Lets be honest, if you are a woman who has a position of power and are willing to play hardball with the boys, you will be described as abrasive, unfeminine, a bitch, a dyke and emasculating. It’s a double standard that has been around for decades.
I was watching CNN’s Situation Room last evening and one of the guests (a GOP strategist) basically took the position that Hillary’s being called a ‘bitch’ wasn’t a big deal because…some women are bitches. He didn’t come out and say “I think Hillary is a bitch.” Because he didn’t have to. Instead, he seemed to support the some-women-are-bitches contention by stating specifically that Hillary at times is “abrasive, aggressive, irritating.” Are those characteristics he finds annoying in just Hillary, or in male and female politicians in general? Why does the media have such an issue with Hillary? Why does the coverage seem so sexist? Aren’t they supposed to be reporting the news, not making it?
My question is this, when McCain, Bush, Cheney or any other male politician loses his temper, raises his voice, becomes condescending, gets “aggressive”, gets irritating and irrational or has ego-driven fit, what do we call him? Is a male politician who is aggressive and abrasive at times, chastised for it the way Hillary and other powerful women have been and currently are?Has there been a national dialogue over whether McCain is, by definition, a real ‘prick’? Or is he just the tough-guy’s manly-man?
See the video, here.
Stumble It!
3 responses so far ↓
1 Gloria Feldt // May 22, 2008 at 11:43 am
Stacy, I read the full transcript of this CNN episode and was particularly struck by how though Jeffrey Toobin and Gloria Borger tried to countervail the “bitch” slam, Castellanos’s vitriol was so strong and persistent that even they couldn’t get in the last word. Or maybe they just weren’t as passionate even though they were right. Thanks for posting this.
2 Administrator // May 22, 2008 at 8:59 pm
I couldn’t tell if they were just so shocked or that that unfortunately were to timid to come out and say what was really going on- Blitzer looked like he’d been slapped and just wanted it to end but he also could have done more to call Castellanos out his contention, basically, that calling Hillary a bitch is fair game because, well, she’s a bitch.
Shameful
3 tehehehe // May 27, 2008 at 11:41 am
As I recall, McCain has been severely criticized for his temper, even by some in his own party and in the Senate. He has also been called “abrasive”. He has even been called an “a$$hole”, which is typically considered something below a “bitch”.
Men can deal with a “bitch”. And men can deal with “feminists”. And they can deal with the girl next door. But they get irritated when someone who acts (and, behind the scenes relishes the title of bitch) then “whines” and says “the boys are picking on me” when they treat her like the tough cookie she is.
If you want to play by boys rules, that OK. Don’t whine when you get tackled. You want to play by girls rules, we can handle that, but don’t complain that you are getting “marginalized”. When you claim it is “only polite” that you go first as a woman, but then complain when “why am I always first”, it rubs people wrong, and they call you a “bitch”. By the way, that is roughly equivalent to people calling a guy a “hard ass” (which is better than “a$$hole” but less than “tough guy”).
But, we don’t expect you, as a woman, to understand the nuances of “guy talk”, any more than blacks expect you to note the subtleties of “ebonics”.
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