Time: How Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders and Other Men Play the Gender Card [View all]

[Cali_Democrat]

By Soraya Chemaly
5:05 PM ET

This morning, MSNBC aired a segment in which Hillary Clinton’s voice, once again, was the topic of criticism. “She shouts,” said Bob Woodward. And yet, nobody talked about the loud voices, shouting, podium-slamming, deranged expressions and bombastic anger by the male candidates—all of them. Those men are, in fact, playing the gender card. Many of them.

But Google “gender card” and the results look like this: “Clinton Plays the Gender Card,” “Why playing the ‘gender card’ really could be enough for Hillary Clinton,” “Carly’s Not Playing the Gender Card,” or, conversely, “It’s Time for Carly Fiorina to Stop Playing the Gender Card.” If there is a reference to male candidates playing the gender card, it’s buried. In a race that has at times included 20 men and only two women, for an office never occupied by a woman, maleness the standard. We aren’t thinking about their gender in relative terms.

But every time a male politician takes a debate pee break, when he takes a pass on make-up, or walks around Spanx-free, he’s playing a gender card. When he maximizes airtime to convey serious ideas to a national audience instead of having to bite his tongue and smile politely while answering ridiculous questions about flower arranging—gender card. When he raises his deeper, more “serious” voices—another.

Gender cards fly when male politicians flaunt totemic symbols of male power, affirming entitlement to strength, authority and paternalistic care. If a male politician curses, more power to him.

It’s a gender card that men’s bodies are not publicly debated, subject to review, regulation and casual disgust. If male politicians discuss reproductive rights, as they are wont to do, it almost always means references to women and their bodies, not men’s and men’s bodies. It’s a gender card that male politicians don’t have to waste time and money and psychic resources on what messages their names send. It’s a gender card when no one suggests men use sex to become successful.

Read more:

http://time.com/4207026/hillary-clinton-ted-cruz-bernie-sanders-gender-card/