Blast from the past: Obama calls Sen. Barbara Boxer “a cutie” (Plus: update on how we can fight back)
In the wake of sweetie-gate, someone emailed me this story from a year ago:
Obama, speaking at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco, raised eyebrows Monday at a fundraiser for Sen. Barbara Boxer when, as we reported, the Illinois Senator described his Democratic colleague from California as “a fighter, a leader, a charmer, a cutie.”
The remark “set off a lot of murmuring,” said one Democratic strategist in attendance, “among a lot of very strong powerful women around Boxer there who were offended.”
The descriptive of a powerful feminist senator raised “a strategic question: is (Obama) ready for prime time? You don’t call a U.S. senator a ‘cutie,’” said the strategist, whose take was echoed by others.
Actually you do, if you’re Barack Obama. U.S. senators, journalists, pharmacists, factory workers – they’re all “sweeties” or “cuties” to Obama. As long as they’re female, that is. (Can you imagine him as President? Look out, Angela Merkel.)
What the hell is this man’s problem? He’s my age — mid-40s — and there is no excuse for this. He should know damn well not to talk to or about women in that manner. It reminds me of my first job back in 1980, when the male boss called all the women in the office “honey” and expected them to fetch him coffee. Workin’ 9 to 5…
But let me get back to that Boxer article from last year. Listen to this next bit (still quoting the unnamed strategist):
From an opposition research point of view, this marked “a swing and a miss” by Team Hillary: “It would have been easy to get the blogosphere and make sure Fox News and Drudge Report knew about (the quote), and watch it go .. because in a few months, nobody could have gotten away on it.”
The irony.
See, way back in February of 2007, people like me and that strategist and the women surrounding Sen. Boxer and probably the journalist who wrote that article — we all thought that something like publicly referring to a female senator as a “cutie” would be an automatic foul. We thought that public expressions of sexism would be frowned upon.
Thousands of Hillary Nutcrackers later, we know better. “Cutie” and “sweetie” are the least of it.
But the pushback is here. People are pissed. The premature coronation of Obama this past week — after Hillary won Indiana, after she won West Virginia in a blowout, when she’s sitting on the lead in the popular vote — was the last straw. Since the fat-cat politicians and pundits don’t give a good goddamn about sexism, we’ll just have to raise a stink ourselves. Just us chickens (and some enlightened roosters).
Cynthia Ruccia and Kimberly Myers went on Bill O’Reilly last night to explain why the treatment of Hillary is a deal-breaker for women and why they plan to leave the Democratic party in protest. The tubes have been burning up ever since with people trying to find out how they can contact Ruccia and help out. People have even been emailing me, and I didn’t know anything about it until this morning. HillBuzz has the name of the group and the contact info.
Steve Corbett is a radio host in Pennsylvania who apparently reached his own breaking point yesterday, and is now launching Operation Turndown to let the DNC know that we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!
Riverdaughter has a terrific round-up post this morning with more suggestions on what we can do right now make our voices heard: Friday: Fast II and Call to Action.
Spread the word!
4 Responses to “Blast from the past: Obama calls Sen. Barbara Boxer “a cutie” (Plus: update on how we can fight back)”
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AnninCA says:
I listened to Corbet’s show, and it was absolutely fabulous! Women from all over the country called in. He welcomed Obama supporters, too, and it was amazing how many of them made sexist remarks about her supporters and clearly had no idea that they were being offensive.
Check out his program for sure. The guy just cooks!
May 17th, 2008 at 10:16 am EST -
Maria says:
I bet he isnt even aware he made a slip up there, which makes it even worse. But what is really bad many college girls dont think its bad eithier.
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Susan Mayhew says:
“I bet he isnt even aware he made a slip up there, which makes it even worse. But what is really bad many college girls dont think its bad eithier.”
You are so right. He isn’t aware because he is a misogynist operating unchecked in a society that stands by when the number one cause of death in pregnancy is homicide and 1 in 4 women had been sexually abused by adulthood. He is an extreme misogynist in a a society that condones woman-hating and he was used it to his advantage.
Let’s see how Obama and his lunatics would like us to call him ‘bro’ or ‘boy’ or ‘cutie’… More importantly the zombies are saying = it’s the supreme court - read Barack on choice - he is not on record as supporting Roe v. Wade or any other issue that effects womens lives.
This guy is another con man - another george bush, the apparently non-threatening black guy who is a black power advocate and racist in uncle tom’s clothing. -
slythwolf says:
what is really bad many college girls dont think its bad eithier.
This is what we call blaming the woman instead of the patriarchy. You are in fact explicitly saying it’s worse for college women (women in college are not “girls”) to have been brainwashed into thinking sexism is acceptable, than it is for a man to be sexist. Not cool.
