Open mouth, insert foot

A mayor of a small town in Australia has been awarded the country's yearly award for most outrageous, sexist comment for asking "ugly ducklings" to move to a remote mining town to reverse a shortage of eligible women. Here is what I want to know: does this man actually expect any woman to move to this town now?

The McCain/Palin Candidacy as a Metaphor for "Finding" a Fish in Your Penis

At what point do we just shut down and let them lie themselves out of the room because asking them for the truth just feels like we are trying to embarrass them and is too embarrassing for us?

Have they reached that point in lie-telling where they will forever misremember this campaign as what they purport it to be and not as it objectively was?

Ok, I have a problem with this

This morning, while my students took an exam, I made use of my time by catching up on email and checking out some news sites and a few other sites that I tend to check out regularly. One sight was the NOW website. Let me begin by writing that I am becoming increasingly disillusioned with NOW, primarily because their brand of feminism is becoming dated. But that is a topic for another post.

This morning's annoyance comes from an analysis of the recent New York Times cover. Here is the article on NOW's site. I'm annoyed because this is the first time (at least that I can remember; I didn't troll the archives of the site to make sure I am indeed 100% correct) that NOW has offered analysis of the racism present in the Presidential Campaign. Until now, their analysis of the media has focused almost exclusively on sexism as it has been leveled against Hillary Clinton. To me this--the failure to recognize that racism and sexism are so often linked--demonstrates one of the primary problems with mainstream feminism, if NOW's brand of feminism can, in fact, be seen as mainstream.

NOW's Media Hall of Shame

The NOW website has a fun quiz I thought the readers of the Situation might be interested in. There are a list of the "worst" and most "sexist" media offenses from the Democratic Primary season.

Is anyone really surprised?

I'm always a bit annoyed when the results of studies examining the "lingering" affects of sexism are released. One such study, on Title IX, has just been released. I do think these studies are important and keep the general public aware that yes, sexism and gender discrimination continue to exist in our country. But my immediate reaction is always, "Well, yeah. Didn't everyone know that?"

And of course the answer is, no, everyone didn't know that. Or at the very least, most Americans seem to believe that gender discrimination is a non-issue. I am continually amazed that people, especially the young women that I teach, believe that sexism no longer exists. I have been repeatedly surprised and angered by the lack of attention given the issue of gender discrimination in the current presidential campaign. The racist ways that Barack Obama has been treated (often by his fellow candidates) has received a fair amount of attention, and deservedly so. But those who recognize this overt racism seem less willing to acknowledge the sexism that is also pervading the campaign. Certainly Hillary Clinton has called attention to her gender (as Obama has called attention to his race), and there are those who would argue that by playing the gender card herself she should be prepared to be criticized for playing it. But, thus far, no one is saying that Obama should be prepared to be criticized for playing the race card.

It is a fact in this country that sexism has always taken a back seat to racism, and again, perhaps justifiably so. Historically, victims of racism has suffered much more than victims of sexism, but both minorities and women have suffered tremendously, and both continue to suffer. Further, racism and sexism know no boundaries, and many women are victims of both. But few people are surprised to be told that racism is still an issue in this country, but everywhere I go I meet people who tell me, "Sexism doesn't exist anymore." Why is that?

Call her Clinton

I want to initiate a conversation here that I began at Separation of Spheres. All political preferences aside, I'm having a really hard time with the media's tendency to call Hillary Rodham Clinton by her first name. Our own Megs even does it in one of her recent posts. I'm sorry to use you as an example, Megs, but you have, unfortunately, illustrated it beautifully. People from Maureen Dowd to Chris Matthews to the other candidates have routinely referred to Clinton by her first name. Calling her "Hillary" rather than "Clinton" is sexist and disrespectful. No one ever (at least not as far as I can tell and I have been looking) refers to Barack Obama, John Edwards, John McCain, or Mike Huckabee by their first names--not even the people they are running against. And to reiterate the point I made here, no one is calling Senator Clinton by her first name to differentiate between her and former-President Clinton. In the appropriate context, I think the average American realizes what Clinton is running for president in 2008. I also don't buy the argument that the media and political pundits call her by her first name because they are familiar with her from her time as First Lady. Last time I checked no one was calling Laura Bush by her first name; she was being respectfully addressed as Mrs. Bush or as the First Lady. Calling Senator Clinton by her first name implicitly questions her ability to do the job and , her viability as a candidate, disrespects the work she has done for the country, and directly undermines her authority as a U.S. Senator. While I certainly don't think the average person consciously does any of these things, I do think that Clinton's opponents and the Republicans are conscious of what it means to refer to a woman in power by her first name. Further Calling her "Hillary" rather than "Clinton" is the equivalent of calling adult women girls while calling adult men men.