Misogyny is broadcast and reinforced through every cultural vector available. It is internalized, by men and women, and it takes intentional reflection and deprogramming to even start to break free from its grip.
…Some people openly said that a woman couldn’t beat Donald Trump. Other people made the same point, but more subtly. And most people did the usual, frustrating thing where they said a woman could win, “but not that woman.” She was called “shrill,” she was called a “school-marm,” she was called a “snake.” She got criticized for not hitting certain candidates “hard enough” and then got criticized for vaporizing other candidates down to the molecular level. And when she actually talked about the sexism she faced, and all women candidates face, the conversation became about what she could do to overcome it instead of about what everybody else needed to do to stop it.
…Kirsten Gillibrand’s campaign didn’t even get off the ground because people resented her for [lumping] Al Franken [in with the Weinsteins of the world and blurring the intense differences between the two.]
…What makes the Warren experience all the more frustrating is that she is the candidate Democrats asked for back in 2016. This is the candidate Democrats said they wanted when they were busy calling Hillary Clinton “inauthentic” and “uninspiring” and “pandering.” She was the candidate progressives used to explain that, while Clinton was a “corrupt, neoliberal shill,” they were totally not sexist and would vote for some other woman.
Elizabeth Warren was the “Stacey Abrams” of 2016: the woman, not in the race, that people who are voting for men say they would totally vote for if she would just run.
…No woman can be explicitly feminist enough while also nonthreatening to male swing voters. No woman can be laughably overqualified compared to her male opponents while still being a “new” and “fresh” face to lead the party. No woman can be strong, sweet, tough, flexible, brilliant, accessible, fiery, motherly, and attractive, but not distractingly so, all at the same time.
…Democrats will not elect a woman who supports the patriarchy. They also won’t elect a woman like Warren, who means to smash it.
… The essential qualification for a Republican woman candidate is that she must be willing to participate in the project of upholding the patriarchy. …Talk about “traditional” “family” values. Slut-shame single women who use birth control. Be socially and fiscally draconian. Couch traditional Republican bigotry toward people of color in the language of “community safety.” Don’t be openly more intelligent than a man with a high school diploma.
Sexism Sank Elizabeth Warren | The Nation
Mixed in with the ridiculous nonsense there some salient points.
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