Or more to the point – SexISM.
Robin Morgan ran an essay in RAT back in 1970, called Goodbye To All That. Well Ms. Morgan has just updated that essay, and given the double standard that seems to have taken hold in this campaign, I thought it was worth discussing. In so many ways, Morgan echoes what I’ve been thinking for a very long time now, but have never quite been able to express as eloquently as this. Here is part of what she had to say in those 8 pages...
Goodbye To All That (#2) by Robin Morgan
Goodbye to the double standard . . .
Hillary is too ballsy but too womanly, a Snow Maiden who’s emotional, and so much a politician as to be unfit for politics.
She’s “ambitious” but he shows “fire in the belly.” (Ever had labor pains?)
When a sexist idiot screamed “Iron my shirt!” at HRC, it was considered amusing; if a racist idiot shouted “Shine my shoes!” at BO, it would’ve inspired hours of airtime and pages of newsprint analyzing our national dishonor.
Goodbye to the toxic viciousness . . .
Carl Bernstein's disgust at Hillary’s “thick ankles.” Nixon-trickster Roger Stone’s new Hillary-hating 527 group, “Citizens United Not Timid” (check the capital letters).
C – U – N – T..
It’s disgusting but this kind of shite needs to be called out at every opportunity - it’s beyond offensive to any thinking progressive human being. I don’t think you have to be humor-challenged to find that sexist and unacceptable and yet...
I can hear some of you boys out there tittering away at this even now
Can you imagine if someone had set up a 527 group with the initials spelling out the N word? Stone’s group gets away with it but I can’t even utter the word I’m thinking of in putting the shoe on the other foot. It’s just mind-blowing that this kind of shite is tolerated now that we’re in the 21st Century!
John McCain answering “How do we beat the bitch?" with “Excellent question!” Would he have dared reply similarly to “How do we beat the black bastard?” For shame.
B – I – T – C – H
There’s another word people have no problem throwing around while at the same time not even being able to utter the N word in polite company. Or any company for that matter. For some of us – they’re equally offensive.
Goodbye to the HRC nutcracker with metal spikes between splayed thighs. If it was a tap-dancing blackface doll, we would be righteously outraged—and they would not be selling it in airports. Shame.
Some people just don’t fecking get it. We’re talking about someone’s daughter, wife, mother, sister... would you tolerate this kind of treatment of the girls or women in
your life? I sure as hell hope not!
Goodbye to the sick, malicious idea that this is funny. This is not “Clinton hating,” not “Hillary hating.” This is sociopathic woman-hating. If it were about Jews, we would recognize it instantly as anti-Semitic propaganda; if about race, as KKK poison. Hell, PETA would go ballistic if such vomitous spew were directed at animals. Where is our sense of outrage—as citizens, voters, Americans?
So goodbye to conversations about this nation’s deepest scar—slavery—which fail to acknowledge that labor- and sexual-slavery exist today in the U.S. and elsewhere on this planet, and the majority of those enslaved are women.
Women have endured sex/race/ethnic/religious hatred, rape and battery, invasion of spirit and flesh, forced pregnancy; being the majority of the poor, the illiterate, the disabled, of refugees, caregivers, the HIV/AIDS afflicted, the powerless. We have survived invisibility, ridicule, religious fundamentalisms, polygamy, teargas, forced feedings, jails, asylums, sati, purdah, female genital mutilation, witch burnings, stonings, and attempted gynocides. We have tried reason, persuasion, reassurances, and being extra-qualified, only to learn it never was about qualifications after all. We know that at this historical moment women experience the world differently from men—though not all the same as one another—and can govern differently, from Elizabeth Tudor to Michele Bachelet and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
I earned a degree in international relations / Third World development back in the early-‘80s & the atrocity of slavery and the way women and children were treated was swept under the rug back then just as it is today. It's absolutely unacceptable that we have made so little progress in all these years. And I’m convinced that if we elevate a woman to the most powerful post in this world, these horrific practices will be addressed. People will not only talk about this dirty little secret on the world stage, but they’ll actually DO something about ending it.
Hillary found her voice in New Hampshire – she shone as bright as the North Star and many of us finally got to hear her words rather than those of the campaign experts, her husband and the MSM out there. Listen up – here’s some of what she’s been saying...
“For too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words.
“It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls. It is a violation of human rights when woman and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution. It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small. It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war. It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide along women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes. It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.
“Women’s rights are human rights. Among those rights are the right to speak freely—and the right to be heard.”
That was Hillary Rodham Clinton defying the U.S. State Department and the Chinese Government at the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing (look here for the full, stunning speech).
While Hillary served as First Lady back in the ‘90s, her office was widely known as the de facto office on human rights. I have no doubt that the Oval Office will have that dubious distinction if she’s our next President.
Now I’ve never had a problem in letting others know what I’m thinking on any given issue. Call it a like-it-or-leave-I-couldn’t-care-less sort of an attitude. (Hey I post here in support of Hillary – that should tell you a lot!). So it’s hard for me to understand the timidity others feel when it comes to supporting Hillary in this election. I firmly believe that putting Hillary in the Oval Office is the single best thing we can do to lift up the lives of women and girls all over this world. I said as much in my first pro-Hillary diary on DailyKos back in June. Morgan echoes that feeling here...
Time is short and the contest tightening. We need to rise in furious energy—as we did when Anita Hill was so vilely treated in the U.S. Senate, as we did when Rosie Jiminez was butchered by an illegal abortion, as we did and do for women globally who are condemned for trying to break through. We need to win, this time. Goodbye to supporting HRC tepidly, with ambivalent caveats and apologetic smiles. Time to volunteer, make phone calls, send emails, donate money, argue, rally, march, shout, vote.
As for the “woman thing”?
Me, I’m voting for Hillary not because she’s a woman—but because I am..
(Emphasis added)
Damn but that’s powerful stuff!
Now I’m not sure if you caught an article on HuffPo by Martha Burk, Gloria Feldt, Cecelia Fire Thunder, Lulu Flores, Kim Gandy, Ellen Malcolm, Irene Natividad, Ellie Smeal, Gloria Steinem, Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones a couple days ago, but it was a real eye-opener. It sort of echoes what I wrote back in June of how Hillary’s presidency will help women and girls around this world. She’s stood by us in our fight to defend our reproductive rights. She stood on a world stage in Beijing 13 years ago and declared that women’s rights are human rights (what a novel idea!), and she’s led the fight to give women access to emergency contraception, allowing us to determine our own future when it comes to our reproductivity.
I’m excited about this election for what it means to my little girl, who just turned 7 and will grow up believing us when we tell her she really can be anything she wants to be when she grows up – even president. Unlike mine, hers will be first generation to believe it because they’ve seen it happen in their lifetime. And what a POWERFUL message that is!
Why Hillary Is The Right Choice For Women
As women who have spent our careers fighting to protect a woman's right to choose, we recognize that the next president will face serious challenges to safeguard the reproductive health of women. In our opinion, there is one candidate whose leadership on this issue is unparalleled: Hillary Clinton.
They go on to list why they believe she’ll stand next to
them us in the fight to appoint Supreme Court Justices who will protect our hard-fought reproductive rights. She’ll stand up for families because she’s fought for the Family & Medical Leave Act and fought to cover military families under that Act. They talked about her work in reducing unplanned pregnancies and of their confidence that she will stand with them in this fight going forward. They know Hillary will continue to work to expand our contraceptive options because of her 3-year battle with the White House to get approval for Plan B emergency contraception and make it available over the counter. And they’re confident that Hillary will continue her fight to give low-income women access to family planning services because she’s already fought to increase funding for these services through Medicaid and Title X.
They also referenced her historic speech in China, where she said that women’s rights are human rights. May not seem like a big deal to you guys, but to women – especially in the developing world this was a liberating thing to hear!
In other words, Hillary doesn’t just talk the talk when it comes to our rights – she walks the walk! More from Gandy et al...
We trust Hillary Clinton because every time we needed her by our side, she has been there.
Let us be clear -- the stakes are high in this election. We firmly believe that no one is better situated to confront the challenges awaiting the next president. As a pro-choice president, Hillary Clinton will make Supreme Court appointments and decisions ensuring women's reproductive rights in this country.
Kim Gandy (president of NOW) sent me an email the other day, and she spoke of Hillary’s record of standing strong in defense of our rights...
From her earliest days advising battered women, helping abused children, and providing free legal services to the poor, to her time in the White House advocating for universal healthcare, championing the S-CHIP (State Child Health Insurance) program, and helping to pass the Violence Against Women Act, to her service as a U.S. Senator, standing strong for reproductive rights and writing legislation to expand contraceptive access, helping win approval of emergency contraception, sponsoring equal pay legislation, and speaking out on the floor against the nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, specifically saying that they would damage Roe v. Wade if confirmed. She was right, and I know we can count on her to nominate pro-women, pro-choice judges to the courts at every level.
Lastly, I’d like to share a video I found with everyone here. I watched this last night with my little girl and it brought tears to my eyes. Hillary truly is superwoman – blazing a trail for girls like my daughter and crashing through that highest and thickest of glass ceilings for all of us.
Check it out...
Now - for those who'd like to help pave the way for Hillary on her road to the White House, I'd love it if you would make a contribution to her historic campaign. Those TeeVee ads won't buy themselves after all!
Please help Hillary with whatever you can spare
$5, $20, $50, $100 or even (!!!) a thousand bucks. It all adds up and you'll be a part of history by helping out.
Thanks!