOVE
Seattle Times, December 27, 2007
Anti-Clinton language is taking American politics into new territory.

WASHINGTON -- In the coming months, America will decide whether to elect its first female president. And amid a techno-media landscape
where the wall between private vitriol and public debate has been reduced to rubble, Sen. Hillary Clinton is facing an onslaught of
open misogynistic expression.

Step lightly through that thickly settled province of the Web you could call anti-Hillaryland and you are soon knee-deep in "bitch," "slut," "skank," "whore" and, ultimately, what may be the most toxic
four-letter word in the English language.

We have never been here before.

No woman has run quite the same gantlet. And of course, no man.

Thanks to several thousand years of phallocentric history, there is no comparable vocabulary of degradation for men, no equivalently rich trove of synonyms for a sexually sullied male. (...)

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
No. There are enough policy reasons to oppose Clinton. A resort to misogyny merely cheapens and undermines the opposition and helps to solidify her base. If the best the anti-Hillary crowd can do is attack her gender, then they are bankrupt both morally and intellectually.

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Agreed.

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There are enough policy reasons to oppose Clinton. A resort to misogyny merely cheapens and undermines the opposition and helps to solidify her base.

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[ 28 December 2007: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

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Actually, female politicians have been destroyed by this kind of misogyny, while your own argument is tantamount to blaming the victim for an unfair advantage allegedly afforded to her by these attacks. N.B.: Tilove's article ends with a similarly reassuring prediction of a possible backlash to the backlash...

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And the short answer was 'No'. Second,to read into my answer a "blaming the victim" would take a hell of a number of logical leaps. Lastly, I don't see Hillary Clinton as some sort of fair maiden requiring a prince, no matter how liberal or politically correct, for a rescue.

Hillary Clinton is a seasoned, experienced politician who has endured immature, juvenile attacks on her gender for decades. She is a serious contender for president of the USA because she has learnt to manage the neandrathals in her own way.

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It is up to the rest of us to make Republican-style politics as repugnant and anti-social as smoking in a restaurant.

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[ 28 December 2007: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

And of course attacks on Hilary by the right were going to be misogynistic. Why should we expect otherwise?

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We never have been here before.

No woman has run quite the same gantlet. And, of course, no man.

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Plus Hilary's running for the Big seat, not the second banana, AND she has a very very good chance of winning. This makes her more threatening of course, even though politically she's as hawkish as most Democrats are.

But let's be clear that many many other countries around the world have elected, repeatedly, women as presidents, prime ministers, and other such governing roles and the world hasn't fallen apart. In fact, it's mostly gone along in pretty much the same ways.

The U.S. is so not a trend-setter in many areas, and politics is one. The fact that the mostly male mostly white web and blogging communities are freaking out and dumping misogyny about HC on the web, well, they would do that anyways, they just have a convenient target.

[ 28 December 2007: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]

Also, your analogy doesn't work: we all get old but male attackers don't turn into women (and for men, aging can be a sign of statesmanship).

Also, the fact that the attacked can do nothing about the condition on which attacks are based has never stopped racists in the past...

Finally, the shallower and the more pointless the attacks, the better, when all you want is to cut someone down, to "beat the bitch".

I don't want to sound discouraging but it seems to me that to really oppose misogynyny, we have to lose the illusion that it is a counterproductive tactic for those using it, and we can just wait for them to meet their demise.

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Originally posted by Ibelongtonoone:
I don't think you'll see too many attacks based solely on her being a woman, half the voters are women for one and two - attacks on something the candidate can do nothing about are shallow and pointless.

It would be like democrats attacking McCain for being old. It would backfire.

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I understand and agree with several of yr points, and as Tommy pointed out certain elements of the repub party may use misogynistic attacks against Mrs Clinton.

I guess I just have more faith in the ordinary masses of people to not only not be persuaded by this type of attack but to be put off by it.

Propaganda is the use of magic by those who no longer believe against those who still do

So, if the question is whether leftists should support her, the answer has to be no, nomore than the Canadian left should support a corporate "centrist" like Belinda Stronach or EMay. OTOH the scarcely concealed misogyny being invoked on the right should be exposed for what it is, same as when valid criticism of Stronach's lack of principles devolved into gender based trash talk.

[ 29 December 2007: Message edited by: Erik Redburn ]