Charges of sexism: whence do they come?

Crossposted on Daily Kos and My Left Wing.

The latest defense of Sarah Palin is that those on the left who are asking questions and criticizing are being sexist. Those charges are coming from a couple of interesting places.

Firstly, Mike “I’m Still Relevant” Huckabee weighs in:

Calling media critiques of Palin “unprecedented” (“they never did this to Chelsea Clinton,” he said), Huckabee predicted that Palin’s victimization would rouse support even from non-Republicans outraged by sexist sentiment.

Yesterday, brownsox treated us to our favorite freeze-dried muppet James Carville throwing an ass-whooping towards Michelle Bachmann after she called out “sexism”.

Apparently, there’s an entire blog dedicated to watching for sexism. No quotes from that site, it has the usual “Vetted? Was Biden vetted?” deflection, the commonplace “If she was a man blah blah blah” defense.

Yeah, I’m reasonably certain that, if Sarah Palin was a man, no one would have been asking why she got on an airplane while she was in labor.

Because men can’t have babies and thus are less likely to go into labor.

The most irritating cries of sexism are coming from PUMA sites, which I will not link to out of sheer spite and malice. They can be in charge of spreading their stupidity, I won’t help anymore than I have to to make my point.

I’m finding it less and less ironic and more and more depressing that the Republicans, PUMAs, and presumably well-intentioned liberals are charging the media and certain blogs with “sexism,” all because they dare ask some questions.

All because they dare to dig into her life.

All because of a silly little insistence that she be vetted.

How horrifying that we expect some things to be known about a Vice Presidential candidate.

People assuming that no one would ask a man these questions are reduced to just throwing accusations against the wall and hoping something sticks.

Sarah Palin had seemingly fallen from the sky, parachuting onto the Grand Stage of Republican Vice Presidential Candidate. I had only heard of her in connection to the whole Troopergate thing, and I follow politics closely.

She was mayor of a tiny, tiny city.

She was Governor for 20 months.

She has alarming ties to a separatist group which should be examined.

Her stances on the issues, when they become apparent, are increasingly right-wing, nearly to the point of mania.

And these whiny jag-bags are calling it SEXIST to examine this shit? They’re saying we’re giving her a hard time only because she’s a woman?

How about we’re asking tough questions because she may be linked to the AIP?

Or because she cut funding to help teen mothers?

Or because of the numerous pork projects?

Or how she’s being investigated?

Or how her fucking RUNNING MATE criticized her for earmarks?

Should we just say “Oh well, la-dee-da, she’s a woman let’s not ask her questions”?

Should we “take it easy on” the poor little lady?

Should we back off, we don’t want to badger her?

Anyone ever suggest that Hillary Clinton couldn’t handle scrutiny because she’s a woman?

Someone want to say, with a straight face, that Clinton should have an easy time of things because she can’t handle it?

Are you fucking kidding me?

If a man was mayor of a small city, population less than 10,000; AND he had ties to the AIP; AND he was under investigation; AND it looked like he was engaging in rampant cronyism; AND was awash in earmarks and pork; AND was involved in ALL THE SHIT Palin is involved in, he’d be getting roasted ALIVE.

But because Palin’s a woman, it’s sexist to ask her these sorts of things.

Her family is off limits.

Nevermind the shit Chelsea had to go through, being called a dog and being horribly mocked for NO reason other than Republican Malice.

Nevermind the sexism the Republicans have shown Hillary Clinton since….FOREVER.

Forget all that.

Now, Republicans, PUMAs and dipshit liberal whiners have a NEW woman to champion, a NEW woman to save from the nasty, scary words and questions.

And these stupid fuckers have the balls to call OTHER people sexist.

I expect such rank hypocrisy and bullshit from Republicans; when I don’t see it, I get worried.

I also expect it from the PUMAs who have exhibited such a complete lack of logic and rational thought that it’s sickening.

And yes, I suppose I expect it from some hyper-sensitive liberals who want to be so understanding that all their time is spent apologizing for random offenses.

What I didn’t expect is for normally rational people to be so worried about this charge.

It’s coming from Republicans; I’m surprised they haven’t been calling us racists more often.

It’s coming from PUMAs; it’s long past time that we worry about what these liars, hacks and idiots think. They’re willing to cut off their nose to spite their face, that’s their problem.

It’s coming from hand-wringing, timid liberals who are oh-so-worried about offending people that it gives them the vapors. Then they apologize to narcoleptics for offending them by fainting.

It is not sexist to ask tough questions to a candidate who was so abruptly introduced onto the scene she might as well have been beamed here by Vulcans.

It’s sexist to argue that she should be given different treatment because she’s got an “innie” instead of an “outie.”

7 comments

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    • theblaz on September 3, 2008 at 23:18
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    in asking questions and investigating.  

  1. Really.  It’s disingenous to parade a list of good reasons to examine her, pull out the RNC talking points (which inevitably use sexism as a meme) and claim therefore that charges of sexism are crap.

    DK has been a veritable parade of sexist bushwhacky. If you’re having trouble distinguishing sexism from legitimate attacks, here’s a clue: does the attack start with aspect of her gender as the primary signifier or focus — as a picture or broadside — and proceed from there?

    She’s freakin’ terrifying.  I think she’s potentially the scariest president (and I have no bets on McCain’s survival) we’ve ever had.  I don’t think we can just “shift back to Obama/Biden” because her narrative is indeed damn compelling to many people, and because — honestly — I think her candidacy puts issues of class and gender in the limelite in a way nobody before has ever done.  But…

    …yelling about how something is “not really sexist because they do it” is just…gah…  

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