The Look

You’ve got the look

You’ve got the hook

U sho-nuf do be cookin’

In my book

~~ “U Got The Look” by Prince

Looks pretty goddamn presidential to me

An alternate title and song for this entry would be “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” by James Brown.

::sigh::

Earlier this week, the Yam said in an interview that Hillary Clinton doesn’t “look presidential.” I have to wonder how he would define “looking presidential.” I know my own personal definition would preclude being orange, but that’s just me.

This isn’t even subtle sexism. This is in your face sexism. He doesn’t think she looks presidential because she’s a woman. You all know that, right?

To cap it all off, after the NBC forum on Wednesday night, RNC chair Reince Priebus (AKA the Obvious Anagram per Charlie Pierce) tweeted that Clinton looked angry and defensive and that she sported “no smile.” Seriously?

This double standard for female politicians—and to be honest, pretty much every woman who deals in any way with anyone anywhere—is absurd. If a woman takes things seriously, she is told to lighten up and be more approachable. If she is forceful in her words, opinions, and delivery, she is told that she is being too strident or shrill, or that she is shouting. Women are criticized for their hairstyle, their makeup, their attire, their demeanor, their body. If she is subjected to harassment in the workplace, some suggest that her best option is to find another job. If she is raped, there are those who blame her for dressing the wrong way, acting the wrong way, drinking too much, or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or maybe they shouldn’t be in the same workplace because I guess some men just can’t control themselves if they are in close proximity to a woman as they work alongside her.

At the forum mentioned above, Matt Lauer frequently interrupted Hillary and after spending about a third of her time asking her email questions (let it go, Matt, let it go), told her to be brief when talking about her plan to deal with ISIL. When the Yam blatantly lied about being against the Iraq war from the beginning, Lauer just...let it go. (Wrong thing to let go, Matt!) Poor Lauer. I think his ass is still smarting from the spanking he got from pretty much everyone over how he handled that forum.

::heavy sigh::

Well, if anything good can come from that clusterfuck of a forum, it will be that the moderators of the upcoming debates will have paid attention and realize that they need to get their acts together and do some damn moderatin’.

If the election of our first female President will help even a little bit with the casual sexism that millions of women are subjected to every day, then I’m with her! I think U got the look, Hillary!

Why so serious?

After Hillary Clinton’s speech on Tuesday night (she had won 4 of 5 contests that night, and apparently has also narrowly won Missouri, completing her sweep), a few pundit fellas took to the Twitters and told her that she won, she should smile. And that she was shouting. And that she seemed angry.

::sigh::

It dismays me that women are still held to some weird standard that dictates that we can’t get angry, or if we do, we should put on a happy face and not project our anger.

Well, fuck that.

Plenty of us are angry at the erosion of our hard-earned rights to reproductive freedom and we are angry about STILL not getting equal pay for equal work, and we are angry about sometimes being treated as less than competent as workers and as leaders. In Clinton’s speech, she was talking about many of these things, as well as things like gun violence and Governor Rick Snyder’s incompetence and complicity in the Flint water crisis (who cares if the browns get a little brain damage from lead poisoning, right Rick?).

But come on, Hillary. Give us a smile!

This is so offensive to me as a woman. What is it about having a uterus that makes men think they can tell us how to comport ourselves? That we aren’t agreeable enough, or that our passion and outrage is somehow unseemly or unfeminine? Look pretty and smile a little! That’s a good girl.

It is incredibly condescending and it pisses me off. Next time you get into an argument with a woman who is fired up about something, tell her to calm down or tell her to smile. Let me know how that works out for you.

It resulted in a discussion between me and Ken, but because we are both rational people, we managed to understand where each other was coming from. He maintained that sometimes she does sound like she is shouting, and I said, “What wrong with that at a rally?” He said sure, that’s fair. I said that I think she did get the message about toning it down a bit in debates and she has handled herself well lately. If it ends up being her vs Trump in a debate, that ability will serve her well. If she can keep her cool when subjected to the personal attacks that he is bound to bring, she will only prove that she can handle anything thrown at her.

Women can and do get angry about things, and we get passionate about things. I object to the ridiculous standard that we shouldn’t show our anger or our passion. I am honestly more committed to rational discussion and reasonable discourse, but if I get pissed off about something, you’ll know it.

[smiling]

Mocktober

It’s technically autumn, but it sure hasn’t felt like it lately! I believe we had a frost last weekend, which means that we’re in Indian Summer, and it’s been just beautiful lately. Sunny and temperatures around 80° for most of the week!

We went to the Notre Dame-Air Force game yesterday, and it was so nice we were still able to tailgate before the game. (We probably still will as it gets cooler, but it’s not as much fun. Some people go to elaborate lengths for tailgating, with generators and heaters. We’re strictly small-time.) I stupidly didn’t wear a hat, because I thought I’d be comfortable enough without one. I ended up having to buy another ND hat, and I like this one even better than the one I had, so it worked out okay!

Since we were playing Air Force, we hoped they might have a flyover. I think it’s usually F-18s. We got a bit of a surprise this time. I saw movement up in the sky at the other end of the stadium and said, “Holy crap, that’s a Stealth! They’re doing a Stealth flyover!” Sure enough, as the National Anthem was winding up, here it came, right at us, and towards Touchdown Jesus. I had never seen one in flight before, and it was quite impressive. The crowd went wild!

The game ended up pretty well, too. The Irish dominated, with a final score of 59-33. It wasn’t even as close as that makes it look, because when we were up by 40 points, they cleared the bench and let the second string play. They gave up a couple of touchdowns at the end. Today is just doing some catching up around here, and it’s so nice Ken is going to fire up the grill and we’ll have our last two porterhouse steaks.

Tomorrow is going to be another nice day, and it looks like a good day for a protest march! Cousin Shane, Matt, Doug, and I will be heading downtown to take part in a MoveOn jobs march. This isn’t quite the same as the Occupy marches, but close to it. After that, we’ll stick around downtown and do our part to stimulate the economy by having a late lunch at the Thai restaurant. Recently, Herman Cain (or as Palin likes to call him, ‘Herb’) said that if you’re out of a job or if you’re not rich, don’t blame the banks, don’t blame Wall Street, blame yourself! Really? Really?! Talk about a case of blaming the victim. There are plenty of hard working people who lost their jobs because of the unbridled greed and deregulation of Wall Street operatives, and Cain has the nerve to say that it’s the unemployeds’ fault. Unbelievable. Ken and I have weathered this fairly well (rapping my knuckles on my head), but I will be proud to stand in support of my fellow Americans who have gotten royally screwed by banks and hedge fund managers, and have been told to shut up and take it up the ass, and to smile while it’s happening. And then that weasel Eric Cantor has the gall to say that the Occupy Wall Street protests are un-American, and just a bunch of mobs. Since when is it un-American to peacefully protest when you aren’t pleased with what is happening in the country? Last time I checked, that was in the Constitution. For a bunch of people who claim to love the Constitution so much, they sure don’t seem to like it when others exercise their Constitutionally-mandated rights.

But don’t get me started. [wink]

I have one more beef, and then that will be it for today. You may have heard about the brouhaha that took place this week in the Massachusetts Senate race. Scott Brown is the incumbent, and Elizabeth Warren is leading in the primary to be his Democratic challenger. Several years ago, Brown was the centerfold in Cosmopolitan; not the full monty, but nude except for something strategically placed in front of the ol’ groinage area. In a recent Democratic debate, when asked about how she paid for college, she made the joke, “I didn’t take my clothes off.” Brown was asked about the remark on a radio show, and in response to Warren’s crack, he said, “Thank God.” Then he and the DJ yukked it up a bit.

This bothered me, and yes, I’m going to tell you why. I found it to be a typical male response when they are intimidated or ridiculed by an intelligent woman: make fun of her looks. It strikes me as condescending and patronizing, and somewhat misogynistic. Do I think it’s a huge deal, one that Brown should be tarred and feathered for? No, not really...but as a woman, it bothered me as indicating a deep-seated tendency to marginalize women. Did Warren bring it upon herself with her own joke about it? Yeah, probably, and she chose not to dive any deeper into these murky waters of snarkiness.

Some of my guy friends dismissed it as a tempest in a teapot. The incident really isn’t a huge deal for me, but it did bother me. It reminded me of my first job in Grand Forks, North Dakota. I was up in the ICU and trying to find a place to draw blood on a patient. With all the lines and IVs, it wasn’t an easy task. One of the patient’s doctors, a cardiologist, happened to be in there at the time, and he put his hands around my waist (Bad touch! Bad touch!) and moved me to the side, then said to the (male) patient, “I bet it doesn’t hurt as much when they’re as pretty as this one, eh?”

It was condescending and creepy, dismissive of my education and duties, and incredibly sexist and unprofessional. (Yes, I complained to my manager.) I didn’t find it complimentary at all, and even 25 years later, I remember it quite well. Whether being “complimentary” or derogatory (I’ve had that happen, too...like being told my eyes are so far apart that I look like ET. Oooo, burn! What else ya got, crackuh?), it’s the same demeaning bullshit that women have had to put up with for centuries. When some men are confronted with an intelligent woman, they resort to any means necessary to demean them and put them in their place. You can also bet that any woman who had posed like Scott Brown did would not have a career in politics in this country, and would be portrayed as a whore. Elizabeth Warren is an incredibly smart and capable woman, so Brown demeans her first by ridiculing her Harvard professorship (how awful those Harvard elites are!) and then by implying that she’s a repulsive woman that no one would ever want to see naked. She can take care of herself, I have no doubts about that.

But I feel that I have every right to say, “This bothered me, and here is why.” If you want to dismiss my viewpoint, I suggest you do it without calling me ‘honey’ or asking me to make you a sandwich before we discuss it.