PostAndRape

  • Subscribe to our RSS feed.
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Facebook
  • Digg

Monday, 28 January 2013

The LIghtning Rod For Conservative Anger: Hillary Clinton

Posted on 00:37 by Unknown

And not just for conservative anger, by the way.  I've heard from several Liberals (mostly men but not just men) who viscerally hate her.  Perhaps she provokes both personality and behavior related anger and then that general anger against uppity women?

Never mind.  Rush Limbaugh (slowly sailing into the sunset of historical oblivion, by the way) certainly gives us the sexist angle on Hillary Hatred:  She reminds him of a third or fourth wife when mad.  His own third or fourth wife?  Later he compares her to an abused wife.   So the framework is "wives" and how "wives" might behave.  That, of course, is what makes his jokes sexist.  They are only funny if you think a third or fourth wife mad is funny, as opposed to the third or fourth husband, say.

All this is sorta subtle if we can call anything coming from the guffaw-branch of anti-feminism subtle.  And so is this:



CNN's Howard Kurtz finds the New York Post's Hillary Clinton coverage funny.  And yeah, it's kind of funny to catch her face looking really angry and then to imply that this is why Bill Clinton is scared of her.  But reverse the genders and check if you still think it's funny.  Pick some male politician who shows anger and suggest that his wife is scared of him because of that angry face.

It stops being funny.  Now, what does this tell us?  Depends how deep you wish to dig, but essentially the idea of female anger as dominating in a marriage is viewed as funny stuff because the husband is supposed to be the top dog.  Or so I think.  The reason why I said this depends is that en route to that conclusion you can wade through all sorts of stuff about male victims of domestic abuse not being taken seriously, about women's rage being seen as ineffective and something to laugh at etc.

Subtle, I said.  What I probably meant that this is one of those cases not worth fighting over.  If you stop at every barking dog you never get to your destination.  At the same time, it's a useful theoretical exercise in understanding how much subtle stuff in the culture IS based on certain ways of acting out one's gender and how all that subtlety sticks to evaluations of Hillary Clinton and other powerful women like a large bunch of thistle burs to a dog's coat.




Email ThisBlogThis!Share to XShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest
Posted in | No comments
Newer Post Older Post Home

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Popular Posts

  • Yellen vs. Summers As A Metaphor
    Atrios posted on the nomination of the next chief of Federal Reserve.  The forerunners have been defined as Lawrence Summers and Janet Yelle...
  • The New Pope
    Is Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the former archbishop of Buenos Aires, who takes the name Pope Francis.  He is the first non-European Pop...
  • Speed Blogging, Mon 9/16/2013: On Women
    Note:  Not all these are from the last few days. First , the Taliban in Afghanistan is waging a physical war against women in the public sec...
  • More Bad News From India
    Content note:  Sexual violence The victim of the Delhi gang rape is extremely ill at a Singapore hospital where she was airlifted a few day...
  • Those Discouraged Young Men Who Live in Their Parents' Basement
    Something interesting from Pew Research on the possibility that young men are now so discouraged and effeminate because of feminism that the...
  • Do Not Be Afraid Of Life. Echidne's Poetry Hour.
    A musical adaptation of Kaarlo Sarkia 's poem: A rough translation of the lyrics (by me and without the rhyme): Do not be afraid of lif...
  • Polling Conspiracies
    I once wrote a bad poem about Conspiracy Theories.  It began like this: There are five fat men in a secret  cave somewhere. They are naked. ...
  • Never Thin Enough? Thoughts About What We Can Sell in the Labor Market.
    Content Warning:  Body Images and Anorexia Joan Smith in the UK Independent reviews The Vogue Factor , a book about the eating requirements...
  • While You Wait For The Results
    In the US federal elections,  you can watch this slide show of  American women voting in earlier elections (via Hecate ).    I assume that...
  • Labiaplasty. Why On Earth?
    This story about labiaplasty may not describe a truly common new type of surgery, but that something called vaginal rejuvenation surgery ex...

Blog Archive

  • ▼  2013 (365)
    • ►  September (20)
    • ►  August (34)
    • ►  July (35)
    • ►  June (44)
    • ►  May (69)
    • ►  April (39)
    • ►  March (39)
    • ►  February (41)
    • ▼  January (44)
      • Tired To The Bones
      • Today's Funniest Study Popularization
      • Where Our Rationality Fails: Parenting Worries
      • Evo-Psycho Stuff From My Archives
      • Fun Reads For Today
      • The LIghtning Rod For Conservative Anger: Hillary...
      • A Haiku For Today
      • Delicious
      • On the Paradox of Poor Southern Republicans
      • And the Critics of Women in Combat Roles Speak!
      • Penny-Wise, Pound-Foolish. That would be Bobby Ji...
      • Annie, Get Your Gun. Removing The Combat Ban on M...
      • Roe v. Wade. Forty Years.
      • CEDAW And The Concerned Women For America
      • Today's Bad Poem
      • Much To Be Humble About
      • Labiaplasty. Why On Earth?
      • Outsourcing of A Different Kind
      • On The Pregnancy Police
      • And Whose Fault Is It?
      • The Football Jesus
      • A Confession Post
      • Worth Reading, On Sexual Violence
      • The Death of Journalism
      • The Return of The Sun
      • And Even More Gun News
      • Meanwhile, in Mali, French troops arrive
      • A Clarification in The War On Women. Rep. Gingrey...
      • Wonderful Political Babble
      • Recent Gun News
      • The Government Pipeline: Empty of Women?
      • Today's Idle Question
      • The Saddest Graph You Will See Today
      • Religious Dress Codes For Women. And Some Confuse...
      • Today's Poems
      • The Invisible War Elephants
      • Today's Shallow Thought
      • E.J. Graff on Rape Culture
      • Missives from the United Guns of America
      • Today's Useful Pic
      • The Beauty of Winter
      • On Fat And Mortality. The Recent Meta-Analysis.
      • Good News For All Domestic Abusers!
      • On Makeup, Gender and the New York Times
  • ►  2012 (135)
    • ►  December (41)
    • ►  November (37)
    • ►  October (54)
    • ►  September (3)
Powered by Blogger.

About Me

Unknown
View my complete profile