Monday, January 25, 2016

Women are often still held to a higher standard than men




I just love this photo of Hillary Clinton. And I really like this Kristof column about her:

Clinton, Trump and Sexism
When Republican “mad men” make sexist comments — Trump using a vulgarism about Clinton’s 2008 loss to Obama or Ted Cruz saying Clinton needed a spanking — the Clinton campaign barely conceals its delight as it sounds the trumpets.
“We are not responding to Trump,” an aide, Jennifer Palmieri, tweeted triumphantly, “but everyone who understands the humiliation this degrading language inflicts on all women should.”
One way in which attitudes have changed has to do with sexual predation. Shaming women who make accusations — in short, the Bill Clinton campaign approach of 1992 — is much less tolerated today.
So today Hillary Clinton is scolded for turning on and helping to stigmatize the women who accused her husband of misconduct, which oddly means that she may pay more of a price for his misbehavior than he ever did. That irony would encapsulate the truism that whatever the progress, women are often still held to a higher standard than men.

I think this is especially true of Radical Chic men who like their women pure and untouched by the rough and tumble and compromise of politics. And they don't like women seeking power for themselves. As The Nation's Doug Henwood, the left's #1 Hillary-hater said:
As I wrote in My Turn (p. xiv): “The side of feminism I’ve studied and admired for decades has been about moving towards that ideal [of a more peaceful, more egalitarian society], and not merely placing women into high places while leaving the overall hierarchy of power largely unchanged. It’s distressing to see feminism pressed into service to promote the career of a thoroughly orthodox politician—and the charge of sexism used to deflect critiques of her.”

The Radical Chic in the best patriarchal tradition expects women to put other issues before their own personal welfare.