Not.

Like Ocean's 11 with a side of awesome.

have the background on this.. might it easier to understand.

I really like how this evolved! However there's this one dude from WaPo, one Roger Cohen who is pitching a fit.. among others, no doubt.

Roger Cohen ✔ @NYTimesCohen
Questions only from women fine but WH might have advised male correspondents they could split on vacation early. #maledowntime

Holly Jolly Alison @mitzy247
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@NYTimesCohen How about just quit the job entirely & have all the free time you want? Then maybe someone who cares can have your seat.#hack
12:02 PM - 19 Dec 2014 14 Retweets 18 favorites

http://theobamadiary.com/2014/12/19/its-friday-laugh-your-off/

By any measure.

I posted more in the vein of why is this news? There have been many excellent female reporters for a long time. I'm more surprised this milestone hadn't happened long ago.

It made national news.

She was the first, for decades was the first questioner in Presidential press conferences, from the first row. That makes her very special, plus all those Democratic Underground flowers, but maybe outside her gender. She was just damned good, which was enough for us here to recognize her specially.

I had to look it up. It looks like it did receive quite a bit of coverage at the time. Very impressive.

I don't recall it in the news but that year I spent a lot of time overseas on "government business". I can proudly say I spent a lot of it handing out food, providing clean water and medical aid; I even managed to somehow avoid water boarding anyone.

The scandal from the right wing was that she spent thousands of dollars to send flowers to so-called losers.

But we DUers sent them, plus from DailyKOS.
http://election.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8032620

That's what Nancy did with them, a room full of roses put to excellent use.

and for years was the only woman likely to be heard in that room. Using Wiki's admittedly incomplete list, the current press corps includes at least 59 reporters. Of those listed, one third (n=20) are women. That eight women were called on in a single press conference shouldn't be news, but we all know why it is -- it was the lack of men.

from the front row of every press conference.

Helen Thomas was a tour de force. And Democratic Underground members actually did send her all those flowers.

but, it is far from being funny and it leaves me a bit sad.

If he had refused to call on any women and had called on only men, shrieking would be unbearable. But when he ignores men, it's seen as so e kind of a victory.

At the year end press conference for the next 150 yrs, men would still have asked more questions than them. Also, this was never done in history so its pretty historical.

"Press conferences" are a modern phenomenon. The first White House press conference occurred during the Wilson administration (1913).

Thomas became WH correspondent under Kennedy (1961), and other women followed her quickly.

I doubt it would take 150 years for men's and women's questions to balance.

And, y'know, this is a photo of the WHPC in the 50s which makes me wonder who the woman is. Doesn't look like Thomas.



Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, Unidentified members of the White House press corps on the south lawn, c. 1950s

Here's one where he calls on only men.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/press-conference-president-nuclear-security-summit

Funny it wasn't all over the news.

is that this is even an issue to be held up for derision.
by Anyone for any reason.

ridicule, deride, mock, taunt mean to make an object of laughter of. ridicule implies a deliberate often malicious belittling <consistently ridiculed everything she said>. deride suggests contemptuous and often bitter ridicule <derided their efforts to start their own business>. mock implies scorn often ironically expressed as by mimicry or sham deference <youngsters began to mock the helpless wino>. taunt suggests jeeringly provoking insult or challenge <hometown fans taunted the visiting team>.

of victory.

From the women folk? It's almost as bad as hillary's cackle. Too bad we little ladies haven't learned to modulate our shrieking.

That high pitched shrieking comment is typical of a male response. when women have legit concerns we shriek, cackle, weep etc. according to some men.
I think it was great obama called on the back row what does it say that there are so many women back there. We are going to have a female president women are moving to the front row.

It should be the "hysterical shrieking would be unbearable."

(emoticon of sarcasm and unbearable hysterical shrieking here)

exclusively, men aren't shrieking.

No...Because their vocal chords are longer and thicker.

A man's vocalizations are generally not high pitched, even when he's hysterical, irrational, enraged, and not to be taken seriously --as if a high pitch itself invalidates women.

Because of the physical difference, male vocalizations have a deeper timbre.....while of course, "high pitched shrieking", something only women do, directly implies negative assumptions, i.e. the 'shrieker' is hysterical, irrational, and just plain contemptible.

I guess a few equally loaded words describing the sound the upset guys are making might be:

Petulant complaining
Griping
Resentful muttering
Bellyaching
Gasket blowing
Raging
Tantruming
Bellowing
Blustering

Do I make myself clear?

that women are often in situations where their voices are not even acknowledged much less heard. Meetings at work were like that. It seemed that only the men were acknowledged and their issues discussed. When a woman spoke it was as if she had not said anything - move along.

This IS a big deal.

The attempts to ridicule and minimize are what make me sad. Some of it may be a poor attempt at humor. I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt however, I fear that humor is only a transparent cover for derision.

I misunderstood -

Hang in there.

tag. At least, I sure hope you did!

We should have a silent thread to offer support to all those poor men.

Our President knows what he's doing is all I'm going to say.

He's been pushed back into a corner by the right and the left right and is coming out swinging. you know the ones who can't see the forest for the trees, the ones against the overall good because of some little bit of bad. i'm sorry I can't say what I'm trying to say more plainly at the moment, the words just won't come.

It's kind of like "ok, you all been on my back all this time. Fine. Here's some radical Doing the Right Thing for you."

I hope you have a great Christmas holiday season

Carolers are outside, but the songs sound ... different. We Wish you a Misandry Christmas. Ding Dong Misandry on High. It Came Upon a Misandry Clear. Jonathan sighs and pours another eggnog.

I don't know why that emoji is even necessary. In 19 of 20 cases, the sarcasm is so damn obvious that you'd have to be a Palin not to see it!

Thread recced, btw.

I wasn't sure who it was aimed at men or women.

She graduated all us boys to college level in one semester!

to do a job. I doubt they showed up to be part of a little gender experiment for political points. It's offensive to both men and women--a waste of the men's time, and patronizing to the female reporters who don't need "help" to do their jobs. Thumbs down on this stunt, Obama. And I don't care who tries to bully me into not saying so, with "sexism" alerts.

You are completely wrong. This wasn't a gender experiment, or whatever you want to tell yourself to hide from the fact that men are favored, privilege even, in these kinds of settings. The purpose wasn't to "patronize" female reporters, it was to give those who were routinely ignored a chance to ask questions, and wouldn't you know it, a majority of those who got to ask questions most seldom, were women! But I can understand that anyone who puts sexism in scare quotes would be too entrenched in sexism to understand that.

Last edited Sat Dec 20, 2014, 04:50 AM - Edit history (1)

About how this would have caused a huge ruckus if the genders were reversed, caught the fact that the reason why all the journalists called on were women, was because they "wanted other reporters not regularly called on to get to question the Pres." If men were the ones who usually don't get to question the President, they would have been part of the group. But they aren't. This wasn't a gender experiment, it was a highlighting of the fact that female reporters get to ask questions less often.

It should either be 'all of the guys' rather than none of the guys, or caught instead of missed. I'll edit now.

So he called on female reporters to ask questions today. So what? That's hardly misandry. Actual misandry is pretty rare although it pops up on the internet occasionally.

you totally missed the sarcastic intent implicit in the OP.

Should expect masses of similar threads in the near future?

Jar Jar Binks looked really bad on the cover of sports illustrated.

for John Holmes though