(KIDDING!!!)

Honestly, I think gender bashing, both in and out of politics, is going to be with us for the long term. I think we're at some level genetically wired to define by dividing.

It seems that the premise of your comment is that anyone who does not support Hillary is not a feminist, and in fact, that those who oppose her are presumed to be sexist.

IMHO, there are plenty of good non-sexist reasons to prefer Obama.  I am not trying to start a flame war, but I would like a little thoughtful discussion. Any takers?

(even as a write-in if I have to) for the best qualified candidate for the job...Hillary Clinton.

I agree.  There has been terrible sexist slime in this campaign.  Every voter should stand up and say it is wrong.

It seems like you assume that I think people are sexist if they don't support Clinton, whose name I didn't mention even once, iirc. I think that would surprise some of my Obama-supporting friends.

Please note that this isn't a candidate diary or endorsement.

Also, I included links in an earlier post today that tackled racist attacks on Obama, and if that makes me an Obama booster, that's news to me. Seriously, big, honking, breaking news.

I think that's the point of this post.

I completely agree, supx3. The difference is men have more often been in positions of influence and power, so the effects of their (our) sexism is felt more havily than reverse sexism. Women hating men is just as bad on a moral and ethical level, but not on a practical level. Not yet, anyway.

Maybe it's reactive, but I think it's just who they are as people. Obama has gone on the attack plenty, just in a very pleasant way. Clinton has been electorally rewarded for showing genuine emotion in the past.

I think you make a number of excellent points.

I have argued, for over a year, that Obama's message of bringing people together and his less-partisan rhetoric are very much related to his attempt to break the race barrier. He cannot afford to be labeled as "the angry black man."  

This is one of the reasons that it makes me crazy when hyper-partisans criticize him for not being "strong enough" or when they suggest that he will "roll-over" against the Republicans.  

I was a Sociology and Women's Studies double major in college.  I have found this contest to be endlessly fascinating.  Both Obama and Clinton have had to walk a tightrope.  It is interesting to speculate as to who had the more difficult task.  Is the fact that Obama appears to be coming out ahead a reflection of the fact that he had a simpler task, or a reflection that he has undertaken his task with greater subtlety and skill?  I think you could make a case either way.

I said if, if you suck at math. And did you, by chance, look at the link embedded near that comment? Might have driven home the thrust of the sarcasm a little better, which is that advanced math is hard and being a man doesn't mean you'll be good at it, either.

I said, "If you have a hard time with calculus ..."

Isn't it sort of unusual not to have a hard time with calculus, to have to really work at it?

But thanks for explicitly making the connection regarding why women are supposed to act stupid.

I wrote a diary recently for mydd called "Sexism as the last acceptable predjudice", read it when you can.

Like you, I'm an Obama supporter, but I disagree about offering up gender as a reason to support a campaign. Women really do have a different leadership style, on average, then men, and that can be offered up as a positive. The same can be said of minorities - they'll be more in tune with small prejudices and the patterns they build than another white male (like me) would be.

It's not just about what's in the pants - it's about the hormones (testosterone included) that have a physiological effect on the way you think and act, and about the experiences you've had as a result of your gender (like dealing with prejudice and sexism).

I bet a fair number of those Clinton supports who say that also add that, given two competent candidates, they're going with the woman.

It'd be hard to speak for people you know, but the ones I know seem settled on the question of whether Clinton is up to the job. She was an accomplished lawyer, she is an accomplished Senator, and I think it's hard to make the case that she's being supported just because she's a woman.

Which is to say, don't issue blanket insults of other feminists for making that a decision point between two qualified applicants. I think you're aware enough to see the mirror of it and know that's not where you want to take this.

It's reasonable for candidates and supporters to make arguments about which person is more qualified. That's because they're competing for a job only one person can hold and they have to differentiate themselves by making a case for why they're a better choice. Clinton says experience, Obama says judgment. We look at their positions and histories, we do a gut check to decide which one we like the most, and make a choice. But neither is unqualified, a position that's reflected in a Democratic electorate that, on the whole, really likes both of them.

Lastly, you may be enlightened enough not to judge people's qualifications by what's in their pants, but that isn't the prevailing attitude and it almost always comes down against women. Don't make the mistake of assuming that everyone's grown beyond a problem, and therefore it needs no correction, just because it isn't a problem to you.

When did it become not hateful to perpetuate the idea that women are naturally mentally inferior, an argument long used to deny us full rights?

Misogyny encompasses many forms of bigotry against women, even when it doesn't coincide with wanting to cause them physical harm. Denigrating women, denying them opportunities, and scapegoating all women for the actions of one or a few, are all misogynist acts, just as they're racist acts when perpetuated towards a discriminated against ethnic minority group.

Yes, it would be terrible if women ever admitted to being victims of anything. It's a total coincidence that we still make less, and that our activities are considered stupid and worthless by default, and that our judgment is considered so poor and our appetites so uncontrollable, that we still get blamed for our own rapes.

Because none of the collectively worse outcomes women have are related to the fact that we're victims of attacks on our competence, or threats, or fear, or anything else like that. You might be tired of all this, but don't take that to mean that everybody else should quit giving a damn, because people still live with the next generation iterations of the same problems you faced when you were in college.

Or, as Twisty says:

... These feminists seem actually to be critical of women on the wrong end of a beatdown. Their motto is that the wronged women should open up a can of whup-ass on the thugly oppressor. Otherwise, men might take it into their heads that women can be kept in line with intimidation. According to these feminists, the women who cry uncle have allowed themselves to become "victims rather than people."

But look here. Who are they trying to kid. Women can be kept in line with intimidation, and the whole world knows it. Aren't people who have been raped and intimidated and harassed and threatened with death "victims"? What the fuck is wrong with that word? It describes the situation perfectly.

Do you guys get, I mean actually get, that our society is a patriarchy? Patriarchy isn't just a gimmick for a blog. It really exists. There are actual implications. Do you get that a patriarchy is predicated on exploitation and victimization? It's not a joke! It's not an abstract concept dreamed up by some wannabe ideologue making up catch-phrases while idling away the afternoons with pitchers of margs. Exploitation and victimization is the actual set-up! A person is either an exploiter or a victim, or sometimes both, but never neither. ...

Once again, this is not a candidate diary, even if this campaign has been permeated by sexist rhetoric. And I, even though I am a feminist, am not responsible for every mailer sent out by an organization I don't work for.

Though if you think that writing this essay means that this is the entire way I see myself, then you don't know much about me. But you shouldn't have assumed in the first place.

One of the greatest barriers to becoming a feminist (or becoming an activist against any oppression you suffer) is that you have to admit that you are a victim.

This takes great courage. It means facing the truth.

You have to admit that you are deficient in power, in the ability to defend yourself. You have to describe what has been done to you. And it is hard not to feel shame. You fear you are opening yourself to more victimization. That somehow you are saying you deserve it, and so forth.

When feminists criticize a sexist institution, take marriage for example, married women often react in anger that they are being criticized. It sounds to them as though feminists are saying, you should have been stronger, you should not have been a victim. That isn't what feminists, all of whom know they have been victimized plenty, are saying. But it is very difficult to face what has been done to you, and move past your own capitulations.

Without the courage of victims to speak the truth, there would be no social progress.  

The letter you are referring to was from someone at NOWNYC, not the national organization. It was completely offensive to those of us with both brains and ovaries and who do not base their political choices on people who have the same. I'm a New Yorker who has had some experience with the local NOW chapter, and I can tell you they are not exactly relevant or credible in local politics. I was embarrassed by the letter.

Yes, it is part of a continuum of injustice, but that doesn't mean it's pointless to talk about it. Just like it still matters to discuss racial bigotry and homophobia.

Considering all the time that it gets not talked about, or talked about as though it were a solved problem, or how often women are trotted out to support it, I think that makes it a damn fine topic to focus on now and again. Especially by people who have first hand knowledge of being on the receiving end. People need to understand that this stuff is real and it has consequences.

Steve Gilliard talked about a wide variety of subjects. But he made time to single out Black conservatives who were propped up to cover for racial bigotry and backward policies, and I don't think too many people would have dared tell him he shouldn't have talked about it except in the context of all the many other injustices that went on in the world. He talked about what he knew, he was able to speak about it with authority, and he was never intimidated into shutting up because people might think he was a victim because he dared bring it up.

And that's part of what keeps these subjects under the rug. Because people who attain some level of success want to identify with the people with power, not people who are being oppressed. They want to get ahead, not make trouble.

I understand that, plenty of people have families and mortgages and they have to smile and go along.

But I don't have to and so I'm not playing that game. Also, certain friends of mine would be really ticked if I decided that this subject wasn't 'important' enough to write about anymore now that I had more of an audience.

I was just looking at some of the above comments.  I agree that if you had not used the word misogyny the piece would have gone down a lot easier with me.  There is a big difference between misogyny and sexism as the poster wrote.

You didn't say it was fine to talk about this. You implied that this was the entire way I saw myself or was asking other people to do so, that it was a "mistake" to talk about injustice "skewed" towards gender. Yeah. Just because poverty and sexual violence and acceptable bigotry skews towards gender, clearly not enough reason to bring it up on its own.

I also didn't say anything about you directly in that passage about going along. I said that many people don't speak up because they want to get ahead (which doesn't mean that they're necessarily affluent, just that they don't want to be poor, which, let's face it, nobody wants), and because they don't want to be hassled on the merits of even bringing it up, like you've done to me. People don't want to be told it's a mistake to talk about the injustices they notice, so they shut up and those injustices get harder to fix.

And I didn't say that this issue has to be the only issue women consider. Where did I write anything that remotely approaches that? In fact, read this, or this, or this, or this, and then you tell me that gender is the only issue I care about, or the only issue I've suggested anyone else care about.

I talk about feminism, and that's all I am to you; a woman making these same old complaints that you're sick of hearing. Which pretty much makes my point for me. I wish more people were sick of the problem than sick of hearing about it, and while I don't know which side of that you fall on, I don't give a damn.

If you make it difficult for me to talk about this as a problem, and tell me no, it's just too narrow, too harsh to say it's misogyny when it's really just a little sexism, then you aren't part of the solution. And I will continue to talk about it, because of all the people who can't, or just don't want to put up with being marginalized whenever they open their mouths.