Arkansas Blog

Seems to me that "Demeaning" could have been the headline not only for the Gazette story below but for this nasty Brummett jab at Hillary.

I Be Dam John I'm surprised at you! Your 'male member' chauvinistic ism coming through loud and clear.

"...I suspect Americans got accustomed to a woman as world leader in the 1980s when Margaret Thatcher commanded our greatest ally and warned our own male president not to "go wobbly..."

Wrong...(though there's enough disclaimers in Brummett's stuff to temper much of his nasty Clinton stuff). Who knows where Hillary would be if she wasn't Mrs. Bill; but since we're operating in the conjecture world, I'll argue that Hillary would have risen to the top 'somewhere' regardless of who (or if) she'd married. By all accounts she's brilliant, hard working and politically savvy (I hate that part) enough to 'earn' her way to the top. So I think Brummett's brush is too wide. (And, I'm guessin' he doesn't like the Clintons...at all).

Thatcher's tenure did not represent the end in America's sexist attitudes. First, she hardly represents the female side of life...the 'womanly' side of cultural, social and political approaches to the world. Hell, put her in men's attire and you couldn't tell an iota of a difference between her and her male counterparts. In other words, she was more male than most of the men around her.

Women rising to the top of politics by completely emulating the male model of what defines a 'successful' poltician is hardly an indication that women have already progressed to the top and Americans have accepted that reality.

But then I'm hoping that the Thatchers of the world have managed to chip enough of the remaining barriers away so that there's room for a real female leader...as well as for the male-imitation models.

And while I'm on one of my feminist rants: No spirit (a question you posed sometime back that I never got around to answering)...it's not OK to keep using all those sexist statements like 'mankind' or 'chairman.' Just as the medical profession is slowly realizing that all those tests that were modeled after a man's body might not accurately give a true assessment of a woman's body, those words don't accurately reflect women's place in the world. It's NOT mankind...it's humankind; it's not chairman; it's chairwoman or chairperson. (I really don't care about the particulars as much as changing sexist words that reflect general untruths.)

"Hell, put her in men's attire and you couldn't tell an iota of a difference between her and her male counterparts. In other words, she was more male than most of the men around her."

Aaah, brings back historical memories of Cleopatra, Jezebel, Bloody Mary, Elizabeth I, Victoria (she proposed to her cousin Albert), Catherine the Great, Maria Theresa, Marie Antoinette, Mary Stuart and a slew of others.......

I don't want to be contrary, but I don't find much to argue with in Brummett's column. He points out a lot of good examples where people look at men's looks and hair too. He makes a good point that her electability will be based more on who she is than on her gender.

But I'll agree that, as a man, I probably can't see gender bias as clearly as women can, any more than I could ever understand what it's really like to be a race other than white.

"This is not about whether America is ready for a woman president. It's about whether America is ready for that woman, Mrs. Clinton."

This clown can't even pretend to be kewl. He doesn't get it. Again one of the worse cases of pussy-envy I've seen that's so blatantly waving in the wind.

"Our last two American secretaries of state, fourth in line to the presidency and our emissaries to the world, have been women."

Colin Powell was a woman? Sheesh, no wonder he wimped out before the U.N., like a good submissive creature.

"...I don't want to be contrary,..."

But Spirit...you're at your best when you're 'contrary.' (Anyway, I like it!)

The psychology of why people will or won't vote for Hillary is muddy as it gets...and probably covers the spectrum of social truths/realities. But to completely disconnect Hillary's world from America's sexist attitude, as Brummett did, is wrong. One of the strongest underlying currents of what sparks much of the anti-Hillary sentiment is the fact that she is smarter than most of her male counterparts and she is outdoing them at every turn. She's not their equal; she's light years ahead of most of her male colleagues...and certainly ahead of most of the Bubba voters. They're not strong enough nor evolved enough not to be threatened by real equality.

Part of moving forward is admitting today's realities. Attributing them to history as if we've already overcome doesn't help remove the sexist stink...it bypasses it.