It wasn't particularly surprising that opposing Clinton would be regarded as sexist...

a substitute for policies, or History or Contributors .I've often said look at their voting histories and Hillary feeds in to Chauvinism and Bernie has been a Feminist for a long time .

I think the positive rhetoric around Clinton is incredibly sexist.

There's this whole unspoken thing of "SHE CAN DO IT", like she's this plucky underdog. Of course she can bloody do it, that's not the point.

The thing that gets distorted ,polarized and forgot, the Point.

Very refreshing. You open a door for deeper dialog on gender politics. One based on community values rather than plumbing, tactics, or stereotypes. Hope you get some takers.

I think you might be reading a little more into what I posted than I intended, but thank you all the same!

as a senior generation feminist, I'm really disappointed and sick of the rather bizarre (to me) emphasis/rationalization wrt identity politics based on "plumbing" as the sole basis for support or push back of policy makers and in this case this particular candidate. accusations of sexism and even misogyny flung loosely and wildly for any perceived criticism to policy dispute. giving a inaccurate if not disturbing definition to the terms sexism and misogyny. The rhetoric is beyond the pale and does a huge disservice to the struggle for equality.

(edited for more clarity)

I keep hearing and reading:
"It's time for a woman!"

Isn't that sexist?
Why not just vote for the best candidate regardless, of sex, color, etc?

And we got THIS:



So whenever anyone in the States talks about the First Female ANYTHING, I'm like.... HeeeeelllOOOOOOoooo...

Every time someone brings up the "first woman president" bs as a reason to vote for HRC I just want to scream at them "Just ask the working people of Britain just how wonderful it was to have THEIR first female PM, you moran!"

I will not vote for someone based on their plumbing.

I'm fairly convinced Thatcher's gender DID help her gain power.

Ah, Elizabeth... why didn't you run....

has not uttered or impute motives that only exist in their own imaginations.

A subject of vital interest, I'd suggest, to the entire board. We would need to know more, I think.

Perhaps you should write an OP on the subject.

And if a woman President following a black President for an historical 3rd straight WH term is not exciting enough for some....that is just an opinion I disagree with and an OP is not required.

That is your argument?
Where does a Jew fit in that lineup?...ahead or behind the first gay, Latino, Asian or Native American?

Anything that questions your rational is a straw man?

Where it doesn't particularly have anything to do with what I posted unless you think I'm suggesting Clinton has said something that she hasn't.

Anyway, I'm not very interested in "excitement". Most of us can't afford to be. Feeling good about things and getting problems actually fixed, while not mutually exclusive options, are not always necessarily politically congruent processes.

I'm from the UK. We've already had our First Female. She was called Margaret Thatcher. It took the shine off things a bit.

hope and change Presidency.

And why not a Jewish President following a Black President. A lot less American Jews than American women.

Interesting you use gender as the first qualifier, interesting. Or does it come second after color?

I have said for a long time that some on DU and elsewhere are just minority shopping for a President... to each their own.

There isn't.

Life is full of little disappointments.

Fun making statements with zero evidence to back it up.

... by all means.

You made a statement that strawmen are painful sometimes. Please back it up.

All of which are fact free.

I wish someone had told me.

If Elizabeth Warren were running, she'd get virtually universal support here.

No one is making that argument, as evidenced by the lack of evidence.

We wouldn't be hearing anything about "It's time for a Woman" though- we'd be hearing over and over about how Elizabeth lacks the necessary experience and does not look "Presidential enough."

No different than crying "Racism!" if you dont support a candidate who happens to be black.
Your "yes she can" comment is also very true. Its actually an insult to women when you act like its a big deal that we're suggesting a female for president!

Let's omit the paid shills as an annoyance similar to weeds in a garden or perhaps as bad and unavoidable as a fart in an elevator.

As for her genuine supporters, because of an inability to discuss issues, the Clinton wing must protect themselves with wacky tail-eating logic, unfounded accusations of sexism and erroneous claims of persecution. Any attempt to discuss the issues and whether HRC's record reflects a supporter's values always ends up in a group photograph of the three monkeys of denial.

When the primaries come to an end, or Hillary drops out (doubtful), and we have a candidate that actually shows leadership on the important issues of the day, my hope is they will realize Bernie is for real, and those of us who saw that truth early on will welcome Hillary's ardent former supporters without judgment.

Your points are spot on. Any opposition simply CANNOT be for any other reason than "anti Clinton/woman"
It cant be, for example, that she has not been truthful on many occasions.

I know. I was around to witness it. It's up to you if you don't like Clinton but don't rewrite history and don't provide cover for the right wing nuts that went after the Clintons in the 90's.

— “I'm not asking people to vote for me because I'm a woman, but I think if you vote for somebody on their merits—one of my merits is I'M A WOMAN”

— “I'm not asking people to vote for me because I'm black, but I think if you vote for somebody on their merits—one of my merits is I'M BLACK'

— “I'm not asking people to vote for me because I'm Jewish but I think if you vote for somebody on their merits—one of my merits is I'M JEWISH"


I find each of these statements, reprehensible two of the statements nobody ever said but one was stated on a TV show last week.















&t=1m15s

If you go around telling everyone that its "time for a woman" etc, then you cant scream "sexist!" whenever someone comes out against you

Is your blood sugar a problem?

... in meaningful and useful plain English, detailing their objections to the points their opponents have actually made, the quicker it will all seem.

Laboriously trundling through every misdirection in the book will certainly result in an extremely tedious process.

However, I have plenty of time.

"Vote for me because of a characteristic of my identity!" is a doofus argument.

Jeebus H. Christ

And yes, ALL three of those statements are reprehensible.

Melissa Harris Prry leading a discussion on the subject

I'm sorry, but what an in depth discussion with a whole lot of nothing. One of them just said there isnt a black running for president tis time.

"I think for a variety of reasons, Hillary Clinton has been under all kinds of attack for many, many years. In fact, I can't think of many personalities who have been attacked for more reasons than Hillary Clinton. And by the way, let me be frank and I'm running against her: Some of it is sexist,"

and

"I don't know that a man would be treated the same way that Hillary is," Sanders said. "So all that I can say is I have known Hillary Clinton for 25 years. I admire her. I respect her. I like her. She and I have very different points of view on a number of issues."

http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/09/politics/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-sexist-criticism/

Do you agree that responding with knee-jerk accusations of sexism to legitimate questions regarding issues is inherently sexist?

But I'm relieved to know you see some of the criticism as sexist.

I do believe, as does Sanders, that she's held to a different standard than male candidates.

The Hillary campaign wants special treatment because she is a woman, making many of the supporters, inherently sexist. And based on her statement to Degeneres, this criticism includes HRC herself.

And definitely that is the case here on DU.

And I've seen zero incidents of the "Hillary campaign wants special treatment". Zero, so we disagree about that.

I agree with Hillary. Any attribute -race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation- that affects the quality of ones life experience is, to me, a valid consideration. -Not a determining factor, but worth considering.

I sympathize with the HRC supporters who are facing the fact that her candidacy is about as appealing as week old tapioca to most of us on DU. Yet she should receive no pass just because she is a woman. Either she is the best candidate or she isn't.

To treat her any other way demeans her as a woman. This means we examine her potential as President on her record and the issues.

Yet it's painfully obvious that her supporters will not discuss the issues in any substantive fashion, probably because they know by now that Sanders' stance on those issues is much more in line with Democratic Party values as well as the progressives who interact here.

Hopefully Bernie will gain the nomination, Bernie supporters will gracefully invite their primary foes to fight together in the GE, and the HRC folks will have the grace to join us.

I haven't felt this excited, ever, about a candidate.

I suppose I could make the case for a mildly misogynist subtext in wondering why someone is spending vast amounts of money on polls, which has been mentioned on DU. It could be interpreted, via a rather circuitous route, as having an over-inflated interest in one's "appearance", which could be conflated with - gasp! - "narcissism". That's a thing that does get thrown at women. Unfortunately following her thing about sending beauty products she endorses to her supporters, it's beginning to look like she IS rather more interested in herself than her job, but having spent ages on this site pointing at other people and calling them fools for accusing other people of being narcissists, I can't really do it myself. As far as *I'm* concerned she's allowed to have a high opinion of herself, that shouldn't affect my understanding of her political acumen. I don't have to like it, particularly, but it shouldn't stop me thinking she's a good politician... However, is it sexist to talk about her liking lots of polls? Hmmmmmmmm. It might be if the extent of her actual fascination with them wasn't so very pronounced.

There is also, of course, this "she's manipulative" thing, which I hate saying about women because it's one of those damn things that people say about women. Unfortunately she's making a very good show of appearing actually to be highly manipulative. It's a problematic intersection, sometimes real politicians are actually manipulative. In fact.... it's an important qualification in some positions.

So yeah, maybe those two things, both of which I had to really sell to myself as potential examples and neither of which I have much faith in.

My problem is that "sexism!" is trundled out constantly in lieu of a substantive response to the content of her detractors positions. That's no use for anything.

See how that works. And yes, posts can be found here claiming just that. But I'm sure one is real while the other isn't. Posting a highly unflattering pic of Clinton with no comment isn't sexist, is it? It is no different than Trumps comments.

Unless perpetual accusations of "ANTISEMITISM!!!!" come out of Sanders supporters in lieu of a substantive response to Sander's detractors, which, as a phenomenon rather than a trickle of isolated flippancies, I have yet to observe, with the possible exception of my own extremely lumpy and ranty satirical curation of The Big Book of Nast Bernie Things...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251551771

...in which I make an extremely repetetive point about Bernie detractors being quasi-antisemitic... in my admittedly rather poor defense, I didn't particularly expect that to be taken as seriously as it turned out to be. Oh, well.

As in all similar cases, I will happily bow to your superior research skills.

I haven't seen any unflattering picutres of Clinton used for political purposes on this board, though I don't doubt they have been used elsewhere, and, possibly, here. On that point I will also bow to your superior research skills, and agree with your distaste for it.

It's Hillary's turn this time. No other argument is necessary, there is really little need for policy discussion or debates. There has never been a woman elected President so it's Hillary's turn this time.

If their positions and records were reversed, my preference would be reversed.

It's not about sex.

It's about what you will do to fix this nightmare called government.

You know, government by the rich, and for the rich.

I'm not voting for a corporate hack, I'm voting for someone who has a vision of what America should be like and who has a real pathway forward.

it always is and can only be...

Like with misery and assorted other negative/undesirable states, it's the company sought and gained that keeps the stupid alive and festering.

So many accuse Clinton supporters of being sexist for supporting Hiklary to begin with, and now this.

I think definding her from criticisms that have nothing do do with her gender on the grounds that they are sexist... is sexist.