Hillary hatred finds its misogynistic voice

America soon will decide whether to elect its first female president. And amid a techno-media landscape where the wall between private vitriol and public debate has been reduced to rubble, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton is facing an onslaught of open misogynistic expression.

Step lightly through that thickly settled province of the Web you could call anti-Hillaryland and you soon are knee-deep in some of the most sexually toxic words in the English language — words that you almost certainly will never see in a family newspaper.

We never have been here before.

No woman has run quite the same gantlet. And, of course, no man.

Thanks to several thousand years of phallocentric history, there is no comparable vocabulary of degradation for men, no equivalently rich trove of synonyms for a sexually sullied male.

In times past, this coarser conversation would have remained mostly personal and subterranean. But we now have a blogosphere, where no holds are barred and vituperative speech is prized. We have social-networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, with their limitless ability to make the personal public.

There are no rules. And so far there is little recognition in the political and media mainstream of the teeming misogyny only a mouse click away.

"Part of the way a culture asks, 'Where are the boundaries?' is somebody makes it the topic of a meta-conversation — let's talk about the talk," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. That's what happened after Don Imus called the Rutgers University women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos."

"It's a discussion we are going to have if Hillary Clinton is nominated," said Jamieson, who originally went searching the Web for racist invective aimed at Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, only to find the raw sexism being directed at Clinton far more common and virulent.

"I've been waiting," Jamieson said. "When is somebody going to make this stuff visible enough to have that conversation?"

She thought the moment had arrived in mid-November when, at a campaign meeting in South Carolina, a woman of patrician bearing asked Arizona Sen. John McCain, "How do we beat the bitch?"

A surprised McCain laughed along with the rest of the small crowd.

"That's an excellent question," McCain said after regaining his stride. He proceeded to explain why he could beat Clinton.

Viewed nearly 1 million times on YouTube in the week afterward, "How Do We Beat the Bitch" has entered the lore of the 2008 campaign, but with barely a hint of soul-searching.

"Can you imagine if that woman had said, 'How do we beat the "n-word"?' " asked Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University's Eagleton Institute of Politics.

For McCain, or at least for those who think the nation might have benefited by examining why that woman felt so free to say what she did so publicly, "it was a terrible missed opportunity," Walsh said.

A ripe target online

A conservative Republican woman running for president might provoke a far less angry male response, said sociologist C.J. Pascoe, a researcher with the Digital Youth Project at Berkeley's Institute for the Study of Social Change. "This would not be happening if it were Elizabeth Dole," Pascoe said.

But, she said, Hillary Clinton offers young men on social-networking sites a ripe target for their aggression.

The political impact of all this is uncertain. But Pascoe warns that the broader society ignores the implications of the conversations being conducted on these sites at its peril.

"This is the new world that's coming," she said.

Facebook, popular with high-school and college students, has dozens of anti-Hillary groups, many of which take great delight in heaping abuse on Clinton as a woman, imagining her reduced to a subservient role, and visiting violence upon her.

One is "Hillary Clinton: Stop Running for President and Make Me a Sandwich," with more than 23,000 members and 2,200 "wall posts."

Another Facebook group, more temperate in tone and with about 13,000 members, is "Life's a bitch, why vote for one? Anti-Hillary '08."

Is this merely some adolescent "guys gone wild" (most but by no means all Hillary haters are male)? The rank rituals of the rec room revealed for the whole world to see?

The proprietors of the Facebook group "Hillary Clinton Shouldn't Run for President, She Should Just Run the Dishes," with 2,159 members, offer a pre-emptive disclaimer to offended visitors.

Daniel Jussaume, a 20-year-old junior at the University of Southern Maine, was not among the creators of "Just Run the Dishes." After he joined, however, he volunteered to chair its "Feminist Liberal Complaint Dept."

"Words only have the power you give them," he said, describing himself as a moderate-conservative leaning toward either McCain or Rudy Giuliani for president.

People need to see the humor in politics, he said. He loves Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart and "The Colbert Report," and is among the more than 1.4 million members of the Facebook group "1,000,000 strong for Stephen T. Colbert," even though he knows Stewart and Colbert mock his conservative politics.

Moreover, Jussaume said, "I'm not against women in politics. I hope in my lifetime I can live to see a female president."

He says people posting online need to recognize that they bear responsibility for what they write. "I know people who were turned down for jobs because of what they have on their MySpace page from the week before," he said.

That may explain the careful response of Tyler Hawley, a student at Bucknell University and an administrator of "Hillary Clinton: Stop Running for President and Make Me a Sandwich."

Contacted about the group, Hawley responded by e-mail: "After carefully deliberating with the other creators of our Facebook group ... we are going to have to respectfully decline your request for an interview."

Annenberg's Jamieson said the tone of sex-specific "vilification" of Clinton is set in the mainstream media.

On his radio show, which reaches 14.5 million people, Rush Limbaugh talks about Clinton's "testicle lock box." On his MSNBC show, Tucker Carlson says, "There's just something about her that feels castrating, overbearing and scary," and a guest, Clifford May, president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former Republican National Committee spokesman, says that if Clinton is going to appeal to women for support on the basis of her gender, "at least call her a vaginal-American."

Young people, Jamieson said, take their cues from family and friends in a foggy geography of pop culture replete with misogynistic music, video games and crude comedy, where what separates fact from satire, bluster from menace (and for that matter, adolescence from adulthood) is hard to divine.

"Deep string of sexism"

Sexist language is not the exclusive domain of the young or the politically conservative. The Rude Pundit, a liberal blog written by Lee Papa, an English professor at the College of Staten Island, takes regular pleasure in applying a derogatory, sexually explicit word to provocative right-wing commentator Ann Coulter. And when David Ferguson, who blogs as TRex on Firedoglake.com, last year used the same word to describe conservative talk-show host and writer Laura Ingraham, a lively online debate about the left and anti-feminism ensued.

While Jane Hamsher, Firedoglake's founder, said she doesn't like or employ the word, she defended TRex's right to use it.

With regard to Clinton, she said, "There's a deep string of sexism that informs a lot of the criticism ... and sometimes it's hard to disentangle."

Hamsher wants to defend Clinton from that kind of attack without being mistaken for a Clinton supporter, which she is not. But she expects there may be some women, otherwise cool to Clinton, who will rally around the senator as the misogyny burns brighter.

Jamieson concurred. "This has the potential to push a lot of moderate Republican women toward her," she said.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2004041541&zsection_id=2003956730&slug=hillaryslurs29&date=20071129

It just won't be anyone named Clinton. Or Bush.

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Referring to those who support a real Democrat as "brownshirts". Have you no shame?

who think they're the tail that wags the dog

Get over your silly self. Kucinich is the one who has no chance, specially now that he has practically endorsed a racist, homophobic loony. Kucinich has no shame

We know who the Authoritarians are.....

Corporate media complicity with the DLC? Yeah, you're probably right about that one.

States where electro-fraud machines will decide the primaries? Yep, probably there too. :(

It's what the thread is about. Didn't you notice?

Is creating an excuse for Hillary to use, when the DLC throws the game again. (Assuming they get away with rigging the primary this time. Which hopefully, they will not.)

:crazy:

If Clinton, Hillary were running a progressive issue campaign and it didn't feel so business as usual, I wouldn't care what her name was or what her gender is. It matters to me if I have a job that pays well and allows me time with my family. It matters to me that I have healthcare that won't break me. It matters to me that we conduct domestic and international affairs with a kinder consideration and really exhaust all levels of peaceful discourse before we even mention sanctions, let alone war.

To me, I am part of the human race. A stupid race, that sometimes gets it. I hope we all get it a little bit right this time.

Probably never.

Discusting reminder of what NOT a long way we've come, "baby."

Thanks for the post... I think.

That, in my opinion, is the interesting question. Hillary can choose to respond to these types of attacks by playing the hapless victim or she can choose to rise above and respond with substance. I believe that in the wake of the October debate where her male rivals were accused of "piling on", she started to play the victim, but then realized it was the wrong course of action for her and corrected. I hope that knowledge stays with her.

your energy to offer some advice, or better yet, take action, regarding the people who are engaging in the sexist behavior?

Like I said, I think she should continue with her current strategy. She has now learned that when your rivals attack you, don't say that they attacked you because you are a women. Non-front runner candidates has been attacking the front runner for decades, probably forever--and they've done it long before we had female candidates. The Clinton campaign's initial assertions that the other candidates in that debate were "piling on" were designed to evoke a "that poor women" response. It backfired, and the Clinton campaign realized it backfired. So my advice is simple: don't forget that lesson and don't play the victim.

such as that described in the ARTICLE (e.g., the sexist internet comments) is not acknowledged and addressed, the problems will not disappear. My question to you, above, which you need to consider for yourself, even if you can't address it on a message board, is why you are more concerned with what you believe to be a person's reactions to wrongdoing than to the wrongdoing itself. Since you like the "Socratic Method" (which I put in quotes because it is not used to sidestep issues; it's used to get people to THINK), ask yourself why, if you are motivated to do or say something, you aren't directing it at the wrongdoers?

Just a ploy to avoid explaining why he lets the bigots off with no comment

the great advice some experts are offering her.

:sarcasm:

I think we shouldn't direct anything at the wrongdoers because I know from experience that we can't change their minds. Therefore, I think we should focus on what we can change.

Minds can be changed. The proof is that minds have been changed

Before the election in 2008? Good luck with that...

She won all but 2 repuke counties in NYS. Even the ones who went for * also went with Clinton.

.

because she was ahead,not because she's a woman. She made that very clear. She has not "played the victim" any more than Obama or Edwards have. Of course,when they complain,it's not called whining.

The campaign's initial response was not so well crafted.

is focus grouped, polled, mangled, folded, and only then spindled as her original idea? Who are you kidding? Have you been AWOL for the past month?

Her piling on comment was a tactic, one that was changed ONLY when their polling data showed how lame, self-serving and insulting it was. It was like a page out of the Rove book. Try an approach, then deny that you tried it if it falls flat. That has the paw prints of Mark Penn all over the place.

She's the front runner. What does she expect?

If she was "playing the victim," she would have by now. This isn't anything new.

As I mentioned, initially the campaign mistepped (the comments by Bill Clinton in particular were a mistake). Now she is playing it correctly.

til we got to "let's focus on how women respond incorrectly to sexism," instead of confronting the sexism itself.

Is it your assertion that women are incapable of responding to sexism incorrectly?

Did you think no one would notice that you didn't address the issue raised?

It's called Socratic Dialogue. Perhaps you should google it.

instead of explaining WHY you focus on the victim, and not the perpetrators

Hillary can only control her own actions, not the actions of others. By placing the focus on the "victim", we are focusing on the things that we can control and change, not the things outside our control.

Funny you should now feel the need to explain this when you've already addressed the issue.

And while Hillary (or anyone else) can only control her own actions, she (and anyone else) can also have an influence on other people's actions and there's nothing wrong with that.

But you choose to focus on what the victim did wrong, and say nothing about the perpetrators of such ugly bigotry. I guess everyone has their priorities

I was merely restating in a format I thought you might be better able to grasp.

As for priorities, yes, I have a different priorities than you. I choose to focus on the things I can control.

It only asks a question

That is how Socratic Dialogue works. Again, Google it.

You sir, are no Socrates

Then again, I never claimed to be Socrates.

Credit where credit is due

.....that Clinton is more than a woman, and Obama is more than black and Edwards is more than white....but I am proud that our field of candidates has more diversity than the tie they wear.

More than a woman ... more than a women to meeeeee... you are!

Thanks !!

Hillary is the brunt of many, MANY unwarranted attacks, that much is apparent to anyone. Good article.

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Last night a friend of mine expressed the strong belief that Hillary will not win because there is more hatred against powerful women than people are willing to admit to. I disagreed that she would not win if the nominee, but I might be one of those people in denial about the extent of misogyny and its influence at the polling booth.

there you go.

and it shouldn't be.

Right---that's the thing. Derogative words that are based on insulting women are acceptable to too many people. It's as though we've made little progress.

Everybody blames McCain for the "how do we beat the bitch" comment, but McCain didn't say it. He just laughed at it. The comment was made by a woman. Can a woman be a misogynist?. And if a Jew asked "how do we beat the Hebe" about Lieberman, would that make him anti-semitic?

There is plenty of evidence that in some circumstances women can behave in ways that are just as discriminatory toward other women as men can. Women are brought up in the same sexist society as boys and are subjected to the same sexist media messages every day, so it really should not be hard to understand.

If you aren't old enough to remember her, look up "Phyllis Schlafly" on the web, or read "Backlash" by Susan Faludi for more examples. And unfortunately, there are many like her, hypocritically building careers or fortunes attacking other women or their opportunities, instead of staying at home, quiet and subservient.

Hard attacks in person against a woman do not play well. It's instinctive: A man physically confronting a woman. Even Margaret Thatcher was hit that hard outside Westminster. Then again, they were a bit scared of her ;)

to somewhere back in the 1950's.

Seems to me that barefoot & pregnant is whole lot worse than being called names.

Consider.

lower offices with her, ones we should have won. Her candidacy will be a disaster. An utter failure. Not because of her gender, but because who she truly is - the core of her behavior, patterns, thinking, and judgment.

Isnt it possible that those people just hate Hillary specifically?

I mean, I might call some guy a bastard, but that doesnt mean I hate all men. And personally, I dont think I know anyone who can honestly say theyve never said "bitch".

So you would be OK with a televised question about Obama that asks"How do we stop the n----r?Do you honestly believe it's all about her policies,not a misogynistic word is ever said?

about Obama, using an equally ugly term. The incident you mention just happened to be recorded.

Did you see a large eruption of outrage? Anywhere? Who the fuck cares what racist thugs are saying to each other in private.Are there internet sites on Facebook mocking Obamas racial identity?Here's an easier one,show me the degenerating photoshops of Obama or Edwards right here on DU.

because McCain was caught laughing about it, but to me it's just like the "Macaca" moment last year. (Who was that senator again? Allen?)Each candidate is going to be called names by those who don't support him or her. Hillary isn't being singled out simply because she is a woman. People might have all sorts of reasons for disliking her and it's easy to use that word to describe a woman one doesn't like.

Do I like it? No, of course not. I wish we could all debate the issues instead of resort to name calling.

And I know what the word misogynistic means. I just dont think people who dislike Hillary are automatically woman haters. Perhaps hatred of 'A' woman, but not hatred of women in general. Do you think that woman that called her a bitch secretly hates herself?

Since I dont personally know any of these people accused of being misogynistic, I cant speak to whether I think they are or not. Im simply saying its possible that some / most of them simply dont care for Hillary Clinton.

And of course I would not be ok with a televised question using a racial slur. But then again, I never said I was ok with the slur against Hillary either.

I think its sad that people here can't disagree with Hillary about her stand on the issues without being called a "hater."

They have the "either you are with us or you are against us" mindset. Not good.

Its such a convenient way to dismiss people who are not on the Hillary bandwagon.

The same argument, in regular life, sounds absolutely absurd.
That guy called me a bitch = he hates all women.
I didnt get a promotion = my boss hates all women.
I got a speeding ticket = that cop hates all women.

Even IF some of the haters are Haters... maybe they just hate HER. Oh I forgot... thats not possible. They hate all women. :eyes:

Rush Limbaugh had said that his second favorite politician is Margaret Thatcher--an extremely strong independent woman. Rush doesn't hate women--he hates liberals.

That's like saying someone can't be a racist because his favorite show is Amos and Andy.

Men who idolize Thatcher idolize her for her lack of femininity... she's a woman-haters' idea of what a woman should be.

Thatcher? Please. People that hate women want them to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, not Prime Minister. They hate the very idea of women having power over any individual man, let along the leader of an entire country.

Rush's way of expressing love.

Unless it is your contention that all women are feminists?

stereotypes of women and is simplistic when sorting them into those stereotypes.Those who don't fit his cartoon version are femi nazis which pretty much includes all women in the democratic party. You want to defend his simplistic view of "worthy" women,have at it.

Rush hates women in the Democratic party, not all women.

It implies those who hate Hillary have been silent on critique of her gender "because they hadn't found their voice", like that's what they really wanted to say. I don't hate Hillary and haters annoy me, but I am also annoyed by people framing issues so I am told what to think like that. The point of the article is fine, but they should lose that title.

corporatism.

Is there anything that can't be spun into corporatism. Misogyny is also about NAFTA of course. Or maybe that's a joke :sarcasm:

It was outsourced with pebbles and wood chips.

:(

major concern of the people whose posts on the internet the article described, they would not be demeaning her with comments about "dishes" and "sandwiches." Instead, they would refer to balance sheets, stock options, etc.

little pathetic Orwellian substitutes.

& poorly written at that. Where is the thesis statement?

...still find it so hard to even think of an idea of a female leader
look at Great Britain, Germany, India, Ireland, and many other countries...and yet we are the "champion" of equality, but heavens no, a woman president? sad...

Some people dont like hillary and call her names! I am shocked!

You try not to use these words because they end whatever conversation you are having.
Women have been presidents all over the world. I really don't think it is a big deal. We all know women can do anything men can do, and, as a woman, raised by a woman the very idea that it makes a big difference is absurd to me. Yes, we can pee in the snow too. So what?
She is not a good candidate for the Democratic party. She is a sell-out. If someone called her a bad name, that's on them. It's childish. stupid maybe.

I worry more about women being stoned in muslim countries, or raped in wars, or not permitted to have legal safe abortions. Names, I don't think so.

Yes, some ugly things are being and will continue to be said; the human being is a mixed-bag at best. That doesn't entitle the recipient of this abuse the most important and dangerous job on earth. Full stop.

Everybody suffers in this world. Obama gets crap from racist whites AND from racist blacks. To some, he's not black enough; to others, he's black period. Some think it doesn't make the right statement because he isn't descended from American Slaves. Some people resent him for being an upstart. None of this warrants awarding him the presidency as some form of quasi-legal remedy.

John Edwards gets crap for being a lawyer, even though the law is hardly a uniformly despicable profession. He gets crap for being too pretty, as if this proves that he's not able to cut it on smarts and character alone. He gets crap for being "just another white guy", and at in a time of cultural change, this is a problem.

What we deserve as a people is the person whose policies are best for us, regardless of gender, race, sexuality or religious persuasion.

The tiresome bemoaning that "nobody knows the trouble I've known" that is a recurring motif of the left simply doesn't apply to the human race. As the fabled bubble-lady poet of Berkeley, Julia Vinograd, puts it: "the truth is that we're all abused minorities."

The gender issue is a real one, and it should be mentioned, but it's also being played for advantage. The "you go girl" people had best be careful with their approach here, and if it's intimated that this special status exempts her from accountability for her actions, that could backfire in a hurry.

I want her to be defeated for the nomination, but I want it to be done on the issues of policy, integrity and allegiances, not on some shrill gender hate-fest.

Lest we forget, there are plenty of women who are bigoted as all hell against men, and many of them think that there shouldn't be any downside to saying so outright; men are obviously bad.

And I really liked how you ended with a cry against reverse sexism. Those men really have been oppressed.

But then the oppressed don't have to be fair, do they?

The oddest thing about these whiny men is that they actually think that the darling of the defense contractors, Wall Street, and health insurance companies is actually a liberal, when she is in fact the one Dem that my furthest left contacts would refuse to vote for. The one thing that might conceivably change their minds is reacting against the sewer of misogyny. It's about the only thing that would motivate me at this point.

A poster on DU (yes, DU...) suggested her support in SC was only sympathy for a "battered woman"...

I really doubt that the righties dislike Clinton because Mark Penn's company is a pro-Blackwater union buster, however.

statement about republicans could hold here. Republicans, talk loud and say NOTHING! Writers that express themselves with thousands of words are the same, write many words but say nothing.

Folks, I am under the strong belief we will have a woman president after the november 08 election. Many in here that say we will not are the same as republicans who say HRC will never be elected. You and the right wing have to understand, they (republicans) are not going to be campaigning against Leona Helmsley, the "Queen of Mean" when they face off against HRC. That will not be the HRC the right wing will be facing. Before the campaign is over HRC's candidacy will have more in common with Amrlia Earhart's first tran Atlantic flight or Sally K. Ride's first trip into space then whatever the right wing thinks HRC is.

Many in here and the rupublicans as well completely fail to grasp the crucial role that SYMBOLISM plays in politics. HRC bids to be the FIRST EVER woman president of the United States and that my friends is one big damn deal. It will as the campaign gathers steam will over shadow every other issue and image in this campaign.

If one cares to consider polls then one cannot overlook the fact that HRC's negatives have gone below the 40% mark in the last several months and her favorable ratings have gone over the 50% mark. That is good news for all of us. Also in those negatives of HRC one must understand those negatives are clustered mainly among republicans and right leaning independents who are unlikely to vote for HRC in any circumstance.

So yes, I agree we will have a new democratic president come november of 08 who happens to be a woman.

Ben David

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

they're worthless.

"She's a Bitch" isn't a valid political opinion. Nor is suggesting she should do the dishes or make a sandwich.

Those who'd say such things have the political acumen of a gerbil.

Gimme a break.