Mommy Blogger performs auto-mindfuck online
Erin at Queen of Spain — apparently a popular mommy blogger, though I’ve never heard of her — thinks Hillary should step down. Why? Because she makes people uncomfortable, especially men. And this, according to Erin, has nothing to do with the fact that Hillary is a woman.
When I told myself it was gender that got people going, I refrained from asking and wanting you to step aside. Simply on principle, I wanted to see you run and win because they said it couldn’t be done. Because it was my belief, this was all about being a girl.
It’s not, and I was wrong.
I firmly believe while the gender issue has given you a handicap I hope we all one day overcome, it is NOT the reason people have a gut reaction to you or your campaign or your legacy.
It’s not? Gee, what is the reason, then?
Erin doesn’t know. No fucking clue. She says:
For some reason you still get people very riled up, and not in the good way.
And that’s it. That’s the extent of the analysis. Hillary may be the best-qualified candidate, but for some mysterious, unfathomable reason that Erin can’t quite put her finger on, people don’t like her. Especially men.
So Hillary should quit. It’s awful, men feeling threatened and stuff. We can’t have that! Much better to just wait quietly and patiently for some nice lady to come along who the men will accept. Then maybe, if our husbands agree, we can have a lady president.
In the meantime, we can have President Jesus Obama. Because once he’s the Democratic nominee, the Republicans will just roll over. McCain will withdraw his candidacy and there won’t even be a Republican on the ticket. There won’t even have to be a campaign! No fighting, no mudslinging, no character assassination, nothing. In fact, the Republican party will probably just fold right up! No more red state-blue state culture war, no more wingnuts, no more fundies, no more neo-cons, nothing. Everybody in the country will grow their hair long and we’ll join hands and sing kumbaya. I can’t wait.
17 Responses to “Mommy Blogger performs auto-mindfuck online”
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JadeWolf says:
Excellent deconstruction what Erin was actually saying behind all her careful words.
Ugh, and the vast majority of the comments on her post are “wow, you articulated exactly how I feel but could not express” or “I have always hated Hillary and here are 500 words on why…”
As if we needed further empirical evidence that the patriarchy has taken deep root in people’s minds, there is apparently a huge tide of people out there who are “uncomfortable” with Sen. Clinton’s candidacy, but can’t quite put their finger on why. Hmmm, I wonder.
February 15th, 2008 at 4:37 pm EST -
rawdawgbuffalo says:
well if obama doesnt get the nod, i hope the dems wont run into a brick wall
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octogalore says:
So would Erin quit her job as an anchor if someone else was “uncomfortable” with her in that position?
Oh wait…
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shy virago says:
You made my day! Because if I walk around town, I know I’m alone. This place is full of hip white young people, most of them would never vote for a woman.
I am not so old (43) but I feel old. What happened to the movments? Now everybody’s hanging out online (oops!) so we no longer meet face to face and talk strategy and take the streets.
Everything in America is about who looks young, cool and popular. How is Obama a ‘healing’ candidate? He supports invasion of Iran, the death penalty, voted to invade Iraq, he works for the System! Oh, I forgot. He’s good looking, young, wears a tie and gives good speeches. That is all that matters.
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Virginia Ray says:
The war broke us up for good - I and other feminists wanted to use the war to destroy Sharia - work with the soldiers through the State Dept’s Office of International Women’s issues which was doing it with Afghan & Iraqi women. We needed a US feminist movement to insist on influencing the constitutions, build shelters and arm the women to be their own police force - use the military in the way Japan was reorganized after WWII (I don’t want to get into a big futile conversation - this is shorthand talk). Most left women wanted to get Bush and being anti war was the way. They were silent on the oppression of women under the Muslim theocracy and even justified it. We did not influence anything. We just remembered why we were sick of feminist organizing and the women who exploited other women in the name of feminism.
Now these same women who prevented organizing WITH the troops and influenced other women to ignore the status of women in Iraq and Afghanistan are arguing for Obama and his middle east policy. And some of us are still buying the rest of their line. Meanwhile, our sisters in Iraq who were armed are having their guns taken away and the shelters closed, their newsletters shut down and their arms and legs chopped off. In Afghanistan hope is dying. But hey, no problem because Change is in the air here.
I think what goes around, comes around. I am not right wing as I have been called so many times during this war - I am a feminist organizer and I know our movement should have been change agents for Muslim women during this war not supporting Code Pink. But that would have made our friends uncomfortable - made us uncomfortable. We are afraid to be labeled as the voice that challenges the norm because now we have a lot to lose. And I feel now it is too late. I hope I am wrong.
So at least the Hill has brought all this woman hatred to the surface and I don’t have to argue with women who can pretend they are speaking from a concern for women’s rights anymore. At least things have been made very clear.
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Ken says:
To the proprietor of this shitty blog:
You need to do two things - take a remedial course in reading comprehension, and then re-read Erin’s piece.
And fucking grow up. Re-read your last paragraph and try to tell yourself you’re not ashamed for composing such smart-assed, childish tripe.
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blondie says:
Maybe someday I will be able to get over the foolishness I have just read at the “Queen of Spain” website, but right now, I’m fighting the urge to bang my head.
The self-proclaimed feminists commenting over there say things like I would never vote for someone just because she’s a women, but it would be nice to see a woman in the White House. They must have Stockholm syndrome because it’s like trying to reason with someone in a cult.
I think it was in The Usual Suspects where someone said something like the devil’s greatest trick was convincing the world he doesn’t exist. One of the patriarchy’s greatest tricks was convincing women it doesn’t exist.
Senator Clinton is divisive. She makes people uncomfortable. She should just quit. Do you suppose they would agree had someone said the same thing to Martin Luther King, Jr.?
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The Ghost of Violet says:
I think “Ken” must be Erin herself. She’s got a response up wherein she calls me a bitch and repeats about a thousand times that sexism has nothing to do with people’s attitudes to Hillary. Also that only old school 60s feminists are silly enough to think there’s some sexism going on, ’cause younger feminists are too smart to be fooled. They know that We’ve Come A Long Way.
Apparently Erin and her friend see things like the Hillary Nutcracker, the C.U.N.T. anti-Hillary group, the Hillary Clinton: Stop Running For President And Make Me A Sandwich group, the endless Rush Limbaugh and Chris Matthews diatribes, the 62 posts over at Shakespeare’s Sister documenting the sexism in the media’s coverage of Hillary, and they see clearly that what’s going on is that people simply disagree with Hillary’s politics. No sexism there at all. Only antique 60s feminists are still banging away on that patriarchy nonsense. (I’m guessing Erin doesn’t read Shakespeare’s Sister or Feministing or Pandagon.)
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Charity says:
She is a Huffington Post drone…I’ve never read anything particularly feminist from her. I also note how she continually decries how “divisive” Hillary is, without reflecting on exactly why…yeah, last time I checked, misogyny was pretty damn divisive.
Also, resorting to “bitch” when criticized by another woman…now that has nothing to do with internalized sexism either, clearly!!
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dd7 says:
I found Erin’s letter to be one of the most intriguing things I have read online during this entire election cycle. Her plea for Hillary to drop out of the race can be analyzed on multiple levels. To me, one of the most interesting aspects of Erin’s letter from the perspective of feminist theory is the way she appeals quite directly to gender roles.
Erin makes an attempt to deny that the “Hillary-haters” are motivated by sexism or misogyny, although she admittedly has no alternative idea about where the hatred might come from. Regardless, it is there and it makes her uncomfortable; it gets in the way of a process of healing and unification that she sees as an important and central goal for this election. She begs Hillary to end the conflict by stepping down and becoming a “power behind the throne;” that is, Erin wants Hillary to relinquish her own quest for power and to conform to the traditional Western conceptualization of female power as achieved mostly through influence over men.
Another way of putting this is that, by stepping out of her traditional gender role, Hillary has upset a lot of people, including Erin. The only way for things to be made right is for Hillary to autonomously end the conflict (thereby conforming to the non-confrontational role we ascribe to women) and assume a role whereby her achievements and power are executed through influence in the (obviously male-lead) Obama administration rather than in her own. Her vision of Hillary’s self-sacrifice is impassioned, and she argues that the symbolic power of her witdrawal would represent would translate into greater power for Hillary herself once she assumes the more appropriate, more behind-the-scenes role.
I could go on and on about this; as I said, this letter is a treasure trove and I find it fascinating. That said, I have to say I could not disagree with Erin more. In fact, I don’t think anyone should agree with Erin; regardless of whether you support Obama or Clinton, the nomination is clearly still up for grabs, and until it is locked down through the actual nomination process I see no defensible mandate for either candidate or campaign to quit.
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simply wondered says:
as ken might say ‘why don’t you women shut up about sexism and do something useful for us men?’
yep! that sure showed those damned feminists the difference between reasoned argument and cheap abuse. just fyi, this is what cheap abuse sounds like:
ken, go fuck yourself - i don’t think anyone else will lower themselves to do it.
i rather like a bit of cheap abuse myself. -
Queen of Spain says:
I’m Erin, and I have no idea who Ken is-feel free to check your stats to see where this comment comes from.
I do not disagree for a second that sexism is alive and well. I do not disagree that Senator Clinton has been subjected to sexism during her life and this campaign.
I do not believe sexism is the reason people do not vote for her.
They do not and will not vote for her due to her record, her policy, and yes her personality. Personality issues do not equal default misogyny. If I were to agree that my need for a united Democratic Party prior to late August were simply a nod to the patriarchy rule, it would be like saying women have made absolutely no strides in this fight.
Which is illogical and narrow minded.
Tell me-where is the feminist outrage at all the african-american women supporting Obama?
I assume it’s easy for you to call the White Suburban Mom some sort of traitor to her gender for seeing the value in Clinton ending her run.
For the record, I’ve never called you a bitch. If you are referring to the tile of my post, in which you are linked along with Erica Jong, I would also refer you to the “bra” link in where I send readers to the myth of bra burning. Maybe my attempts at sarcasm were unclear.
Pandagon, Feministing, Tennessee Guerilla Women, Shakespeare’s Sister among many others are all daily reads and I frequently link them in my news round-up posts at BlogHer. Feel free to go look.
I’m happy to agree to disagree about *why* people do not like and will not vote for Hillary.
I’m also happy to not vote for the Senator simply due to her gender. If Senator Obama were the lesser candidate I would have written him the same thing.
I suppose then I’d be accused of racism, and how I can’t possibly understand that it’s really society’s view on skin color that is blinding me in my emotion. How delusional of me and silly and oh she is so very stupid to not see the implications of asking the African American man to step down.
I’d much rather see staunch feminists at the very least show some respect to women who vote because they are educated on the issues and firmly believe one candidate better qualified to lead this nation.
Where is the progress if a woman making up her OWN mind is immediately construed as having been influenced by misogyny?
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The Ghost of Violet says:
Erin, you seem to be responding to a post I didn’t write. A mythical post wherein I insisted that all women must vote for Hillary, that if they don’t they are a traitor to their sex, and that sexism is the ONLY reason a person could have for not voting for Hillary.
I wrote none of those things. Ever. Anywhere.
What I did write was a response to your post wherein you asserted that sexism has NOTHING to do with people’s aversion to Hillary. NOTHING. If you’d written something like, “a bunch of the opposition to Hillary is sexist, but of course not all of it,” there would be nothing to talk about because that’s true. But you didn’t write that.
I know plenty of people who prefer Obama because they really think he’s the better candidate, or because they really oppose the Clinton legacy and think Obama will do better, or because they are inspired by the breakthrough of having the first African-American president. Nothing wrong with that.
But to ignore that a huge amount of the antagonism to Hillary IS based on sexism is pure blindness.
For most feminists watching this race, the revelation of sexism has been astounding. Before the campaign really got started it was easier to imagine that much of the antagonism to Hillary was just personal, not sexist. In the past couple of months it has become clear just how much this is still about misogyny. Well, clear to every feminist I know except you.
Yes, we can disagree about this, but I frankly think you’re kidding yourself and your readers.
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Loyal Reader says:
Hey Erin, when you talk about Clinton’s “record and policy” some specifics would be nice. Obama voted like Clinton did for most of his extremely short Senate career on most issues. I’m glad he had opposed the war, but by 2005 when he joined the Senate, that was a pretty obvious call, don’t you think? Do you prefer his more conservative (by all accounts) position on national health care? What is it you find so far beyond Clinton that you would short circuit the primary process to advance?
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octogalore says:
Loyal Reader, I should probably let Erin respond, but I think one can guess the, uh, item in question, sadly.
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blondie says:
With all due respect, Erin, your open letter to Senator Clinton did not take her to task for her record or policies. You stated she should step down due to people’s “gut reaction” or “emotional reaction” to her.
Trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, maybe you meant her personality, but I question how true a picture the public gets of the personality of any candidate for public office. And if people don’t like Clinton’s personality because they find her too aggressive, too outspoken, strident, brazen, etc., we’re falling right back into gender-roles and double-standards that I wish we were long past.
Try this … where your piece talks about Senator Clinton and gender, replace her name with Senator Obama and race, and see how that strikes you.
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Queen of Spain says:
I think that is just it-when I sat down to write that letter is was an emotional response. I had no intention of making it an essay on record or policy or votes on particular legislation.
I’d like to believe my emotions are based in the facts of those things-however it was a very personal piece in my mind because I felt as though I needed to explain to a woman I admire why she has lost my vote.
I absolutely do think of think of the race issue as well, and have mentioned as such several times. With two very similar records and plans by the candidates, I concluded the polarizing response people have to Senator Clinton was her downfall. Which is why the gender/race issues brought up here and at other sites I *normally* agree with also baffles me.
If we *do* replace Senator Obama in the piece I wrote, and we *do* discuss the many sexist and racist things that are still prevalent in our society- the fact still remains that *despite* his race he seems to posses the ability to bring people together. So I can not logically conclude that any polarizing aspects of Senator Clinton can be directly attributed to her gender entirely. If we look at it in the way you suggest than Senator Clinton does not seem to have the ability to bring people together *despite* her gender.
I suppose then you can bring up the race vs. gender who has it worse discussion but I’m not sure that is going to land us anywhere solid either. Just the number of black woman alienated by Gloria Steinem’s op-ed was enough of that for me, thanks.
The point, for me, is that you can pick apart my letter down to each word, but as it’s author I can tell you flat out it was written out of emotion and respect. I see an opportunity for this country that I have never seen in my lifetime and I can’t help but feel moved to support and do my part.
And I think the responses it has provoked shows a nation just as confused and torn by all this as I am.
So the auto-mindfuck continues I guess? Either way, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that everyone’s hearts are in the right places and while I have a tremendous amount of respect for the women who are offended by my piece, please don’t assume it was crafted to in any way support patriarchy or sexism.
