And we thought the woman-hating couldn’t get any worse

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25 Responses to “And we thought the woman-hating couldn’t get any worse”

1. Infidel753 says:
   

   Too true. It’s staggering how much filth has been flung in the short five days since McCain announced Palin as his choice.

   Too much of the Obama cult has the mentality and sophistication of drooling frat boys. Small wonder that McCain has been able to “play them like a piano”, as Murphy said.

   Having voted for Clinton in the primaries, I’ve now reached the point of supporting McCain based on issues: mostly national security and the need to reverse the hijacking of the Democratic party by this malignant cult. But the barrages of invective and filth from the Obama mob are making me a lot more comfortable with that decision than I otherwise would have been.

   September 3rd, 2008 at 2:48 pm EST
2. Tim J. says:
   

   The Democrats were willing to divide and attack their base in order to keep a woman off the ticket.

   On the other hand, adding a woman to the ticket was what finally united the Republican base.

   I think we can now safely say which party is truly the home of misogyny.

   September 3rd, 2008 at 3:05 pm EST
3. Violet says:
   

   Infidel, that comment doesn’t even sound like you. Did someone else write it?

   September 3rd, 2008 at 3:29 pm EST
4. tinfoil hattie says:
   

   Yeah, I just got banned from The Left Coaster for daring to insist, quite vehemently, that Bristol Palin is not fair game, and that posters who hold her up as an example of the egregious wrongness of Sarah Palin’s policies are no better than the right wing they claim to despise so much.

   Truth hurts, eh?

   I am kind of proud. It’s my first-ever banning, and I couldn’t have picked a better lefty blog from which to be banned. Except Kos, maybe.

   September 3rd, 2008 at 3:33 pm EST
5. Violet says:
   

   What in the hell is WRONG with these people?

   September 3rd, 2008 at 3:36 pm EST
6. Infidel753 says:
   

   Maybe you have more than one person going by “Infidel”-something-or-other?

   September 3rd, 2008 at 3:55 pm EST
7. Violet says:
   

   Oh yes, you’re a completely different Infidel. Sorry.

   September 3rd, 2008 at 4:03 pm EST
8. Ugsome says:
   

   I am spitting nails over this.

   Long before the Sarah Palin pick I realized that so-called liberal men are hypocritical backstabbers.

   Let’s drag Clinton and Palin before the House Un-Feminine Activities Committee, shine krieglights in their eyes, and ask them if they had ever sought power while engaging in reproductive activities.

   “Let us not assassinate this [lass] further. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

   September 3rd, 2008 at 4:23 pm EST
9. Ciccina says:
   

   There’s no such thing as too many infidels, that’s what I say.

   I’m glad to see your post, Violet. I’m feeling the same way. Just posted something sort of similar but not nearly as good at my place. The gist of which is - the GOP has started rolling out a series of statements and press conferences by Republican women and men defending Palin against the scurrilous sexist attacks from the Democrats and the MSM. Mike Huckabee has grabbed the high ground. Which should never, ever have happened and wouldn’t have happened if the Obama Dems hadn’t already laid the groundwork for the claim that they think sexism and misogyny are acceptable and useful campaign tactics. Their hands were already dirty; its not a stretch to accuse them of playing in the mud.

   I guess that’s the tactical problem with abandoning the high ground. Someone else might take it.

   I was wondering how things might be different now if Obama had made the same kind of statement he made about laying off of Palin’s family, about sexism and Senator Clinton instead. He might have done it right after New Hampshire, when it became absolutely clear that rank and file Democratic women voters were disgusted by what they were hearing. But he didn’t.

   Surprise (but not to you!) announcements like the Palin pick can really separate some wheat from some chaff. Some people heard “Gov. Sarah Palin” and thought - huh, I never heard of her. I should find out what she’s all about. Others heard “Gov. Sarah Palin” and thought - a woman! she must have been chosen just because she’s a woman! She must be a completely unqualified lightweight! She must serve no other purpose than to exist while female! And then they got stuck there.

   Right now the bar is set so low for Palin that if she can walk to the podium without tripping it will be seen as a bravura performance. I can see it now: “my god! she can speak in complete sentences! I didn’t know they could do that in Alaska! And to think she didn’t even go to Harvard; why, she sounds just like people!”

   September 3rd, 2008 at 4:46 pm EST
10. Briar says:
    

    But it isn’t just the men. Liberal (so called) women are just as bad, sniggering at Palin’s name, at her background, at her children. No matter how educated they are, they still descend to the state of school kids sniggering as they scrawl obscenities on toilet walls when tearing apart another woman for the sin of being a woman. It’s a kind of madness, a feeding frenzy, a plague of locusts - it doesn’t feel human at all. This is the kind of insanity that swept lynch mobs along. Now the internet seems to have burrowed into human brains and produced the same effect in living room upon living room all round the world. A ravening mob of individuals infected by some kind of viral meme brought together by the world wide web.

    September 3rd, 2008 at 4:49 pm EST
11. apostate says:
    

    It is not as far from the recent murders of women in Pakistan - shot and buried alive - as we would like to believe.

    This? This is called appropriation.

    The idea that someone would dare compare people being buried alive with tabloid news is what blows my mind.

    September 3rd, 2008 at 4:56 pm EST
12. Violet says:
    

    This? This is called appropriation.

    I disagree. Anglachel is treading the same ground that Twisty so often does, pointing out that patriarchy is a continuum.

    September 3rd, 2008 at 5:00 pm EST
13. apostate says:
    

    “Continuum” and “not so far from” are very different things.

    September 3rd, 2008 at 5:01 pm EST
14. cellocat says:
    

    “The idea that someone would dare compare people being buried alive with tabloid news is what blows my mind.”

    Of course the degree is different. Of course it seems like a huge stretch. But have you ever felt a threat from a man or men who had a certain look in their eyes? Have you ever had a man or men touch you against your will? Have you felt the increase of threat since the rampant sexism during this campaign season began? I have.

    I have a friend who lived in Germany for a year, and she said it was like having a higher quotient of oxygen in her lungs to be able to walk down the street without worrying about her personal safety. A guy was coming on to her at a train station, and when she told him, sharply, to let her alone, he jerked away and looked around to see if anyone had seen. He knew that there would be societal disapproval, and he feared it. Imagine that happening here. No, I didn’t think you could.

    It’s not just the tabloid news. It’s the whole environment, which we can feel shifting down into a darker and more threatening place. The MSM, the blogosphere, the tabloids, the feeling I’ve experienced in the Obama crowd; all of these contribute to it.

    Who would have imagined death camps at the turn of the century in Germany? Fighting sexism isn’t about being PC, isn’t about being a prude, isn’t about just wanting good manners. It’s about fostering and protecting human rights, about creating an environment in which people don’t have to fear attack, assault, disgust, dismissal, disrespect given them on the basis of their gender or appearance. It’s about aligning our actions with our values, and fighting hatred and hypocrisy where we find them. It’s about all that and more, and I’m sure others will be happy to add more to my limited definition.

    September 3rd, 2008 at 5:11 pm EST
15. Violet says:
    

    “Continuum” and “not so far from” are very different things.

    You’re over-parsing. It’s a phrase.

    In one of Twisty’s most memorable posts, she said something like “the hijab is the pearl choker is the stripper pole” — literary license and not to be taken literally.

    September 3rd, 2008 at 5:27 pm EST
16. Randall Shake says:
    

    Maybe it is time to walk on the Democratic Party and to form a completely new Political party. That does not see working People, Non Ivy League Educated People as Vermin to be micro managed. I never thought that the Party that was least prejudiced would be the Republicans. We need a strong opposition party. To keep the Corporate and Money Interests in line with our laws. And to represent the Interests of ordinary citizens. That Party is no longer the Democratic Party.

    Like many I did not leave it. It left me. I often refuse to vote, I will not be held accountable for voting for a Candidate I cannot tolerate let alone consent to their poor Governance and self interests ahead of the public Interests.

    It is outrageous to trash the Children of Sarah Palin. Make the Race about issues. Not about whose Child smoked dope, got drunk at a party, in other words did the bone head ordinary things normal people do.

    September 3rd, 2008 at 6:20 pm EST
17. salt h2o says:
    

    Watching McCain’s campaign from the primaries to now has lead me to believe the man is brilliant- he goes with his gutt and his gutt works.

    As much as he was so NOT my pick, watching his political strategy and savvy, I’m starting to think he would be an excellent leader.

    September 3rd, 2008 at 6:29 pm EST
18. Infidel753 says:
    

    But it isn’t just the men. Liberal (so called) women are just as bad

    The reverse is also true. A lot of men are appaled at this stuff.

    I don’t even agree with half of Palin’s stands on issues, but nobody should be subjected to this.

    It’s not just the tabloid news. It’s the whole environment, which we can feel shifting down into a darker and more threatening place.

    Some of the talk has had undertones of violence. Remember Olberman talking about somebody taking Clinton into a back room and her not coming out. Some of these guys would go beyond talk if they got the chance.

    September 3rd, 2008 at 6:42 pm EST
19. Sis says:
    

    “Let’s drag Clinton and Palin before the House Un-Feminine Activities Committee, shine krieglights in their eyes, and ask them if they had ever sought power while engaging in reproductive activities.”

    Oh my this is good. I take it back Vi. You can keep these posters.

    It’s pathetic really isn’t it, how the boys can’t think of anything but sex. There are lots of things about that make me unhappy: Her ambition and steel not among them.

    September 3rd, 2008 at 8:10 pm EST
20. Lexia says:
    

    I think what’s really got the bot’s going so fast and furious is that Gov. Palin is a different side of the female stereotype from Sen. Clinton and the one that scares them the most. She fits the ultimate stereotypical qualification for women and can’t possibly be discounted as not really being one. No wonder they’re freaking out, there’s nowhere to hide from this.

    September 3rd, 2008 at 11:04 pm EST
21. Ciccina says:
    

    Must agree that some of our so-called sisters are among the worst offenders. I watched Sally Quinn this evening argue that Palin is a bad mother for working in her situation. When Bill O’Reilly !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! told her that wasn’t fair, since men aren’t asked the same questions, Quinn said it was fair because running for VP is important, and women are “different.”

    Everything is backwards now.

    September 3rd, 2008 at 11:04 pm EST
22. Lori says:
    

    What has creeped me out is the way the blogger boyz have spent the past few days talking about childbirth, labor, amniotic fluid and lactation as if they know more about it then womnen. When Anglachel talks about the young women in Pakistan being killed and the way Palin is being talked about - that’s what she’s addressing. The weird objectification of women and women’s bodies that both things required.

    My husband asked me why the women on the PUMA sites (several of whom he knows personally and thinks highly of) seeem to angry at men in general. So I went to Daily Kos and Craig’s List to read him some of the posts about Palin and he was pretty horrified by how they talk.

    On Craig’s List, they were actually speculating on how the size of her daughter’s breasts in a photo could only mean she’s breastfeeding. and these long discussions about how no one leaking amnioitc fluid would fly as if they know anything about this stuff.

    Tonight, I, a happily married woman with two adorable and brilliant sons, am so uncomfortable with men as a group that I just don’t know what to do. where’s the red tent? I need to go hide.

    September 4th, 2008 at 1:20 am EST
23. Sis says:
    

    Post #15: why I love this blog. Well, and the razor sharp analysis too.

    All these terribly clever feminist bloggers–didn’t they ever study poetry?

    September 4th, 2008 at 2:04 am EST
24. tinfoil hattie says:
    

    Actually, Lori, if you google “Red Tent Temple Movement,” there are Red Tents sprouting up in the U.S., and some overseas, too! They’re held once a month, usually around tne new moon, and women gather somewhere and just exist, safely and peacefully, for several hours. It’s amazing. I have gone to a Red Tent in the DC area every month since December 07, and I love them. We didn’t have them for 2 months in the summer, and I am literally parched for one!

    /OT

    September 4th, 2008 at 8:39 am EST
25. Yanni Znaio says:
    

    Anglachel:

    I was about to post that there are times when I am embarrassed by most of my gender until I fairly shortly thereafter remembered that there’s a distaff side to the MSM as well.

    Well said. If you were at the range, they’d score it as a 10.

    Best regards,

    YZ

    September 21st, 2008 at 2:31 am EST

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