If you vote for Obama, this is what you’re voting for (Reminder #13)
In yesterday’s reminder I talked about the male-left shell game, the pitch to women that their issues will be adequately addressed in the general (male-run) revolution. Didn’t happen with the French Revolution, didn’t happen with 20th century socialism, didn’t happen with 1960s radicals. And it’s not going to happen with Barack Obama.
That pro-Obama women should even imagine that it will is testament to women’s enormous capacity for self-delusion. This is a coping mechanism, of course; in a woman-hating society, women must be able to block out the misogyny at least partially in order to stay sane. We see that perfectly with the Obama campaign, which has unleashed the most vicious bout of public woman-hating I’ve ever seen in this country. And yet there are women who simply refuse to see it, who persuade themselves that somehow this band of sexists and misogynists will have their interests at heart.
There were two historic candidates for President this year: the first viable female candidate, and the first viable African-American candidate. One of these was greeted as a transcendent historic figure, a symbol of our nation’s redemption. The other was treated as a cunt.
Barack Obama deliberately exploited the strains of misogyny in our culture to defeat Hillary Clinton. That’s important, because it’s the key thing that many women still refuse to see. They want to imagine that somehow the misogyny that saturated Obama’s campaign was just an incidental byproduct of our society, nothing specifically to do with Obama or his campaign. This is self-delusion. This is denial.
From the beginning, Obama’s campaign exploited the 15 years of rightwing misogyny that had painted Hillary Clinton as a monstrous she-devil. Hillary Clinton was “one of the most secretive politicians in America today” said the Obama campaign. She was controlling and abusive. She and Bill were corrupt moral bankrupts who tried to profit from 9-11. Remember all those scandals from the 90s? Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And what really happened with Vince Foster, anyway? And how about the sex angle? Is Hillary some kind of lesbo or frigid ballbuster or what? As Michelle Obama herself said, if she can’t keep her own house together, how’s she going to keep the White House together?
The tone was set by Obama, and his enablers amplified the message:
Hillary Clinton is a bitch. A big ol’ bitchy bitch. And a cunt. A “big fucking whore.” Fortunately, you can “call a woman anything.” She’s “Nurse Ratched.” She’ll castrate you if she gets a chance. She would like that. She’s a “She-Devil.” She’s a madam, and her daughter’s a whore. She’s frigid, and she can’t give head. She’s a “She-Devil.” A lesbian. A nag. When things get tough, she cries like a big dumb GIRL. In fact, she’s just that — a “little girl.” In FACT, she wants to “cry her way to the White House.” To be, ahem, “Crybaby-in-Chief.” That proves that she’s not tough enough. But she’s also not feminine enough. She’s “screechy.” She’s an “aging, resentful female.” She’s “Sister Frigidaire.” She really ought to quit running for President and stick to housework. She basically spent her entire time as First Lady going to tea parties. She’s a monster who just won’t die. In fact, she really should just die. You can buy a urinal target with her face on it to express what you really think of her. OMG she’s got claws! She’s crazy. In fact, she’s a lunatic. She’s petty and vindictive and entitled. She’s a washed-up old hag. She’s “everybody’s first wife standing outside probate court.” She’s a “scolding mother.” She’s shrill… shrill… shrill. She can’t take it when people are mean to her. She’s a “hellish housewife.” She’s Tanya Harding. She CAN’T be President, what with the mood swings and the menses. Any woman who votes for her is voting with her vagina, not her brain. Women only like Hillary because she’s a fellow Vagina-American. And because they vote with their feelings. Frankly, anyone who still thinks we need “feminine role models” should get over it and move on, already. Oh, and men who support her are castratos in the eunuch chorus. You shouldn’t make her President because she wants it too much. She’s totally just banking on support from ugly old feminists. And she looooves to “play the victim.” She cackles! And cackles. And cackles. It’s like she’s a witch or something! She’s definitely “witchy.” And now you can buy her cackle as your ring tone. Her voice, too, is “grating”–like “fingernails on a blackboard” to “some men.” She’s hiding behind her gender. She isn’t a “convincing mom” because she’s too strident. She never did anything on her own. Her husband keeps her on a leash. She hates men. Her campaign is a “catfight.” She makes people want to kill themselves, is like a “domineering mother,” and is cold. And OMG she has boobies! All of which are reasons to hate her. (And boy, could I go on.)
Oh, and if you even mention any of this, you’re either silly or a bad person.
It’s at about this point that the denialists start insisting that Obama can’t control his followers, and his campaign isn’t responsible for what people in the media or the netroots say. But remember, the following two things cannot both be true:
1. Obama, with the help of David “the Astroturf King” Axelrod, has run a brilliant internet/grassroots/media campaign, shaping the discourse in the netroots and the media throughout the election season.
2. Obama has no knowledge of, or control over, the virulent misogyny that his supporters have displayed on virtually every pro-Obama outpost in the netroots and the media.
I wish now that I had saved the hundreds of comments from Obama trolls that I have deleted from my moderation queue over the past year. I should have kept them as an exhibit. I have never in my life — in my whole long life — been subjected to so much vitriol. I thought the MRAs (Mens Rights Activists) were bad, but Obamabots are worse. They’re like MRAs on crack. And every other Hillary blogger will tell you the same story. It is impossible to endure months of this without wondering what the hell kind of movement it is that attracts these people. The old “Obama can’t contol all his supporters” line starts to wear a little thin. Okay, granted, he can’t personally control all his supporters, but why are his supporters like this?
The plain, hard truth is that Obama never reined in his supporters because they were doing exactly what he wanted them to. Hillary’s destruction meant his triumph, and if harnessing misogyny was the way to destroy her, then fine. Think carefully about what Obama himself did — and did not do:
1. Exploited 15 years of misogynistic wingnut smears against Hillary throughout his campaign;
2. Never once reprimanded his supporters for their misogyny;
3. Never once acknowledged or denounced the sexism in the campaign;
4. Never once praised Hillary’s historic achievement — until after she’d conceded (while Hillary, in contrast, never failed to applaud Obama’s historic achievement);
5. Referred to Hillary as a “conventional” candidate, echoing the sentiments of his mentor Jeremiah Wright that women have never been discriminated against and a woman President would not represent any particular significance;
6. Never once denounced or expressed regret for the vicious personal insults of Hillary expressed by his good friends, Wright and Pfleger;
7. Delivered a major address on rooting out the bigotry that still exists in the black community (homophobia, anti-semitism) but never once mentioned sexism;
8. Consistently avoided any acknowledgment of sexism or of women’s rights in his speeches;
9. Employed a campaign manager who ridiculed Hillary for “crying” in New Hampshire “about her appearance”;
10. Consistently used sexist language to refer to Hillary — claws, tea parties, periodic moods, feeling down, “likable enough,” etc.;
11. Said Hillary ought to be “allowed” to stay in the race as long as she felt like it;
12. Strode into his Iowa victory party to the strains of “99 Problems (But A Bitch Ain’t One)”;
13. Gave Hillary the finger when she bested him in debate;
14. Stated that women in the pro-choice movement have been guilty of not treating abortion as the serious moral issue that it is;
15. Used terms like “cutie” and “sweetie” when addressing women — even Senator Barbara Boxer;
16. Said that women who were upset about the treatment of Hillary needed to “get over it” and refused to do anything to reach out to them;
17. Made condescending noises about how women shouldn’t be allowed to have abortions just because they’re “feeling blue”;
18. Jokingly reprimanded Bernie Mac for a sexist gag and then said, “I’m just messing with you, man!”;
19. Never distanced himself from prominent sexist supporters like Ludacris and Sean Combs, even when they produced songs and videos incredibly insulting to Hillary;
20. Invited sexist blowhard extraordinare Larry Summers to be a senior adviser to his campaign (and may possibly make him Secretary of the Treasury), a fitting follow-up to his support for another sexist Harvard alumnus, John Roberts.
Meanwhile David Axelrod’s astruturf army consistently stoked the fires of misogyny online. Sites like DailyKos and TPM and the Huffington Post became unofficial mouthpieces for the campaign. DailyKos was the ideal staging area for the ugliest smears, a place where nasty rumors could be planted. TPM handled the more reputable stuff, the “senior advisers say” stories. Huffington Post became a soapbox for C-list celebrities and washed-up politicians who wanted to express their personal feelings about just what a lying monstrous cunt Hillary Clinton really was.
“I’d rather vote for a black man than a menopausal woman,” said one young white male Obama supporter to a Hillary supporter. Because gawd, what’s more repellent than a menopausal woman?
The answer, as we would soon find out: a pre-menopausal woman.
To be continued in the next reminder.
24 Responses to “If you vote for Obama, this is what you’re voting for (Reminder #13)”
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slythwolf says:
There were two historic candidates for President this year: the first viable female candidate, and the first viable African-American candidate. One of these was greeted as a transcendent historic figure, a symbol of our nation’s redemption. The other was treated as a cunt.
Says it all, really.
November 4th, 2008 at 4:13 am EST -
slythwolf says:
18. Jokingly reprimanded Bernie Saunders for a sexist gag and then said, “I’m just messing with you, man!”
I believe this was in fact Bernie Mac.
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Violet says:
Brain fart! Thank you, I fixed it.
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myiq2xu says:
Although my political views have changed over the years I have been discussing, arguing and shooting my mouth off about politics since before I was old enough to vote. I’m a guy who spent 3 years in the military and 8 more in blue-collar male-only jobs and I have NEVER seen the kind of toxic discourse that we saw this year.
The things that were said weren’t just coarse and crude, they were personal in nature. A mild criticism of Obama or a defense of Hillary was often met with comments like “You’re a goat-fucking moron!” from total strangers.
And despite their claims, virtually all of it came from Obama supporters.
God save us if Obama wins.
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slythwolf says:
I am already telling my friends: If he wins, and fucks everything up, I will say I told you so.
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qaz says:
And yet there are women who simply refuse to see it, who persuade themselves that somehow this band of sexists and misogynists will have their interests at heart.
For me, that’s the biggest surprise. Feminist sites that I thought would denounce what was happening said nothing.
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Keri says:
Yeah I saw this happen too, and definitely I’ve never seen such a level of virluent misogyny- from people calling themsleves Democrats and people calling themselves feminists.
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cellocat says:
I was just talking with a good friend this morning, and he asked me if I’d made up my mind (I’ve been hemming and hawing for months between voting McKinney or McCain). I said yes, and that I’d be voting for McCain, because that’s the best way I can vote against Obama. I have just decided in the past couple of days. It has become clear to me that for me, the single most important, pivotal issue is feminism. How we handle sexism and misogyny is going to to play a critical role in whether we survive as a species or not. We must achieve 30% or more representation of women in government. We must get a great enough population of women into positions of power that they feel they can support each other instead of turning on each other (as we’ve seen this year with the detractors of both Hillary and Palin).
I feel more comfortable with this choice than I have yet, and I am intensely grateful for this blog, and for this series of postings in particular.
I have felt guilt over voting “negatively” against something; it goes against the meme that we should be positive and proactive. But for the first time, I realized today that voting against Obama is a vote I can make proudly, that it is proactive, and that setting that boundary and saying no is EXACTLY what is necessary.
I feel relieved and lightened.
Thanks to all of you!
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Marge Twain says:
“It’s at about this point that the denialists start insisting that Obama can’t control his followers, and his campaign isn’t responsible for what people in the media or the netroots say. ”
Next time another ‘bot does this to me, I’m going to ask them: If Barack Obama can’t run his own house, how can he run the White House?
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C.R. says:
In this phrase: “The tone was set by Obama, and his enablers amplified the message”,
the link for erica barnett article from 2008-5 is broken.
Is it this one here?http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=572890
Or here? http://www.thestranger.com/gyr.....amp;page=2
Thanks. -
Violet says:
Thank you! I’ve fixed the link.
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Shigatsu says:
I was very active in the Obama campaign. I am a feminist. I had to repetitively bring up how I was not going to allow sexist behavior in my group. I cannot deny that there was a lot of sexism and misogyny with the supporters of Obama.
I did not support Hillary Clinton, because I believe she compromised herself as a woman for power. Absolute power corrupts. I think that when people were sexist to her, she should have brought all those aspects up. Note how she didn’t. You discuss delusions. I think that Hillary needs to accept the responsibility as one of the greatest female leaders, to fight back. Hillary is typically quiet. She was quiet about her sexist womanizing husband. She was quiet about the sexism coming from the McCain and Obama campaign.
I did not support her because I cannot look up to a woman who is not willing to fight back the sexism in public. Bill had no consequences for his actions. She allowed it to go on. She would have allowed the sexism to go on in our country if she was elected as president.
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Violet says:
Note how she didn’t.
Actually she did. And whenever she did she was ridiculed for “playing the gender card.” It would have helped if more feminists in this country had had her back (too many of them were with you in the Obama camp, blaming Hillary for sexism.)
“Absolute power”? WHAT?
So you tune out every attempt by Hillary to fight back against sexism, and having tuned it out you then BLAME her for not doing the things you’ve tuned out, then you blame her for her husband’s behavior, then you blame her for sexism in our country at large.
And instead you work for the man who ran two grotesquely sexist smear campaigns.
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Shigatsu says:
Did you read the first portion of my comment? I did not tune out anything. I fought the sexism in the campaign.
Did Hillary say the word “sexism” in her campaign. So what if it was called the “gender card”. Do we stop being feminists because someone says we’re pulling the “gender card”?
I do not blame Hillary for her husband’s behavior. I do hold her accountable and responsible for how she reacted and behaved after he did what he did. She was quiet and did not discuss what a womanizer he was in public. What kind of message, as a female leader, say to the rest of the women in the US? She compromised herself like so many women do in the US for their spouses. It is not just Hillary. Most wives remain quiet in public while their husband humiliate them. Silence is a behavior. A learned behavior from a sexist society. Hillary responded typically. I would have expected a woman ready to be president to react differently.
I do not blame Hillary for sexism. I hold her accountable for her in-actions.
I also held the sexist males in the Obama campaign accountable. Again, I cannot deny the sexism in the Obama campaign. Sexism is much larger than the Obama campaign. It is a much bigger issue. Obama did not do enough to stop the sexism in his campaign. And honestly, I don’t expect him to. We are not healed enough as a people. We have not evolved enough. That is a reality. Hell, women are sexist to other women! If we can’t even get women to snap-to, then when will men?
There were also a lot of racist bigots in the McCain campaign. Obama discussed this at length. There were also racists in the Hillary campaign. How many feminists said racist or classist stereotypes about Obama? Did YOU keep them in check? Did Hillary?
We cannot control every single word that is uttered by people. One day we will grow as Americans and look beyond race, class, sex, etc.
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Shigatsu says:
Yes, I do have more expectations from Hillary — precisely because she IS a woman. I do not expect men to understand completely what a woman experiences. We’re not there yet as a people. Men are not there yet.
And for the record, despite this little argument we are having, I really love your entry. My favorite is the entire paragraph with links. That took a lot of work. I used to write at “www.femtique.net”, but since I have graduated, I don’t have the energy to write at night as of late. Being a social worker is incredibly mentally and emotionally draining. I have to do a lot of self-care.
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Violet says:
You make no sense. You blame Hillary for not responding to sexism in precisely the way you deem appropriate — though to many people (including me) it is clear that throughout her public life she’s navigated a difficult road between private and professional concerns. And in this last campaign she did everything she could do to resist sexism, and was still ridiculed for it. But still you blame her somehow.
On the other hand, you actively support and work for and excuse the man who was perpetrating the sexism — because after all, we just can’t expect much of men.
If this is Obama style feminism — which I’m sure it is — I can’t wait to see how you handle rape. Shall we just start blaming women for not adequately responding to rape, not doing whatever they’re supposed to do to repel rape, not making flawlessly compelling arguments to judge and jury to persuade everyone that they’ve been raped, not changing society to stop rape — all by themselves of course, because we sure as fuck can’t expect anything from men. And meanwhile we’ll just let all the rapists off because “men aren’t there yet.”
Tell you what: I’m going to start a list of Obama supporters who AREN’T batshit crazy, because I’m thinking that’s a short list.
In your case it sounds to me like you’re obsessed with Bill Clinton and with blaming Hillary for his indiscretions. That sophist bullshit that you’re blaming her for her “inaction” — she wasn’t running for President during the Lewinsky scandal, she was the First Lady. And because she didn’t choose to discuss her marriage on daytime TV, you’ve stored this up in your fevered brain as the reason to support that jackass sexist Obama.
Crazy. You’re all fucking insane.
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Violet says:
I’ve just realized something, about what Obama is: he gives “feminists” an excuse to indulge in their deep hatred of other women. And they can pretend they’re doing it because He’s The One.
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Shigatsu says:
“If this is Obama style feminism — which I’m sure it is — I can’t wait to see how you handle rape.”
Well, I was actually a rape crisis and domestic violence counselor. Everything at the center I interned at was feminist-therapy. You don’t know me very well to make assumptions about the rest of my life or how I would deal with circumstances. It is one thing to discuss the election and other to personally insult me.
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Kiuku says:
Yea Violet..they are blaming the victim, as usual.
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Kiuku says:
You realize that this:
“I do not blame Hillary for sexism. I hold her accountable for her in-actions.”
Makes no logical sense?
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Kiuku says:
oh and lets not forget we need to expect more of women, cuz men are crazy wildabeasts who have no idea what they are doing when they rape people or foster misogyny and sexism.
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Swannie says:
Anyone who holds Hillary responsible for what Bill did , or in any way judges her actions afterward as anything but her OWN ,and many have , has lost the idea behind the true meaning of feminism.
Just because someone has been a rape counselor does not mean they are effective or even NOT toxic, and I am speaking from the perspective of a registered nurse who was trained by an AA woman who helped establish the first rape centers in a very large inner city .
This includes that asinine statement early on in this campiagn by mo about anyone who cannot run their own home cannot run the white house … fed right into that delusion . -
alohapuma says:
“I’ve just realized something, about what Obama is: he gives “feminists” an excuse to indulge in their deep hatred of other women. And they can pretend they’re doing it because He’s The One.”
Violet, this is irony and the twist most women don’t get…the misogyny of many so called feminists. Interesting to note how many find their way to the domestic violence community.
So far, I’m not seeing anyone talk about the connection between the money train called the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) sponsored by Joe Biden, and the feminists DV community that creates political fiefdoms on the backs of victims of violence.
The money is the reason Feminist organizations supported Obama, not ideology.
The illogical thinking of the Hillary blamers like this one demonstrates the height of hypocrisy.
Save your odot responses from now on. Notice how quite it’s become though…huh?
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Angry Wife says:
Just found this post and I must agree, we as women sometimes hurt each other the most. It angers me when people in general - but especially women - criticize the way Hillary handled the scandal while her husband was president. No one can say what the “correct” reaction would have been, because no one has been in that situation - finding out your husband is cheating on you is difficult enough, but her husband happened to be the president and the whole situation was publicly scrutinized by EVERYONE. Hillary MUST have wanted to get crazy with Bill, but as an intelligent and career-oriented woman, she had to hold it inside. It was definitely strategic on her part and, as an assertive woman, it must have taken every fiber of her being to hold back. Later, she successfully ran for Senate and is now our Secretary of State. “Inaction”???? I think not!
