Mad Cow Disease

Oh yeah. The new media meme. ''Angry white women'' has replaced the ''soccer mom'' as the new stereotype for female voters. This time though, we're ''angry'' because our girl ''Hillary'' -- not Senator Clinton, ya see, because that would be, like, too dignified and manly -- lost to Barack Obama and doesn't know when to quit or how to get off his stage.

Grasping, overreaching ''bitch.''

Today, one person steps back and takes a rational view. That person is of the female and Democrat persuasion so she's kind of biased and maybe, as a woman, a little hysterical but she's worth reading anyway.

Since it became clear that Hillary Clinton would likely bow out of the race for the Democratic nomination for president, the dominant narrative has been the angry white women who are holding back from Barack Obama. Some even suggest that John McCain can make a major play for these disaffected Clinton supporters. The problem with this narrative is that it is mostly wrong, ignoring history and failing to understand Obama's real challenge among women voters.

No doubt, there are some Clinton supporters who currently find it difficult to contemplate supporting Obama, but most of these women are highly engaged, progressive Democratic voters; it is difficult to imagine them ultimately supporting McCain, who has a career-long, anti-woman record.

In fact, Obama is actually doing better than John Kerry with women voters; Kerry won them by 3 points, and according to polling from Democracy Corps research, Obama is currently winning them by 6 points. Obama's improvement over Kerry comes among college educated and younger women -- the most progressive voters in the electorate.

But golly gee whiz, why should women be angry anyway? Don't we have more rights than men, thanks to feminism? Don't we get allowed to have jobs and bank accounts and the vote now? Aren't we enough of a special interest group? What more do we want?

How about a little fairness in and from the media?

The most traditional location to reach the political establishment, the Washington Post opinion section, is brazenly male-dominated. Seventeen of the 19 columnists are men; only three of the columnists are racial minorities. Guest op-eds could present more voices, but they rarely do. This year, only 12 percent of the Post's guest pieces came from women, according to a May count by ombudsman Deborah Howell. At the New York Times, eight of the ten weekly columnists are men; one is black. (The Times also recently created a bimonthly graphics column, a post filled by a black commentator.) And in an industry review last year, about one out of four columnists were women at the largest syndicates around the country, according to Editor and Publisher. As Times columnist Nick Kristoff lamented last month, even as reporting staffs diversify, white men dominate American punditry "from newspaper columnists to television talking heads."

The disparity is striking on air. Most anchors, producers and writers in television news are women, according to the Radio and Television News Directors Association, yet the vast majority of prime time hosts, who dominate campaign coverage and frame presidential debates, are white men. That includes all the Sunday morning hosts, all the prime time hosts on MSNBC, and all but one of the prime time hosts on CNN and FOX.

More today on media bias from my Star colleague Judy Gerstel here.

Researcher Erika Falk documented what she sees as sexist bias against Hillary Clinton. "She wasn't treated like the typical male candidate," says the communications expert at Johns Hopkins University. Falk analyzed the first month of campaign coverage in the top six circulating American newspapers, including USA Today, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times.

She found that Clinton:

• Was more likely than Obama to have her legislative title dropped and be referred to by her first name or by her gender.

• Was mentioned in just 65 per cent of the number of articles as Obama. Only nine stories mentioned Clinton without mentioning Obama; 38 stories mentioned Obama without Clinton.

• Had fewer paragraphs written about her than Obama did – 631 about her and 934 about him.

• Was less likely to see her name in a headline than Obama: 59 stories had headlines with "Obama" to just 36 with "Clinton."

As former Liberal deputy prime minister Sheila Copps told Judy:

"(Clinton) was supplanted," Copps says, speaking by phone from Mexico. "We were sideswiped on the way to the White House."

Now, citing the "blatant" sexism in the media coverage of Clinton, she says, "What's even sadder is that people can't even see it."

Well, God knows, I have tried to make them see.

You can lead the chauvinists and the colonialized to the facts but you can't make them think.

Maybe this video from the Women's Media Center will serve:

Oh, and before you get the impression that this is a U.S. only problem, read this piece of crap from The Ottawa Citizen's David Warren yesterday. (Hat tip to Sooey.)

The “second wave,” dating roughly from Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique -- a polemic of 1963 that wove strands of earlier feminism together with neo-Marxism and neo-Freudianism into a stinging lash -- began with the observation that women remained “subjugated” by false consciousness even after being legally freed, and demanded that the de jure accomplishments of previous generations be consolidated de facto. The target became “patriarchy,” and with this, men qua men. Beneath the radar, the target became women who persisted in behaving like women.

This is the feminism I was raised in, and I remember how slowly its tenets seemed to spread -- though in retrospect it was an historical blink of an eye. The cutting-edge “hippie chicks,” who were my precise contemporaries, sought liberation, but continued to dress and behave in stereotypically feminine ways. Indeed, for many men of my generation, those were the last real girls we ever got to see, and we remember them fondly.

Angry white women? Who us?

Comments

[sooey]

I guess some pundits in their punditry have moved on backwards to the old divide and conquer strategy against women. Ho hum. Some of them even apply it internationally to blame western Feminists for the oppression of women in Muslim countries - because we don't support the War on Terror enough. Or at all in the case of the worst perpetrators - like me.

By the way, if your readers are looking for a decoding of David Warren's opinion that Feminism "has tended to fill all the spaces between Communism, Environmentalism, and Islamism", I could be wrong, but - I think he's referring to abortion.

Seriously.

[Antonia]

You could be wrong, IMHO. It means that which he cannot blame on Marxists, Al Gore or Islam, he can blame on feminists. It's why he is always going on about why the world needs more white babies and fewer of the other kind.
http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/index.php?artID=179
http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/index.php?artID=536
http://www.travelbrochuregraphics.com/extra/wrestling_with_islam.htm

Hmm, on second thought ... you could be right!
That's because white women generally have access to abortion and the other kind generally do not.

[Big Dave]

AZ; So white women are angry because their opportunity to have an American President is over (for this round). It IS time for a woman President, but it is also time for a minority President. Tough year to run.

The clips in the video were disgusting. I think they illustrate how politics has a good dose of showbiz these days and looks are a major factor for any candidate, but especially women. Think of the good old days with leaders like Golda Meir and later Margaret Thatcher. Think of Madeleine Albright and currently Condoleezza Rice. All good leaders but I think this demonstrates the rising influence of appearance being important for women in politics. Is this right? No; but it is the way of the world. Did it defeat Senator Clinton? I think not.

I was excited to see Senator Clinton running. It is time. Yet, I sensed something scary about her personality and that turned me off. I think that is what those jerk commentators in the video clip were addressing but only able to verbalise their distaste as the “nagging wife” thing.

It is time for a woman, but I don’t think Clinton is the one. Maybe Condoleezza Rice next time?

Dave

[Adam]

I don't get people sometimes. It really just boggles my mind how clouded some people's thought processes are. I agree that it's absolutely ludicrous for people to single Hillary out as an "angry white woman". Then again, to play Devil's advocate, it's also ludicrous for people to vote for Senator Clinton solely because she's a woman. The same goes for Obama in people voting for him because he's black.

Is USA so guilt-ridden as to elect a presidential candidate based on the history of women's suffrage or the aptly named "white guilt"? Have we, as people, not come far enough as to elect candidates based on what they believe the country can achieve? based on the leadership and direction? On what they, with the support of the people, will bring to the country?

Would I like to see a woman or black president? It would be nice, but electing them solely for those traits makes a mockery of the progress made and the presidential election. Would I like to see more women in the media and in politics? Of course i would, but I wouldn't be in favor of tossing women into positions they may not be qualified for. Mark my words, there WILL be an influx of women into politics and media soon enough. Ground has been made over the years, and (especially in politics) it takes time to build a portfolio of work well enough to obtain such a high profile position.

Women getting elected for being women is the antithesis of feminism. It's not equality. It's special treatment at it's finest and it really casts doubts on the progress we've made here in North America.

I mean, I DO realize there's sexism, and even racism, in modern politics. There are people in power positions holding fort against certain groups.
I'd just rather see those 'forts' toppled admirably and justly rather than with equally biased fronts of "support" such as I've seen during the primaries/election.

This election has just been really disturbing.

That's my two cents.

[sooey]

Gee, you'd hardly guess who the white guy President actually is from your post, Adam.

Meanwhile, this was the best chance ever to elect a woman to the White House and the Democrats didn't take it. Good guys/bad guys, they're all guys at the end of the day.

It wasn't about electing Hillary just because she's a woman, it was about "tearing down that wall" and electing a woman who is a Feminist.

[Adam]

And I want that wall to be torn down. Hillary is a very good politician and I certainly had no wishes that she'd fail at her campaign. It's just that around my school, my community, people who wanted Hillary to win wanted her to win because she's a women. I'd prod them for other reasons but oftentimes they couldn't tell me a single non-obvious political stance(healthcare for instance, was probably the only thing I remember hearing on top).

Maybe I'm just a foolish idealist, but I'd like a woman president(or prime minister) to be elected based on what she hopes to do to improve the country, instead of votes from people who only see a woman against two men. I'd like to see that the "wall" isn't so high. Maybe that's premature. I'd hope that there's been progress made with this campaign.

And I hope you aren't insinuating that I'd be a supporter of McCain. That'd just be incredibly incorrect. Were I an American, I'd have a hard time choosing between the Democrats. Hillary has more experience than Barack does, although Barack hasn't taken many corporate bribes/campaign donations....which I believe is a great moral decision. Although those corporations dig their claws in no matter what and if it's not the candidate, it'll be the senate or whomever within it or outside it that would help their cause....

I don't know. I'd probably vote Clinton. It's difficult to say, and I'd have to do a little more research than I've done over the last year. Either way, if what you said is true, that it's about electing a woman to break down the wall, so to speak, then I guess that would help for the future. It would help women be seen as equals in the world of politics. It would help so that the next time, the next woman would be seen for her political standpoints and not the fact that she's a woman. Who knows, maybe the people south of this border are much more involved, and a large amount of her supporters campaign for her because of those stances. I'm just going by what I've seen and heard firsthand.

Are you at least taking into consideration where I'm coming from and not looking at my name an immediately thinking that I have no idea what I'm talking about?

Do you not understand why I could possibly be annoyed at responses like
"She's a woman. Why would I vote for anyone else?"
"I'm voting for the black man. Why would I vote anyone else?"
"The white guy gets my vote. Why would I vote for anyone else?"

They're all the same, no matter the purpose of breaking down that proverbial wall. Those three candidates are American citizens, and I can't understand why people would cast a vote because of their bodies instead of where they stand politically.

But if Hillary was what was needed to break that barrier so women could be treated as equals in politics, so there wouldn't be an inevitable shock factor in the media, then I'd be all for that so long as people understood what she stood for. I'd cheer for her on the run to the white house.

[deBeauxOs]

As one of those "cutting edge hippie chicks" who grew up into what the misogynist male pundits call "angry white women", all I can add to your cohesive smack-down is that I have no regrets about how I've transformed the world and how it changed me.

And, I am so glad that I didn't morph into a "bitter, white, old fart" like Warren did.

[Lene]

The other day, I read an article about Clinton's decision to end her campaign http://www.thestar.com/article/438264). In it, a congressman is quoted as saying that in the few days leading up to making the decision, she was "as spunky as ever". Would a male candidate for President be called spunky? Condescending moron.

That's what's infuriating me today.