Stensland and Sexism in the 7th: Does anyone care? January 18 2010
PA2010 blogger Michael Livingston recently scoffed at Dawn Stensland’s rumored run for Joe Sestak’s seat in the 7th district:
Dawn Stensland—Let me get this straight. She can’t keep her husband interested, and she wants to take on Pat Meehan in the 7th? Last year’s candidate (Craig Williams) didn’t win, but he always showed up with the same woman.
Today, Larry Mendte fires back at Livingston his own blog, the Mendte Report:
The first sentence is one of those jaw dropping, “what century are we living in?” statements that should offend every woman and every man who admires and/or loves a woman.
It is like a grenade that goes off in your hands, a backfiring statements that so both defines and unintentionally demeans the writer, that I need not comment about Livingston. He has exposed himself and done quite enough damage.
Let’s instead look at the statement. It is sexist on so many levels, I could write a doctoral thesis on it. But let me address it at its shallowest level. Mr. Livingston seems to be saying that Dawn was somehow unattractive or uninteresting to me and so how could she possibly be attractive or interesting to voters. Again, let’s forget for a minute that he is saying that it is the fault of the wife if her husband strays. And let’s even forget that the statement is blatantly untrue (I’d love to see you prove that comment in front of a jury, Mr. Law Professor.) Instead, let’s deal with the inherent political sexism in the comment. He seems to be saying that if a wife is not sexually interesting to her husband, she can’t be a good candidate for office. Forget everything else about her substance and being, according to Mr. Livingston, it is a woman’s ability to serve her husband’s needs that is the scale by which we should judge her ability to seek public office.
Larry makes a compelling case in his blog post, and indeed, there is really nothing here to argue with. Livingston’s statement was widely denounced in his own comments section as sexist, yet as Mendte noted, he has not apologized for those comments.
Why should he?
Sexism carries absolutely no stigma or consequences, does it? It has been used effectively by conservatives against Hillary Clinton, and to devastating effect by liberals against Sarah Palin. And the end justified the means every time. As I noted here back in November:
Perhaps Ms. Brazile, whose most famous advice was successful only in making Al Gore look like more of a tool than he already was, is unfamiliar with the media campaign against Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin’s story is not going to “inspire” women to go into politics; it’s going to send them in the other direction, running for their lives. The complete vilification of Palin on the national stage was horrifying to watch. And the fact that it was mostly orchestrated by liberal women is an hypocrisy that feminists choose to ignore by talking about how “stupid” Sarah Palin is. They based their argument, I believe unfairly, on painting Palin as an incompetent Barbie Doll. The editors who chose the cheesecake cover photo for Newsweek were women. They are absolutely foaming at the mouth over Palin’s overwhelming popularity because she a symbol of repudiation of absolutely everything they stand for.
These feminists are using the very methods to destroy Palin that they have whined for years about men using against them. And they don’t see the hypocrisy. And even if they do, they don’t care. It’s more important to marginalize Palin. She’s too dangerous to the feminine mystique.
Palin’s experience serves as a cautionary tale to conservative women that there is no low to which the feminists in the media will not stoop to destroy you for the audacity of putting yourself forward as a viable candidate. Don’t think [Donna] Brazile doesn’t know this and wasn’t part of the public pillory against Palin.
It seems to me that feminist organizations have a rather large role to play in this state of affairs today. They have largely abandoned any pretense at standing for anything other than abortion and favored liberal policies, a position they unequivocally staked out during their unwavering support for the womanizing Bill Clinton. Clinton’s repeated objectification and disrespect for women was overlooked by establishment feminist organizations (and his own wife) because he supported the correct political policies–much like so-called civil rights organizations brush off accusations of racism against Democrats who support the correct “social justice” policies.
In my mind, the Clinton era was the end of the traditional feminism as we know it and the legitimization of actual sexual discrimination is the price that has been paid; it is ironic beyond words that Clinton’s wife paid a political price for this turn of events. This is vividly illustrated in the lack of ramifications for those stooping to sexist tactics against their opponents, to the actual encouragement of those tactics in taking out a strong female candidate from either side of the political spectrum.
Just to be clear, I find no strength in crying “victim.” To the contrary, I find it off-putting and weak. And this is where the “feminist movement” has done a grave disservice to it’s perceived constituency: by de-legitimizing pro-life women, and legitimizing sexist womanizers for the sake of advancing abortion rights and other liberal policies, they have sold their own legitimacy and basically given stamp of approval to the rest of the world on the use of sexist smear tactics to further their own political ends. By hand picking only liberal, pro-abortion women (and men) to support, the feminist movement has made a mockery of the whole issue sexism as a legitimate problem that needs to be overcome. And when they do react to accusations of sexism, instead of promoting and encouraging the strengths of women, they highlight the weaknesses and demand compensatory concessions, a strategy that only reinforces the perception of women as less competent than men. The label “sexist” has already lost it’s sting as an identifier of someone who holds outdated prejudices; now it is simply a code word for someone who opposes liberal polices, especially abortion.
A sad state of affairs, to be sure, and one I will be watching with interest should Dawn Stensland decide to take on Meehan in the Seventh. I wonder: will anyone else care?
Possibly Related...
Comments, compliments or complaints?