Bitch, bitch, bitch.

I think it's good Obama won. Better than the alternative. But I don't feel bittersweet about the election results, I just feel bitter. To me this election says less "Anyone can grow up to be President," than "Forget-about-it, little girl. Not in your lifetime."

I don't think Obama is the uniter that folks are hoping he'll be. I say this as a disenchanted Hillary Clinton supporter. I never felt that he reached out to me or acknowledged my concerns. I never once saw that he understood women's issues. If anything, his expression was derisive and dismissive if sexism was mentioned. He dissed female reporters as "sweetie", he embraced misogynistic music (99 problems, but a bitch ain't one), he was disrespectful to Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin in a way that he didn't react toward his male opponents Democratic and Republican and his support for "choice" was continually caveated by how women need to consult partners and pastors*, the men in their lives. I simply could not vote for someone who accepted, used, manipulated and promulgated this nasty culture of women-hating.

We saw in this election that racist rhetoric is really unacceptable. Good. But we also saw in this election that sexist rhetoric is not only acceptable but mainstream. From Clinton to Palin, too much was put in terms of gender and too much criticism rested on their sex. I don't like Palin's political views. But as I saw her represent the often schizophrenic Republican views of the role of government, these contradictions were laid at the feet of her being a stupid, ditzy woman rather than the inherent hypocrisy of the GOP position (i.e. subsidies and gov spending bad, unless it's on things I like - roads and wars and stuff). Too much was made of Palin's perceived fuck-a-bility and too much was made of Hillary Clinton's perceived lack of same.

I suppose that some could feel optimistic that at least this rampant sexism has been exposed. But I'm not sure that it has. Obama supporters on the left denied it, accused us often of making it up, or of not understanding the bigger picture. Well, to me, the sexism that's been exposed is the bigger picture. I'm not sure if we will see change that we really believe in so long as it's built on the same old prejudice.

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* I'm not saying you shouldn't, but I'm definitely not telling any woman that she should. Being pregnant is something that is really done alone.

Sexism and racism on political t-shirts

In a previous post, I pointed to a particularly disgusting anti-Palin ad which has appeared on several "progressive" blogs.

A regular reader pointed out some nasty racist slogans - you can see them here at Think Progress. And you'll also find out that the Internet vendor who was selling them has removed them. I'm not excusing them at all, they're vile. They should be taken down through social and commercial pressure. But I have a feeling they're not all that pervasive.

There is an Obama racism museum online with ten examples of racist material and include all the material in the original comment, but interestingly the most violent, vile and offensive item (in my view) is also misogynistic and was created by someone who claimed to be an Obama supporter.

It's my hypothesis that racism is largely deemed unacceptable in "polite society", but sexism is frequently overlooked or tacitly encouraged. So, I thought I'd undertake a little empirical research. I decided to look at the pervasiveness of sexism and racism on one of the more popular customized t-shirt sites - CafePress. This site relies on user generated content printed on CafePress supplied t-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs, bags...and so on. Here are the shocking results - sexism directed toward political candidates is A-OK and widespread; racism is not.

My assumptions and study design are below the main findings.

Total offense count:
Racism: 1
Faith bias: 9
Gender bias: 43 - maybe 44
Age/disability bias: 3

Honorable mention - perhaps one slogan with sexual preference bias.

The offense counts of the designs which came up as I searched against each politician's name. Interestingly, for both Clinton and Palin all of the offensive designs were directed at them (with one exception). For male candidates, offensive designs were often directed at others.

Barack Obama
Offense count:
Racism: 1
Faith bias: 0
Gender bias: 1 - maybe 2
Age/disability bias: 0

A surprisingly offense-light zone. Only one possible racist association - Barack Obama's head photoshopped onto a gangsta-rappa type with the slogan "Barack's gonna knock you out." I wasn't clear if this was pro or anti Obama, but I felt it played to negative racial stereotypes.

Bro's before ho's (sic) was the slogan with a clear gender bias.

There was also a t-shirt that said "Barack with your cock out". I'm pretty sure it's pro-Obama. It think it means the person is an enthusiastic supporter. I count this as the only maybe on the Gender Bias category.





John McCain

Offense count:
Racism: 0
Faith bias: 6
Gender bias: 5
Age/disability bias: 1

Half of the offensive material was linking Obama to radical Islam - mostly making a play on words between Obama and Osama (typical example)

There were a couple of references too Sarah Palin's sexual attractiveness and Hillary Clinton's lack of same. More under their own entries.

There was one instance of a visual pun that was a reference to John McCain's age and possible infirmity John Mc(and a picture of a cane).




Joe Biden

Offense count:
Racism: 0
Faith bias: 3
Gender bias: 0
Age/disability bias: 2

I flipped through pages and pages before I found anything particularly offensive here. There were a couple of instances of designs showing Joe Biden in a wheelchair urging him to stand up (a reference to a gaffe he made inviting a political ally in a wheelchair to stand).

Two references to McCain's fitness - "It's 3pm and John McCain is napping."
Three links to Osama Bin Laden, two of them rather tortured visual puns linking Obama and Osama and Biden and Bin Laden.




Sarah Palin

Offense count:
Racism: 0
Faith bias: 0
Gender bias: 10
Age/disability bias: 0

Almost all of the offensive material here was about Sarah Palin's fuckability, reducing her to a "hot" object of desire - often with a gun (examples here and here). There were several references to wanting to be Sarah Palin's intern.

I didn't count designs that included the slogan "Drill, baby, drill." or any images of a pitbull with lipstick, or "Hero and Hottie" - though I probably should have included instances of the latter. I tended to limit it to the most graphic images or descriptions.

There were two instances of "VP Palin - I'd drill that".

I'm not entirely sure, but I think a lot of this offensive material was ostensibly pro-Palin.



Hillary Clinton

Offense count:
Racism: 0
Faith bias: 0
Gender bias: 28
Age/disability bias: 0

If the gender bias about Sarah Palin was about her attractiveness, most of the references to Hillary Clinton were the opposite. The predominant messages were that she's ugly, undesirable and a bitch. Like Lewinsky '08, vote for the woman who's willing to do the job or Even Bill doesn't want her.

There were many instances of "Life's a bitch, so don't vote for one" or similar. Similarly, I counted several instances of "Just Vote for the Bitch," which I counted and "Bitches get things done," which I didn't. It's a fine line to draw, but that's where I drew it.

There was one pro-Hillary slogan which was sexist toward men (and women) - which I did count - Chicks before Dicks. Probably a counter to Bros before Hos.



Study design
I searched under five names Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Sarah Palin to look for any type of negative "ism" in designs available on the site. Most of the designs were available on a variety of items, but some were only t-shirts or only bumper stickers. I didn't count these differently. For each politician, I looked at 15 pages of possible designs - with 30 designs appearing per page - a total of 450 designs each. I counted similar or practically identical designs as separate instances if they had a different design identification number.

I found negative gender, age, and religious bias - but only possibly one instance of negative race bias. I judged negative bias as distasteful or offensive use of racial, faith, age or disability, or sexist stereotypes used to attack (and in some cases putatively support) a particular candidate. Negative bias is based entirely my judgement - a serious flaw in this little study, but I tried to be as objective as possible.

I also found lots of positive gender and race bias - i.e. it's a good thing to vote for Barack Obama because he's black (a small number of these) or vote for Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin because they are women (lots of these). I didn't count those. I also didn't count instances where the political slogans were an obvious twist on negative sterotypes (e.g. the slogan that said Some Guy/Palin '08).

I also found a number of "vaguely sexist" references - such as Obama Girl or Chicks for Obama or McCain Girl. I didn't count these. Similarly, there were usages of the urban slang "homeboy", but these appeared to be without racial bias and were I felt supported both the Republicans (McCain is my homeboy, Sarah is my home girl) and Obama is my homeboy. These weren't counted.

UPDATE: For a bonus round including political headlines, check out Tennessee Guerilla Women.
Sarah Palin Sexism Watch
16 Sexist Sarah Palin T shirts that will probably piss you off.

Parts is parts

Wow. Is this the kind of political discourse we want? Not cool.

Egalia reports the use of this ad on "progressive blogs" at Tennessee Guerilla Women.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. There is much about Sarah Palin's position that I disagree with. So much so that I will not be voting for McCain-Palin. But I respect that she is an accomplished and talented politician just as I acknowledge the many formidable male politicians with whom I strongly disagree.

And it makes me sick that she's attacked in this way, because this isn't really about her, it's only vaguely about her politics - this is about her gender. This is saying that any woman is fair game for sexist attacks. As we've seen. This is the kind of nasty politics that aims to keep women from positions of power from the White House to the school board.

This is so distasteful that I'd have suspected that it was a Republican plant if I hadn't lived through the primary season.

A rare moment of self-reflection

The media pauses for a moment and reflects on its own woman-hating self. There's whole panel of punditry reflecting on just a few incidents of the heavy misogyny we've all been treated to during this campaign. (Via TGW)

Probably too little, too late now.

I hope what comes out of all of this is an honest debate about how women, especially successful women, are treated - and that some progress is made. But I doubt that happens. I think this whole campaign season will demonstrate what happens to uppity women. Truly, bitch is the new black.

-0-

Since the Don Imus incident was mentioned (ever so briefly, since, strictly speaking it has nothing to do with this year's presidential politics), I'd like to add my two cents, too - since I didn't manage to do so at the time. I also believe that if Don Imus had just limited his comments to sexism he'd have probably gotten away with it. And I don't want to disrespect the Rutgers women's basketball team.

But I think we're forgetting who really got slighted in all that.

The Lady Vols.

Their great accomplishment got completely sidelined. They won, the National Championship, remember that? Rutgers came a mere (but respectable) second. But, of course, Pat Head Summitt has too much class to say that.

sexism in the UK

Jen - fellow expat blogger and still my nearest blogging neighbour (though she's moved a little farther down the line) says:

there’s still a lot about the u.k. that is inherently sexist

Yep, human condition, I think.

some of it is more overt (the topless photos inside the “newspapers”) and some of it is more subtle (the use of the endearment “love” in a pejorative and belittling way). margaret thatcher notwithstanding, there are still a lot of obvious inequalities and insidious patriarchal attitudes that pervade the culture. i was quite struck by it when i first arrived, and i am sad to say, it has since faded into background noise. because, well, i live here - and you just can’t spend all day every day in a black cloud of righteous indignation.

Nope. You can't. Plus some of this "background sexism" is obvious only when it's fresh. I think there's loads in American culture that we often just don't pick up on because we're raised with it and used to it. When you come in new to a place, the cultural assumptions are a lot more striking. Besides, I think the "love" thing is kinda sweet. As it's used in Yorkshire, you can tell it's not sexist - men, women, small children, the odd surly teenager are all called "duck" or "love" by men and women alike. The use is fading, but I still think everyday endearments are, well, endearing. Like anything, it can be abused and used in pejorative fashion.

Personally, I feel a bit freer here and less constrained by sexual and social stereotypes. Maybe that's living in London, maybe that's age and maturity. Maybe I've lived here so long I really don't notice anymore. All I know is that my home culture is still pretty darn sexist.