Obama Using Sexist Language? OR...This is Going to Make the Ladies Hot, Hot, HOT!!!

After eight years of playing drinking games while listening to our president speak - "He said nukular again instead of nuclear? Driiink! His subjects and verbs didn't agree? Two drinks!" - and shamefully hanging our heads when the leader of the free world butchers the English language with grammatical, rhetorical and overall stylistic sloppiness and buffoonery, this is how we're going to celebrate his departure?

From the ABC News blog:
(And no, the following is not a parody. That's what I'd first thought, and still wished.)


Is Obama Using Sexist Language?

by Jack Tapper

February 16, 2008 11:30 AM

Earlier this month, speaking at Tulane University, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, said this about the attacks coming his way from Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY:

"You challenge the status quo and suddenly the claws come out," Obama said.

The CLAWS come out? Really?

Then yesterday Obama told reporters who had asked about Clinton's latest attack ad, "I understand that Senator Clinton, periodically when she's feeling down, launches attacks as a way of trying to boost her appeal."

That prompted some female TV reporters to question the language he was using.

According to this unofficial transcript, over at MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell and Norah O'Donnell seemed to suggest Obama may have been -- if not playing the gender card, then using language women voters might find offensive.

Language such as "when she's feeling down" "periodically" she "launches attacks."

Nora O'Donnell: "He said, 'I understand when she's down, that she makes these kinds of attacks.' It's getting a little personal."

Andrea Mitchell: "It's getting a little personal and, very frankly, you know how deeply we interpreted every comment to look for some sort of racial motivation before South Carolina. A lot of people said it was there. But, you know, when you start describing a female candidate as being 'down' and 'striking back,' I don't know, that's a little edgy, don't you think?"

Nora O'Donnell: "Yeah. And I think there's gonna be a lot more comments about that."*

Pro-Clinton blogger Taylor Marsh writes that words like this, in her view, indicate "a way of thinking about women. A way of demeaning women in power; even saying we're not up to the job. Seriously, Senator Hillary Clinton is a woman running for president. Not some emotional menopausal diva popping pills because she's depressed she broke a nail."

"Claws"…"feeling down"...I find it hard to envision Obama using the same language if he were facing, say, former Sen. John Edwards, D-NC.

But what do you think?

What do I think?

Pathetic. Probably the most infuriating bunch of nonsense I've read this election. (And that includes Huckabee's theocratic babblings.) It's typical of a mainstream media addicted to sensationalism over substance, and a sign that author Jack Tapper is obviously bored out of his skull with covering the election, desperately grasping for a straw big enough to get attention. (I guess it worked on me.)

Then you have the comment section, always a bastion of enlightened and reasoned debate.

From Jadev:

SEXIST

Following the last debate, there was some mention of the fact that Obama helped Hillary out of her chair. (I also saw him help her INTO her seat.) Even that was turned into a positive by the media.

I didn't hear anyone say the act was sexist or inappropriate. IT WAS!

It was calculated and intended to convey that Hillary is of the weaker sex and, therefore, needs to have a big, strong man help her get in and out of a chair.

No one called him on it, yet the Clintons were accused of playing the race cards for weeks.

Some will argue that he was just being a gentleman - chivalrous - but it was inappropriate in this scenario - and in all scenarios, as far as I am concerned. An able-bodied woman does not need help from a man when sitting down or standing up! In the Senate, does Senator Obama rush around and help his female colleagues whenever they sit down or stand up?

This is a sore subject with me actually, one perhaps better left to another blog, but too irresistable to not touch on briefly. I'll just say that when it comes to things like opening doors, seating women, or other actions which are either chivalrous or sexist, depending on who you ask, men don't know what to do anymore. Seriously, women. We don't know what to do now. We're in this weird period in our society, in our culture, where we're getting over (thankfully so) patriarchical notions and sexist habits, but we're left with our hands up in the air, just asking, "What? What now?" Does courtesy and chivalry die for the sake of equality?


And this comment made me boil:

Worst case scenario: It's dog-whistle politics that appeals to misogyny. This will get more obvious (because it is not at all now) and then it will definitely make me mad. Result: I will have to hold my nose if I am lucky enough to have a chance to vote for him and not Hillary in the general.

Best case scenario: Although he has the right POLICY stand on basic equality and reproductive rights, Obama is still unintentionally, vaguely sexist--just like a lot of otherwise nice, smart (in the sense of having good judgment) and capable men.

So am I to assume that because I am a man, I am supporting Obama because his subtle language appeals to an inherent misogyny? That's some offensive shit right there. And the idea that all men, even those nice and smart bearers of good judgment, are hopelessly sexist? Ladies, that's not very motivating.

I am having a difficult time maintaining my support for feminism as of late. It's comments like that will not gain feminism any male support, and it's shooting yourselves in the foot. It's like saying, "Well, listen up men! We're going to tell you all the ways that you are repressing us and holding us back and mistreating us, but uh...ha, get this, there's nothing you can do about it. That's right, no matter how nice, smart or capable you are, you're still going to be a hopeless, chauvinistic pig. Sorry. You Man. You just can't help it. You fucking MEN. With your, your dangly kibbles and bits, and your hairy knuckles and fascination with tools and sports memorabilia.


I just don't understand this. And going back to the first thing I said in the blog, why are we worrying about possible, subliminal keywords from a great orator, when we've been bashed about the brains by the words of a hyperbolic 8th grader for the past eight years? "We're gonna get them evildoers! Smoke 'em outta there holes! Bring it on, turrhists!"

As for Hillary, her supporters, or sensationalist media fucktards, if "coded language" is the only thing you have against Obama, then you are truly desperate, and sad, just sad.


And while people try and decide on a candidate to support, this is the kind of information the media is providing for us to make an informed decision on who to bring us back into modernity after eight years of Wild West diplomacy? This is the debate we're having? If this is it, I don't know if I want any part of it, as it's only going to flare tempers and do nothing for our country but bring to power a former POW too willing to pander to far-right conservatives to vote against the torture he knows to be illegal.


Obama's mention of Hillary "feeling down" - I'm pretty sure that's an observation of an objective fact - her being down in the polls. I don't think it was a suggestion that women are emotionally fragile by nature or suggestive of some sort of menopausal depressive episode.

And "claws coming out?" That seems to refer to an animal attack, as in an attack not in the form of high-minded dialogue, but something base, personal and ferocious.


Maybe he just should have said, "I don't know about this broad I'm running against, she might just menstruate all over some nuclear launch codes or something and endanger national security." Or maybe he could have noted sarcastically that she might in fact be the best candidate for getting Israel and Palestine to sit down together, through the sharing of her delicious baked goods recipes in a Martha Stewart-esque gesture of diplomacy.


The two women from MSNBC and the pro-Clinton blogger who started this whole tomfoolery are doing nothing to help women in politics. That's the irony of this whole article. This hyper-sensitivity to perceived insults of gender will not help female politicians or female "journalists" overcome the truly insulting and sexist idea that women are too hyper-sensitive and prone to emotional histrionics. Way to show 'em they're wrong, ladies!

Please Hillary, Norah O'Donnell, Andrea Mitchell, and Taylor Marsh - don't bring the age old battle of men versus women into the Democratic party. The only winner will be the Republicans. Besides, your defensiveness makes it sound like you lil' ladies might be having a brief visit from Aunt Flo, eh? Is it arts and crafts week at Panty Camp? Are there communists in the summer house? Or maybe you stayed up too late watching that pirate movie about wicked ol' Captain Bloodsnatch?

Wait...what?

And not to sound like I work for Fox News, but we're parsing Obama's language in regard to a Clinton? The wife of the guy who made the nation debate the meaning of the word "sex" when talking about what he did with Monica? Right? Just checking.



Afterthought: I think Andrea Mitchell and that other broad might themselves be guilty of some sexist commentary. They imply, with their complaint of Obama's use of "she's feeling down," that only women get emotional or are prone to bouts of sadness. I'm offended by that. I'm a man. And me and my manly mustache feel down quite often, I'll have you ladies know.

Probably gonna be a whole lot "down-er" after the ladies read that "communists in the summer house" thing, but what the hey. Wouldn't do anything to make me less sexist if I tried anyway.