Sexism for the win! Could prejudice bring it home for Hillary Clinton in 2016?

[applegrove]

Sexism for the win! Could prejudice bring it home for Hillary Clinton in 2016?

By Jessica Valenti at the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sexism-for-the-win-could-prejudice-bring-it-home-for-hillary-clinton-in-2016/2014/01/24/ee61eb00-8450-11e3-bbe5-6a2a3141e3a9_story.html

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The world of gender politics has changed in the past six years. The sexist swipes that were normal then won’t fly in a post-“war on women” culture. Feminism has hit a tipping point. Stories such as the rape in Steubenville, Ohio , or Mike Huckabee’s comments on women’s libido and “Uncle Sugar” previously went unremarked outside of feminist circles; now, they’re up for widespread public debate.

This month, Time featured a story on Clinton’s possible 2016 run, with Clinton represented on the magazine’s cover as a giant high heel trampling a tiny man. “Can Anyone Stop Hillary?” the headline asked. The image, which played on old stereotypes reducing women to shoes and clothes, elicited some outrage but also much collective eye-rolling, because it felt like a throwback to another era. Slate’s Amanda Hess called it “sexist and hacky”; the Huffington Post and Marie Claire also denounced it. Mommy blogs got mad, too. “Why, when we’re talking about a professional, powerful woman,” Maria Guido asked on Mommyish.com, “do we oftentimes default to an image of her trampling over men to get to the top? .?.?. Women read your magazine, you realize this, right?”

Perhaps the biggest change surrounding women’s responses to political misogyny comes from the explosion of social media. Women on Twitter and Facebook shared their ire over the Time cover minutes after its release — much as they do every time something truly offensive happens, whether it’s objectionable news media coverage, a politician’s blunder or a new anti-woman law. But, unlike most Internet outrage, feminist Internet outrage gets results. And it will give the Clinton campaign — and Hillary supporters — a weapon they did not have last time around.

Breast cancer organization Susan G. Komen for the Cure, for example, had to reverse its 2012 decision to pull funding from Planned Parenthood within just three days, thanks to more than 1.3 million angry tweets and thousands of Facebook comments. (Planned Parenthood raised $3 million over the controversy.) The same year, online activism also brought down Virginia’s proposed transvaginal ultrasound mandate for women seeking abortions. Feminists started a hashtag campaign on Twitter calling it “state rape,” which resulted in widespread media attention; the legislation was eventually amended.





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[applegrove]

1. The GOP will have to put all their radical misogynists on a tight leash. Which will cause

more anger within the party as many right wingers like to discuss control over lady's lady parts.

[spooky3]

2. I think she's overly optimistic.

I don't think her opening statements are well-founded. There are many examples of Republicans who have openly expressed misogyny and taken policy actions consistent with it, often enough that, despite some internet pushback, they feel free to continue.

Susan Faludi might say we're in another Backlash era.