[Trigger warning for fat dehumanization.]
Actual Headline: It Pays to Be Fat.
Actual Lede: "Employers may punish women who are obese with lower wages, but not all women are paying a penalty. Single women who are obese earn higher wages because they invest more in unobservable job skills. Why? Because heavy women have to plan on never having a husband to help pay the bills."
Mmm. Or maybe because they work longer and harder and better because they are terrified to lose the job they have since they know that fat women, married or single, face strong employment discrimination. Earning more on average doesn't help single fat women who can't get a job.
Also: It's not entirely clear from this piece what "earning more" even means. Does it mean that single fat women earn more on average full-stop, or that single fat women merely earn more on average than married fat women? And what defines a "single fat woman," anyway?—does that group include lesbian/bi women partnered with other women, or just any woman not married to a man?
Because, you know, those aren't actually the same things.
Such a failure to include anything approaching reasonable definitions of groups being discussed might normally be the worst thing about a Worst Thing article. But I'm afraid the lack of clarity pales in comparison to what is quite genuinely one of the most atrociously dehumanizing images of a headless fatty I have ever had the displeasure to see. I love how it's cropped: Boobs, belly, fat legs. That's all we are.
[H/T to Erica.]
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
Daily Dose of Cute
"I still can't stop thinking about Tony. Wondering where he could be, who he is with, what is he
thinking, is he thinking of me, and whether he'll ever return someday."
"I am so the boss of you, mutt."
Q&A
Q: Does Rick Santorum ever stop being stupendously stupid and colossally cruel?
A: No.
This has been another edition of Easy Answers to Rhetorical Questions.
Case in point:
All the other necessities of life, we allow people to have varying degrees of creature comforts, if you will. Why? Because we are people who ration our resources based upon what's important to us and health care has to be one of those things, which is in the mix of things we make decisions about as to what type of, what kind of money we want to allocate to that.Oh, Santorum. Please check your email immediately, because I just sent you an Evite for a get-together at which we're gonna dip ALL THE THINGS in gold! Be sure to wear your fanciest bootstraps!
I had a woman the other day who came up and complained to me that she has to pay $200 a month for her prescriptions…I said, in other words, this $200 a month keeps you alive, she goes yes. I said, and you're complaining that you're paying $200 a month and it keeps you alive? What's your cable bill? I mean, what's your cell phone bill? Because she had a cell phone. And how can you say that you complain that you have $200 to keep you alive and that's a problem? No, that's a blessing!
[H/T to Shaker Brunocerous.]
Quote of the Day
[Trigger warning for sexual harassment and rape culture.]
"Most people are robust. If a man puts his hand on a woman's bottom, any woman worth her salt can deal with it. It is communication. Can't we be friendly?"—Actor Jeremy Irons.
Charming.
Note that when Irons says "deal with it," what he really means is "let a man grope her without complaint." Telling a man to get his hands off her and fuck off, forcibly removing a man's hand from her body, filing a harassment complaint...these are all ways that a woman might "deal with" a man touching her without her explicit consent.
They just don't happen to be ways of "dealing with it" that Irons, a sexual harasser, finds acceptable.
And because auditors audit in support of the rape culture, naturally he finds only a woman who reacts with quiet acquiescence to harassment is a woman "worth her salt." Sure.
I will note, with all the volcanic contempt it deserves, that women who are most inclined to react with the silent indulgence that Irons finds so laudable are women who have survived sexual violence and freeze with terror when triggered by unsolicited touching.
I shudder to consider how many nervous smiles, offered as a defense mechanism by women who calculate if I just go along with his fondling my ass, and be quiet about it, he won't escalate, have been interpreted by Jeremy Irons as a flirtation in response to his "friendly communication."
Today in Virulent Videos
[Trigger warning for transphobia]
Yesterday Jezebel drew my attention to a recent "viral" video for Always pads. Why yes, it is "edgy".
The first thirty seconds is of trans* women crying. There's a woman crying on a stage. There's a drag queen putting on makeup and a wig while crying. There's another woman crying on a different stage. Imagine thirty seconds of that, all set to sad music.
The screen then fades to black, and we see:
"There are some people who'd just love to have a period."
Followed by:
"Let alone a happy one."
The commercial then cuts to a woman with a massive beehive hairdo sitting on a toilet, crying. She slams the door to the stall, which reveals a sign that reads "Gentlemen".
The video ends with the text:
"Have a happy period. Always."
There's a lot to discuss here. Okay, there's probably not, because it's obvious what Proctor and Gamble is doing here. Still, a quick recap:
First: The ad is quite obviously conflating drag and performance with transsexuality, which is hardly new. Once or twice I've seen folks imply that trans* women are actually men, and that our identities, like femininity itself, are artificial. Yawn.
Second: The ad is mocking trans* women for feeling disconnected an alienated from their bodies. Yes, some of us do shed tears over these things. No, we do not tend to do so in the men's room.
Third: Aside from "trans* women are laughable", the only other message the spot sends is "periods are a bitch, amirite?", which strikes me as neither original nor endearing. I mean, I talk with lots of women about their periods, and they've got all sorts of things to say, often unpleasant. However, the whole "having a period is the worst! thing! evar!" shtick strikes me as more than a bit misogynistic.
I'm not sure what any of this has to do with convincing folks to buy P&G's product.
Of course, this is an attempted viral video. What P&G desperately wants is for someone like me to get all up in the Internet pointing out the above obvious problems with this presently obscure video.
This leaves me with a choice. I can remain silent, because duh transphobia is everywhere and maybe if I keep quiet people will ignore it, or I can speak out and risk demonstrating that transphobia sells.
The problem is that transphobia kills. Ultimately, I can allow society to walk all over me, or I can face accusations that I'm humorless and angry. P&G knows this.
The thing is, I chose none of the above. I've got enough faith in society to still believe that "Transphobia! Misogyny! Buy!" isn't automatically an ace marketing strategy for a product that's bought by women and trans* people.
Furthermore, it is possible to be "viral" without being "virulent". It is possible to be funny on the Internet. There are plenty of domain names out there with offensive words in them. Yay for grabbing attention! The issue, is both how you grab that attention and what you do with it. This video misses the mark, because it's appalling, full stop.
P&G can do better. If they want me to buy their products, I suggest they do so.
The Exploiting Exploited Children to Spy on Everyone Act
[Trigger warning for child sex abuse.]
One of the greatest ironies of the rape culture is that when legislative bodies, who typically spend their time diligently ignoring victims of sexual violence and exploitation, suddenly make an effort to pay attention to sex crimes, they use the existence of sexual violence and exploitation to pass sweeping (and grossly ineffective in sex crime prevention) legislation that gives the government more access to and control over people's lives.
See, for example, sex predator registries which fail utterly to make distinctions between someone who has raped children or a nonconsenting adult and someone who has been convicted of statutory rape of a consenting partner one year younger, i.e. a teenage dating relationship on either side of the age of consent, most of which end up getting prosecuted only because the teens are caught by cops in public, e.g. doing it in the backseat of a car, or because the younger teen's parents don't like the older boy/girlfriend (or their race, or their sexuality). I don't guess I need to explain why I don't believe a young gay man reported for statutory rape by his boyfriend's bigoted parents who accuse him of "recruiting" their son belongs on a sex predator registry.
Anyway.
Over at The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf writes about the latest legislation of this flavor, the Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011, which Friedersdorf aptly describes as "arguably the biggest threat to civil liberties now under consideration in the United States. The potential victims: everyone who uses the Internet."
[The bill would require] the firm that sells you Internet access would be required to track all of your Internet activity and save it for 18 months, along with your name, the address where you live, your bank account numbers, your credit card numbers, and IP addresses you've been assigned.When James Sensenbrenner is the voice of reason, you know the train has derailed. But he's right: There's absolutely no way that this proposed legislation, which has passed out of committee and awaits a House vote, is going to be a meaningful contribution to sex crimes prevention. And the suggestion is so absurd that I can only believe its sponsors, including Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH), who claims on his website to be "an outspoken defender of individual privacy rights," hope that no one will dare to question this vast expansion of the government's ability to snoop on its citizens because that egregious encroachment of civil liberties is being proposed under the auspices of "protecting children."
Tracking the private daily behavior of everyone in order to help catch a small number of child criminals is itself the noxious practice of police states. Said an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation: "The data retention mandate in this bill would treat every Internet user like a criminal and threaten the online privacy and free speech rights of every American." Even more troubling is what the government would need to do in order to access this trove of private information: ask for it.
I kid you not -- that's it.
As written, The Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011 doesn't require that someone be under investigation on child pornography charges in order for police to access their Internet history -- being suspected of any crime is enough. (It may even be made available in civil matters like divorce trials or child custody battles.) Nor do police need probable cause to search this information. As Rep. James Sensenbrenner says, (R-Wisc.) "It poses numerous risks that well outweigh any benefits, and I'm not convinced it will contribute in a significant way to protecting children."
I couldn't more want effective sexual violence and exploitation prevention initiatives in this country (most of which would not be legislative in nature), but this is garbage. It won't protect children from predators, and it sure as shit doesn't protect them from their government.
[H/T to Shaker Sofia.]
On the UK Riots
First, a quick news round-up...
The Guardian has a gallery of images here. Their live daily coverage here. The front page of full coverage is here. There's just so much stuff there, I wouldn't even try to excerpt highlights; I really encourage you to stop by the site and browse through all their coverage.
CNN—Cameron vows tough action as violence flares in British streets:
British Prime Minister David Cameron vowed tough action Tuesday to quell rioting in Britain's cities, after tensions between groups of youths and police escalated in London and elsewhere Monday night.The word that comes to mind is "unhelpful." It's not that I believe rioters/looters/protesters, some of whom are violent and dangerously destructive, should not be stopped or face consequences if/where criminal acts are committed, but when the lit match of a questionable police shooting landed in the tinderbox of simmering hostilities, one significant part of which has been police "stop-and-search" tactics, and another significant part of which has been government neglect, to have the Prime Minister start paying attention only to belligerently bark about a law enforcement crackdown, it just seems, you know, unhelpful.
He said more than twice as many police would be on the streets of London Tuesday night, with 16,000 officers drafted in to tackle "criminality, pure and simple."
...Speaking after the meeting at Downing Street, Cameron said court processes would be sped up to ensure swift justice for those people involved in "looting, vandalising, thieving, robbing", many of them apparently teenagers.
"People should be in no doubt that we will do everything necessary to restore order to Britain's streets and make them safe for the law-abiding," he said.
"People should expect to see more, many more, arrests in the days to come," he added. "If you are old enough to commit these crimes, you are old enough to face the punishments."
Cameron comes across as addressing People Who Matter, promising them, "We will stop these vicious scoundrels from interrupting your peaceful lives!" and thus reinforcing to marginalized people that they are not People Who Matter to their nation. Unhelpful. I understand Cameron wants and needs to communicate his concern about the situation, but there's a better way to do that. Is what I'm saying.
Anyway.
The BBC's front page of full coverage is here. Their photo gallery of last night's riots is remarkable. I also recommend this piece by Matt Prodger, in which he opens with the wise observation that "instant analysis is a dangerous game."
To that end, I won't be engaging in a lot of analysis, sitting at my desk 4,000 miles away. I will say this: The situation is hardly as simple as most people will want to make it out to be...
There are people who are reacting to the fatal police shooting of Mark Duggan. There are people who reacting to the police "stop-and-search" tactics. There are people who are reacting to austerity measures that have pressed them to the point of breaking. There are people who are waging class warfare from the only position they've got. There are people who are simply tired of not being heard. There are people who are just using political conflagration as an excuse to be violent assholes for the sheer thrill of it. Etc. And every combination thereof.
To try to find a singular motivation, or a singular source of the disquiet, or even to try to attribute a singular emotion to a toxic mix of rage, fear, alienation, anger, frustration, exhilaration, dispossession, is folly.
And to be surprised is dishonesty, or privilege. Nina Power documents the history of the boil here:
Since the coalition came to power just over a year ago, the country has seen multiple student protests, occupations of dozens of universities, several strikes, a half-a-million-strong trade union march and now unrest on the streets of the capital (preceded by clashes with Bristol police in Stokes Croft earlier in the year). Each of these events was sparked by a different cause, yet all take place against a backdrop of brutal cuts and enforced austerity measures. The government knows very well that it is taking a gamble, and that its policies run the risk of sparking mass unrest on a scale we haven't seen since the early 1980s. With people taking to the streets of Tottenham, Edmonton, Brixton and elsewhere over the past few nights, we could be about to see the government enter a sustained and serious losing streak.And Laurie Penny observes:
The policies of the past year may have clarified the division between the entitled and the dispossessed in extreme terms, but the context for social unrest cuts much deeper. The fatal shooting of Mark Duggan last Thursday, where it appears, contrary to initial accounts, that only police bullets were fired, is another tragic event in a longer history of the Metropolitan police's treatment of ordinary Londoners, especially those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, and the singling out of specific areas and individuals for monitoring, stop and search and daily harassment.
One journalist wrote that he was surprised how many people in Tottenham knew of and were critical of the IPCC, but there should be nothing surprising about this. When you look at the figures for deaths in police custody (at least 333 since 1998 and not a single conviction of any police officer for any of them), then the IPCC and the courts are seen by many, quite reasonably, to be protecting the police rather than the people.
The truth is that very few people know why this is happening. They don't know, because they were not watching these communities. Nobody has been watching Tottenham since the television cameras drifted away after the Broadwater Farm riots of 1985. Most of the people who will be writing, speaking and pontificating about the disorder this weekend have absolutely no idea what it is like to grow up in a community where there are no jobs, no space to live or move, and the police are on the streets stopping-and-searching you as you come home from school. The people who do will be waking up this week in the sure and certain knowledge that after decades of being ignored and marginalised and harassed by the police, after months of seeing any conceivable hope of a better future confiscated, they are finally on the news. In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything:People can only be pushed so far before they push back. To not understand that is a privilege.
"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"There are communities all over the country that nobody paid attention to unless there had recently been a riot or a murdered child. Well, they're paying attention now.
"Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."
Eavesdropping from among the onlookers, I looked around. A dozen TV crews and newspaper reporters interviewing the young men everywhere.
To invoke that privilege in response, to use it in order to demonize the very people with whom the fastidious maintenance of one's privilege has left with no voice and no power and no options, is both cruel and risky.
I hope our leaders in Washington are paying attention, as the ink dries on our fancy new austerity legislation.
Breaking Bad Open Thread
"My god, man: That is one talented karaoke master."
Sunday's episode will be discussed in infinitesimal detail, so if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, move along...
Congratulations, Wall Street Journal
You have published one of the most ridiculous op-eds I have ever read, which is really saying something, because I read David Brooks.
Bret Stephens: Is Obama Smart?
Yes. He is smart.
Whatever legitimate criticisms one may be able to make of President Obama, that he lacks intelligence is not among them.
And of the criticisms cited—"He makes predictions that prove false. He makes promises he cannot honor. He raises expectations he cannot meet. He reneges on commitments made in private. He surrenders positions staked in public. He is absent from issues in which he has a duty to be involved. He is overbearing when he ought to be absent." etc.—none are issues of intellect. Political acumen, maybe.
But there are a lot of smart people who lack political acumen, and a lot of people with tremendous capacity for playing politics who are otherwise not particularly gifted in the grey matter.
For the record, pairing the piece with an image of Obama caught mid-sentence making a goofy face does not your case make. A typical miss, WSJ.
Question of the Day
After reading my post with the Brian Regan clip, Shaker Be_Be emails, which I am publishing with her permission:
I personally find [stand-up comedy] a very difficult medium in which to avoid misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, gender essentialism, etc.... But maybe other Shakers would have some good suggestions? (Aside from the obvious and ever-amazing Eddie Izzard.)So, Shakers: Who's your favorite stand-up comic?
I'm going to go ahead and give a shout-out to Jim Gaffigan, who can make ANYTHING funny without resorting to oppressive humor, and also grew up about 10 miles away from where I did, which gives me a particular appreciation for the flavor of his humor. The first time I saw Beyond the Pale, I laughed so hard my face nearly fell off.
Also: They're more sketch comics than stand-up comics, but anything with the name French or Saunders near it is pretty much guaranteed to be gold.
Number of the Day
Two: The number of online adverts I've seen today featuring fat women for no reason, i.e. they weren't the "before" shots in diet pill ads or models for fancy new glucosometers or stock photos pulled to advertise a hot cover story on the Obesity Epidemic. They were just random people, there because a picture of a person was needed.
One was something about weddings. I don't remember what the other one was. Some kind of people-finder, I think.
It's tragic that seeing in a single day two fat women in advertisements where their fatness, or even more specifically their fat-womanness, wasn't somehow related to the product being advertised should be so very remarkable to me.
Daily Dose of Cute
Zelda, who is seriously SO. FREAKING. CUTE.
Dudley, who I think has, inconceivably, increased the cuteness action, to compete with Zel.
All tuckered out from a long walk with Iain.
A bunch of people have asked about how big Zelda is compared to Dudz; this is a pretty good comparison, even though Dudley's head is in the kitchen, lol. He is very tall, and weighs about 75 pounds. She's about 40 pounds, and is short enough to walk right underneath him, which she does with amusing frequency.
I Read the News Today, Oh Boy
There is a lot of bad news today.
The market closed with the Dow 634 points down. Verizon is fucking over its workers gilded age-style. The House has unceremoniously ended its page program. Rick Perry is going to run for president. Newsweek still can't report on female candidates without being sexist. The conflict in Syria continues to worsen. As does the famine in Africa. And there is rioting in London.
That's not even everything. It's like the world is falling apart. Or fixing to explode. Or something.
Iain and I were emailing about Operation Handbasket, Destination: Hell the other day, and Iain said: "Seems that the wavelength of human folly is tuned to hit peak amplitude at around the turn of every century." To which I could only reply: "OMG IT'S BEEN LIKE FIFTY YEARS SINCE A WORLD WARRRRRRR! LET US BREAK EVERYTHING!"
Anyway. I know a lot of people are feeling overwhelmed by how much shit is going on at the moment, whether it's actually more than usual or it just feels that way. And there's a lot of guilt going around about feeling disposed to stick one's head in the sand, or a game of Zuma. So I thought I'd open a thread for discussion.
If nothing else, at least we need not feel alone.
Random YouTubery: Trim
Video Description: A time-lapse film in reverse, making it look like Petey Boy was putting on his hair and beard, rather than shaving them off.
Let Fred In!
Gay Republican presidential candidate Fred Karger, whom I met at the Clinton Global Initiative and liked very much (and who is pro-choice, pro-marriage equality, pro-legalizing weed, pro-energy independence, pro-immigrant, and anti-war, and whose "fiscally conservative" economic policies are essentially the Democratic Party's current economic platform), is being denied a slot in Thursday's Fox News debate in Ames, Iowa, despite having met all the published requirements.
Of course he does not meet the unpublished requirements of being straight and totally hostile to social justice issues.
Sign the petition here to urge Fox News to let Fred Karger, who is polling as high as is Newt Gingrich, into the debate. Let Fred in!
Quote of the Day
[Trigger warning for sexual violence.]
"She just kept hugging Rosie."—Dr. David A. Crenshaw, a psychologist who worked with a teenager who had been raped and impregnated by her father, and was able to testify against him in court with the help of Rosie, "a golden retriever therapy dog who specializes in comforting people when they are under stress. ... Prosecutors here noted that she is also in the vanguard of a growing trial trend: in Arizona, Hawaii, Indiana, Idaho and some other states in the last few years, courts have allowed such trained dogs to offer children and other vulnerable witnesses nuzzling solace in front of juries."
Rosie, a dog that accompanies children as they testify in court, with Lori Stella, a social worker, outside the Dutchess County Courthouse in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. [Kelly Shimoda for The New York Times][H/Ts to Steph Herold and Shaker SusanMc, in comments.]
Oof
And while I was writing the below, the President was giving a speech with the usual bipartisan bromides in which he failed to hold Republicans accountable for their role in our economic mess. Digby:
As far as laying the blame for the debacle at the feet of the lunatics who have promised to hold the debt ceiling as a hostage for all time, he had this to say:Yup.
This is the United States of America and no matter what some agency may says we always have been and always will be a triple A country. Despite all our challenges we still have the best universities, some of the most productive workers, the most innovative companies, the most adventurous entrepreneurs on earth. What sets us apart is not only that we have the capacity but also the will to act. The determination to shape our future. The willingness in a democracy to work out our differences in a sensible way. And move forward not just for this generation but for the next generation. And we're going to need to summon that spirit today.I'll bet the Republicans are so grateful that the President didn't blame them for the debt ceiling debacle that they will happily cooperate in future legislative initiatives. Like passing free trade deals. And cutting spending, regulations and taxes.
On Naming the Villain
When he wants to be, the president is a brilliant and moving speaker, but his stories virtually always lack one element: the villain who caused the problem, who is always left out, described in impersonal terms, or described in passive voice, as if the cause of others' misery has no agency and hence no culpability.—Drew Westen, a professor of psychology at Emory University and Democratic strategic political consultant, in a piece for the New York Times called "What Happened to Obama?"
…[H]e ran for president on two contradictory platforms: as a reformer who would clean up the system, and as a unity candidate who would transcend the lines of red and blue. He has pursued the one with which he is most comfortable given the constraints of his character, consistently choosing the message of bipartisanship over the message of confrontation.
But the arc of history does not bend toward justice through capitulation cast as compromise.
There's actually quite a lot in that article with which I don't agree—Westen virtually tasks Obama singlehandedly with the responsibility for changing the national conversation, and, while I believe Obama has failed to make maximum use of the presidential bully pulpit, even the most gifted progressive orator on the planet would still have to contend with the deadening filter of the fuck soup that is our hippie-hostile national media.
Westen also seems to believe that Obama is more progressive than I have ever regarded him to be; I believe the main reason that Obama is not a modern FDR is because he doesn't want to be one.
But I do agree with the above excerpt. One of the ways in which President Obama most infuriates me (and always has) is his refusal to hold Republicans/conservatives accountable, and his insistence on drawing equivalencies, while fetishizing bipartisanship as inherently superior to any solution even distantly associated with a partisan ideology.
It's this habit, so vividly on display during the debt ceiling negotiations, that underlies the sudden rash of musings about how things might have been different if Hillary Clinton had instead won the nomination and then the presidency. (See here, for example. TW for sexist language.) The common observation among these speculations is that Clinton would not have capitulated to Republicans—because she knows them better, because she understands them, because she has no illusions about the fact that they do not compromise, because she holds their policies in contempt.
This observation is made, naturally, as if it's a new idea. Gee, if only someone would have mentioned during the last election that showing contempt for the party who got us into this fucking mess was actually an important qualification!
Yes. If only.
Me, January 22, 2008:
[T]here's something else, tangentially related, that undermines my faith. Obama positions himself as transcending the ugliness of partisanship, but I like knowing that [John Edwards] and [Hillary Clinton] hate the goddamned Republicans as much as I do. I love it when Edwards gets into his zone and talks about corporate greed with fury at the anti-American fatcats seething so clearly just below the surface. I love it when Clinton talks about the GOP through gritted teeth and hides a snarl behind a smile when the name Bush passes her lips. I trust that. And I trust it because I can't imagine anyone who believes the things I do isn't that. fucking. angry. at the Republicans at this point. I want to see that anger. I want to feel it. I want to recognize and connect with it.Whooooooooops!
I want to see Obama at least as angry about Bush as he is about being questioned on his own voting record.
The ostensibly transcendent, politics-of-hope stuff is good, but I believe you can be optimistic and angry. My faith is pretty much built around exactly that.
I want evidence that Obama is the guy I keep hearing he is.
I know that Obama can't express himself in quite the same way, thanks to racist narratives about Angry Black Men. I know that he can't let naked fury cross his face without a cost—although I suspect, given the nature of protest against this president, it would ultimately be no bigger cost than simply being a man of color in the first place.
I just want him to name the villain, to borrow Westen's term. He can do it with a smile. I just want him to name the villain.
I want it so bad.
But the problem is that Obama doesn't seem to believe there are villains to be named—just misguided folks who are all good Americans and have different ideas about how to reach the same goals that definitely have the best interests of the American people at heart. Which is patent bullshit.
And everyone paying the slightest bit of attention knows it's patent bullshit, at least everyone who doesn't have a vested interest in continuing to engage in this fantasy about changing the tone in Washington through sheer force of will, a notion which members of the administration have admitted was arrogant and naïve, but to which they lingeringly subscribe nonetheless.
Now the people who ignored this evident folly, this unrealizable dream of hope and change, are waxing ponderous about Hillary Clinton's alternate-universe presidency, as if she had not been the obvious choice to go twelve rounds with the rancorous partisan fucks of the Republican Party in the first place.
Which just pisses me off, so hard. For reasons I am sure I do not need to explain.
(Not that I think Clinton would have been a perfect president. I'm reasonably certain I'd be just as exasperated and disdainful of her war policy as I am of Obama's, as but one example.)
I don't bring this up to say "I told you so," which gives me absolutely no pleasure. I couldn't be less pleased to have not been proven wildly and embarrassingly wrong by President Obama.
I bring it up because, as long as everyone's so keen to cast their gaze backwards and stupidly wonder just how it is that we ended up with a president who prioritizes the appearance of civility over the practice of democracy in all its frequent ugliness, rather than the other way around, I'd like to suggest that we not engage in precisely the evasive and dishonest—but so very civil, so politely non-confrontational!—dialogue that launches Daydreams of Hillary in the first place.
I'm going to go ahead and name that villain: Misogyny.
I know that villain, because I was once its minion. And I know it because once I became a traitor to its cause, I was its target, too.
The truth is, there was a candidate who does, in Western's words, "understand bully dynamics—in which conciliation is always the wrong course of action, because bullies perceive it as weakness and just punch harder the next time." But the people who said we need a candidate with that understanding, and supported the candidate who had it, were mostly women. (Or assumed to be mostly women.) And the candidate was a woman. And they were all discredited, frequently and viciously, on the basis of their womanhood.
It's no coincidence that the people who now harbor Daydreams of Hillary were also the ones most inclined to wield misogyny against her and her supporters.
I'd like to think that won't happen again, now that we can all see where it got us.
I'd like to think that.
--------------------
[Commenting Guidelines: This post is not an invitation to speculate about an alternate-universe HRC presidency or trash this-universe BHO presidency. The topic is bully dynamics, and the irony of misogynist bullies, who silenced HRC supporters when they addressed her keen understanding of bully dynamics, now wishing that HRC were president.]
