(Untitled)

[aimantselden]

Even though I'm happy Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses, I can't help feeling really frustrated and sad still about the way people have talked about Hillary Clinton. My grandma was telling me that on CNN, every time she did something, it was portrayed negatively. I've heard people who are generally politically aware call her a "shrew"; people say

Comments

[queen_bunnie]

I know what you mean. It's been angering me as well.

[sporadicfungian]

yeah, whenever i hear people complaining about clinton i think of a katha pollitt column where she was like, "if people keep using sexism to put down hillary clinton i might just have to vote for her

[aimantselden]

Yeah, I dunno, the people I'm close friends with are generally pretty supportive, and those that aren't, or don't agree, I usually try to avoid the topic with them or else I just get really mad. I do watch a lot of TV. I love TV, but like, stuff on TV is so fucked up! even on like Project Runway! and I listen to music on the radio. That stuff is pretty fucked up too. Yeah, and okay, I could stop watching TV or listening to the radio, but I definitely don't want to even though I get mad at it sometimes. Or I could write letters about every fucked up thing I see, but that's too much work.

[amisellepasser]

You pre-empted Gloria Steinem's op-ed piece by about 12 hours. If you haven't read it yet I recommend it.

[aimantselden]

I didn't really like Gloria Steinem's op-ed. Even though she said she wasn't trying to "have a competition about who has it toughest," she pretty much says in the paragraphs above that women have had it tougher than black men. By citing the example of black men getting the vote before women, she's saying that black men have had it easier than white women. She also explicitly says that black men have risen in ranks of power faster than women. Now, I don't necessarily think that's true. And um, what about the state-sanctioned violence against women and men of color that happens still today? It's not an oppression olympics, but I definitely felt like Steinem was trying to universalize "women's" oppression, ignoring women's different experiences. That being said, I'm glad she did say that sexism and racism are tied together historically and must be uprooted, but I'm afraid that point gets lost in the rest of the op-ed.
I dunno, why Gloria Steinem? Why not bell hooks or Angela Davis or Judith Butler?

[amisellepasser]

I cited Gloria Steinem because I happened to read her column while I was having breakfast this morning, not because I think her point is the most relevant or that her opinion should be given the most weight. The section that reminded me of your post was, "But what worries me is that he is seen as unifying by his race while she is seen as divisive by her sex. What worries me is that she is accused of 'playing the gender card' when citing the old boys' club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations."

At the same time, yeah, she generalizes, and her discussion of black men's faster progression through the ranks of politics than that of white women seemed irrelevant and not entirely true.