Amazingly, nay, UNBELIEVABLY, David Shuster has been suspended from MSNBC as a result of his comments. Clinton is now saying that she may not do any more debates conducted by NBC - who the heck can blame her?!?!
Oh, and Shuster has been trying to get in touch with the Clintons to apologize. Hopefully for real this time, since his apology this morning was basically that he stood behind the intent of his comment even though he labeled Chelsea a whore and her mother a pimp. I mean, really - what CONTENT behind THAT is acceptable?!?! Sheesh.
So, good for MSNBC for finally doing the right thing. It is SAD, though, that it took something like this, for this level of sexism/misogyny on a national level, to finally be acknowledged. I swannee - I just don't know how things have gotten this bad in a relatively short period of time...So many of us worked so hard for so long in the '70's and '80's, and here we are. Exclusive language used with regularity - women soccer players are yelling, "Man on" when a player is coming up on them, and the announcers use the same language when not one man is visible on the field of play - same with basketball. WHAT does that tell our girls? That they are not heralded as being WOMEN athletes, but some kind of lesser form of MALE athletes? And any ATTEMPT at inclusive language seems to have fallen by the wayside despite the fact that we KNOW language shapes our reality.
And Clinton is bearing the brunt of it on a national scale. Chris Matthews, of MSNBC, said that to some men, Clinton's voice "is like fingernails on a chalkboard" (http://mediamatters.org/items/200611090002). Tucker Carlson, on MSNBC (naturally - see a pattern here??), says things like the following, "I have often said, when she comes on television, I involuntarily cross my legs." (http://mediamatters.org/items/200707180009). Don't take my word for it - Jamison Foser of Media Matters has laid out the past three weeks at MSNBC beautifully, if not shockingly when you read just some of the crap these men have said: http://mediamatters.org/items/200802080011?f=h_top
This is the barest TIP of the iceberg, and only two incidents on one network. These kinds of comments would absolutely, under no frikkin' circumstances whatsoEVER be tolerated of almost any other group on the planet*. But women are still fair game for this kind of misogynistic vitriol, and Clinton is taking it on the chin for many of us. Just listen to how the pundits describe Clinton's supporters - you'll see what I mean. We gotta keep fighting, people - we gotta keep fighting for Clinton, and for all women, girls, and the men who support women. Rock on.
*Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered people are also fair game. In a big way.
2 comments:
It might be interesting to gather some statistics. Check such websites as nytimes.com, latimes.com, etc. Every day at a certain time, tally the number of articles pertaining to Obama vs. the number pertaining to Clinton. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that Obama gets more press.
No, you're right - he definitely does. People ARE doing those stats, and the difference is what you already know - he IS getting more press, and more POSITIVE press. I get realy, really tired of ALWAYS seeing his photo or name every single time I go to the NYTimes.com and other sites. THe lead sentence may be something abt Clinton, but have OBama's photo! THe NY Times, which endorsed CLINTON, had photo after photo after photo of OBAMA at his polling place on Tues.!!! Argh.
Oh - check out what Jamison Foser wrote for Media Matters. Glad that the quotes were compiled on the one hand; on the other, what these men said makes me ill.
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