The Song of Our New ObamaNation: The Bitch Deserved It (by madamab at The Confluence)

Most people in this country do not know how explicitly misogynistic Barack Obama’s campaign was. They don’t have time to sit at the computer and read The Daily Kos, or Talking Points Memo, or The Huffington Post. They didn’t read the vile, endless hatred spewed at women by Obama’s supporters. They believe the lovely stories spun by the corporate media: that Obama was saintly and above all negativity and “unifying,” while his opponents rolled around in dirt. And even when Obama or his surrogates did or said something overtly misogynistic, the media either did not cover it, or excused it. After all, the bitch deserved it.

The Glass Ceiling Holds Strong (by Marie Cocco)
Those who watched the media's sexist hazing of both Clinton and Palin often rationalize this treatment as the result of these two candidates' particular personalities and the legitimacy -- or presumed illegitimacy -- of their campaigns. But Barbara Lee, whose Boston-based family foundation has conducted extensive research of gubernatorial races involving women, routinely identifies the same undercurrents in state campaigns… "We heard that over and over again -- that no woman is ever right," Lee says of her focus groups. "They like the concept of it but when it comes to a real, live, breathing candidate, they don't." Lee summarizes the disparate assessment this way: "There are no female Arnold Schwarzeneggers." That is, no woman will ever burst into politics, capture the voters' imagination and be catapulted into high public office without a lick of experience.

The Sexism Revival (by Daphne Merkin at the Daily Beast)
Now that the election is over and racism is ostensibly down for the count, has sexism gotten a new dispensation?... [T]wo nights after Obama had swept the elections … I chatted [at a private club] with a small all-male group… By the time I bid goodnight, the evening's patronizing atmosphere left me feeling as though I had stepped out of line without saying much of anything and should take my rightful place in hobble skirts in the back parlor with the rest of the weaker sex.

These snatches of conversation might not ordinarily have struck me as evidence of a sea change, a shift in the way that women are perceived, if it were not for the fact that Hillary Clinton had recently been demoted from presidential contender to possible secretary of state—a move that once again positions her as ready and willing to serve rather than to command—while Sarah Palin continues to brand herself on the talk show circuit with the same astonishing bravura she exhibited as a wild-card vice presidential nominee. Under these circumstances, it was hard to bat away the feeling that keeps tugging at the back of my mind, which is that although change may well be coming to Washington, the public discourse about women has taken several steps backward.

Will Secretary of State Be Enough for Hillary’s Army? (by Tina Brown at the Daily Beast)
American women ended the 2008 election cycle with a nasty taste in their mouths, and now they are loaded for bear (or moose, in the case of Sarah Palin’s voters). [Tuesday’s] Daily Beast poll shows that by an overwhelming 61 percent to 19 percent margin, women believe there is a gender bias in the media. And eight in ten upper-income women say that women have received unequal treatment in politics. That’s a lot of raging estrogen, with a heap of spending power—and it doesn’t want to settle for cosmetic surgery. [Emphasis added.]
Oddly, Brown says that the secretary of state position would provide a power base for Hillary, but I think it’s just the opposite. The organization she built in the primary can’t be used to promote her (and our) issues unless she remains in the Senate.—Caro

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Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com