Feminism

Has "Good Morning America" host Diane Sawyer finally answered her now infamous question about whether America is more racist or sexist? On Tuesday's program, she discussed how being a woman effected Hillary Clinton's run for the White House and wondered, "...Is it an argument that she can make, that in some sense, sexism has cost her the race?"

For the last year and a half, Sawyer has been fascinated by this question. On November 13, 2006, she asked Senator Barack Obama if America is "secretly, I guess, more racist or more sexist?" The very next day, on November 14, she quizzed liberal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd about America's hidden prejudices : "Let me ask you, do you think that there is secret sexism, secret, secret genderism in this country?" On February 16, 2007, Sawyer darkly proclaimed that the 2008 presidential race is turning "a spotlight on questions about race and what Americans really feel inside."

Feminist political correctness washed over Elaine Woo's Los Angeles Times obituary honoring Harvey Karman, "a flamboyant psychologist whose invention made a key contribution to women's reproductive health, particularly by making abortions simpler, cheaper and less painful."

The Times headline was "Harvey Karman, 84; invented device for safer, easier abortions." No one at the Times thought if the abortion was "safer" for the unborn child, just for the alleged mother, and no one must have wondered if the term " women's reproductive health" sounded euphemistic, especially since reproducing was something that was being avoided. It's at best "counter-reproductive."

(UPI copycatted the Times obit.)

But Woo found friends and policy allies who touted his humanitarianism for making abortion "safe" and easy, especially by inventing a tube (or cannula) which made abortion easier:

Eleanor Clift's latest online column for Newsweek assumes that white male "Reagan Democrats" are racist and sexist, or at least they're sickened by appeals by too much focus on the "rights" of blacks and women.

Whether the term is Reagan Democrats or NASCAR dads, they're euphemisms for the white men who deserted a party they thought focused too much on the rights of blacks and women.

Isn't that a bit simplistic? Couldn't there be a lot of reasons for white male Democrats to vote for Reagan? There's no room in Clift's racist/sexist analysis for the possibility that defections came because of issues like abortion, the Vietnam War and the "peace" movement, and later, in Reagan's case, the Carter mismanagement of the economy and the Iranian hostage crisis. Clift continued: 

On Friday's "Good Morning America," various ABC reporters fretted about the political implications of Barack Obama referring to a female reporter as "sweetie." GMA co-host Diane Sawyer nervously asked, "When do 'honey,' 'sweetie,' cross the line?" Guest host David Muir introduced an investigation into "the debate over what words we can use and can't use when we're talking to members of opposite sex."

To further examine the issue, GMA even dug up previous clips of the presidential candidate using what has become the other S-word. So, only two days after "Sweetie-Gate" broke, the morning show had already provided detail and background on the case. This stands in stark contrast to how GMA (and ABC in general) covered a much more serious subject, Obama's relationship with indicted political operative Tony Rezko, a man that raised money for the senator and was also involved in a questionable land deal related to the purchase of Obama's home in Chicago. In 2006 and 2007, ABC only mentioned Rezko once. Apparently Rezko and the senator's dealings don't measure up to the sweetie story.

John McCain’s anti-woman philosophy will guide him to appoint Supreme Court justices that will roll back civil rights, according to Joy Behar. Discussing the 2008 election on the May 8 edition of "The View," political pundit, Catholic theologian, and constitutional scholar Joy Behar offered her theory on why white women will vote for Obama, assuming he is the nominee, and even called Roe v. Wade "civil rights legislation."

"When these women, these white women that love Hillary so much, you know, there’s a lot of white, he gets the women vote. When they realize that McCain is going to load the Supreme Court up with more conservative justices who are going to probably roll back or try to roll back Roe v. Wade, civil rights legislation, you are going to see those white women go to the polls and vote for Obama."

Elisabeth Hasselbeck noted the absurdity of Behar’s point calling it "such a broad statement" and "an extreme prediction." Joy Behar proceeded to call McCain ideologically "off the wall" and repeated her recounting of labeling McCain "anti-woman" because he’ll allegedly appoint justices that will overturn Roe v. Wade.

The entire transcript is below.

At Smith College, it was a few dozen student activists screaming, chanting and banging pots and pans.  With the American Psychiatric Association, it was angry letters from adult activists and bitter stories in the homosexual press.  The bottom line is the same: far-left homosexuals successfully intimidated a few cowardly officials and silenced voices they don't want the public to hear.

Not a bad way for neo-Marxist ideologues to celebrate May Day, but you'd think America's watchdogs of liberty, the free press, might raise an objection.  Sadly, the liberal media haven't written a word about either story. 

The AP's Alisa Tang wrote a horrifying account of the oppression and misogyny that women face in Afghanistan. The April 30 article bucks the post-9/11 trend of the media turning a blind eye to women's issues in Muslim countries.

What's missing are two words—Islam and Sharia.

The AP article was about a country that uses religion to oppress women but which didn't mention that religion or the system of religious laws based on that religion.

The first national breast-beating about Katie Couric leaving the anchor desk and potentially un-diversifying the anchor corps has come from Time TV writer James Poniewozik, who demands that the networks enshrine diversity. "Am I calling on the networks to act in the name of mere cosmetic appearance? Yes! News anchors are -- more than any profession outside of car-show modeling -- about cosmetic appearance." (Unlike Time, apparently, who picked top editor Richard Stengel in 2006, a disappointing "white dude.") Poniewozik lamented that just as the diversity in the Democratic campaign looks like 2060, the networks are headed back to 1960:

If one side of the debate stage is Star Trek, however, the question-asking side looks like Dragnet. In the Democratic debates, Obama and Hillary Clinton have taken questions from Charles Gibson, Brian Williams, Tim Russert, Wolf Blitzer--white guy, white guy, white guy, white guy.

Voting for someone based on qualifications or ideology rather than race is very "white" according to "View" co-host Whoopi Goldberg. Also, according to Joy Behar, only white males like tax cuts.

Discussing Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s concern that women are voting for Hillary Clinton because she’s a woman and black voting for Barack Obama because he’s black, Whoopi Goldberg dismissed Hasselbeck’s concerns and proclaimed "that’s a very white way to look at it." Of course Whoopi said it "with a huge amount of love." Hasselbeck sarcastically responded "let me take off my white goggles." Sherri Shepherd and Whoopi Goldberg agreed Hasselbeck can not suggesting the white people will never understand.

Earlier in the discussion, Behar added that voting for someone with the same gender or race may be in a person’s interest. She hypothesized that a woman over 50 who may face age discrimination may vote for Hillary as a way to combat that. She also suggested that white men vote Republican because "the white male loves his tax cuts." In Behar’s world, only white men like tax cuts.

The entire transcript is below.

In today's left-dominated media world, political correctness rules the roost, especially when it comes to the so-called "gender wars." Why there must be any in the first place isn't ever answered but suffice it to say, the elite American press is decidedly anti-male.

It isn't just the news and entertainment media that caters to man-bashing, either. Advertisers are very much to blame for this as well as Glenn Sacks and Richard Smaglick write in Advertising Age:

The evidence is clear: "Man as idiot" isn't going over very well these days.

Defenders of the advertising status quo generally put forth the following arguments: Males are "privileged" and "it's men's turn," so it's OK to portray them this way, and that men simply don't care how they're portrayed. Both of these arguments are highly questionable.

Is sexism strictly an American phenomenon? That’s what Whoopi Goldberg asked to former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers. Appearing on the April 22 edition of "The View" to promote her book "Why Women Should Rule the World," Whoopi, noting that there has never been a female president, framed her question in this fashion.

"Do you think that this issue, this, this idea that women can’t do the same things as men is strictly an American idea or is this a worldwide idea? Because I look at other countries that have women that have run their countries that have women prime ministers and such. So are we just lagging behind a little bit?"

No Whoopi. In fact, in many countries, sexism is far worse. In many Islamic states, a show with four or five women voicing their opinions would not be allowed. "The Daily Telegraph," for example, reported that women in Saudi Arabia have fewer rights than infants in the United States.

When's the last time you heard the MSM talk about a Republican being hit by the "Democrat attack machine"? Scratch that. Have you ever heard the MSM talk about a Republican being hit by the "Democrat attack machine"? Neither have I. But fretting about impending Republican "swiftboating" of the Dem presidential candidate is an MSM staple, and we saw a good example of it this morning, right down to an image of John Kerry in uniform.

Oh, and Hillary Clinton sees herself as a modern-day Ginger Rogers.

Ann Curry had a chance to interview both Dem candidates recently, and Today ran an extended clip during this morning's first half-hour, the two interviews being artfully edited into a back-and-forth. Overall, I'd say Curry gave Hillary the tougher time, but be that as it may, let's focus on two snippets. First, Curry fretting to Obama about those mean Republicans. Check out the screencap. Kerry in uniform, decorations on display. Beneath, the graphic ominously asks: "Can Obama Handle Republican Attacks?" Again I ask: have you ever, EVER, seen the mirror-image graphic in the MSM?

View video here.

Cindy Brunson's report on Lorena Ochoa's winning streak wasn't a mere double-bogey. Think of it as a shank into the lake, or better yet, that most inept stroke of all: a total whiff. Apparently desperate for a feminist angle on Ochoa's success, the ESPN News anchor decided to drag Title IX and the ERA into her account.

Ochoa's victory at the Ginn Open was her fourth LPGA win in a row. Here's how Brunson reported it during the 5 AM ET edition of ESPN News:

CINDY BRUNSON: It's been 45 years since we've seen someone on the LPGA Tour win four straight tournaments in as many weeks. Back when Mickey Wright pulled off the winning quartet in 1963, both Title IX and the Equal Rights Amendment were still ideas, not laws. And to world's #1 Lorena Ochoa, admittedly feeling fatigued after winning in her native Mexico last week, but poised to rewrite the record books in Tigeresque fashion Sunday.

View video here.

If you don’t support abortion on demand, you’re against women’s rights. That’s according to "The View’s" Joy Behar. Debating how closely aligned John McCain’s policies are with the Bush administration, it led to a mention of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. [Audio available here.]

BEHAR: I said to [McCain] off the camera, I said to him "listen how can you be against Roe v. Wade? You can not turn on women like that."

HASSELBECK: Why is that turning on women?

BEHAR: Because it’s against women and you know it.

Pope Benedict XVI hasn’t even arrived in the United States, and mainstream media outlets are featuring feminist Catholic dissenters in their reporting of the upcoming papal visit. In one such example, the Voice of America, the "international broadcasting service funded by the U.S. government," decided to cover a former Catholic nun who has been "ordained" as a priest. As the report by Jeff Swicord stated, "Bridget Mary Meehan is one of 24 Roman Catholic women in the United States conducting mass [sic] in defiance of church doctrine... In July 2006, a woman bishop not recognized by the Vatican ordained Meehan with seven other women."

Swicord also featured in his report Father Arne Panula, "a member of Opus Dei, a conservative Catholic organization." On the one hand, Swicord and the Voice of America identify Father Panula as being part of a "conservative Catholic organization," but doesn’t identify Meehan and the "Roman Catholic Womenpriests" as not only supporting the ordination of women, but also active homosexuality and contraception.

Last Thursday's New York Times carried an amusing story of a left-wing catfight. Kara Jesella reported that in Portland, Oregon, an entrepreneur has tried to combine strippers and vegans (the most extreme ahem, denomination of vegetarianism, with no eggs, milk, or animal products). But feminists are outraged that women would be objectified while the entrepreneur evangelizes the vegan gospel on behalf of cows and chickens:

Isa Chandra Moskowitz, a cookbook author, is among those who believe such images twist the vegan message. “As a feminist, I’m not keen on the idea of using women’s bodies to sell veganism, and I’m not into the idea of using veganism to sell women’s bodies,” she said...

The issue of sexism in vegan circles is “extremely polarizing,” said Bob Torres, an author of “Vegan Freak,” a guide to living a vegan lifestyle, which generally means avoiding the use of animals for food, clothing or other purposes. Mr. Torres, like many vegans, disavows the “essential idea at the heart of some animal rights activism that any means justifies the ends,” he said. Certain activists, he added, care only about “animal suffering and ignore the suffering of humans,” a category into which he would put women who are exploited.

The left and the media love to hyperventilate about the right wing “hate speech” on the Internet, but the anger and vitriol of the left dwarfs that of the right, especially where female or minority bloggers are concerned. Hateful comments are not uncommon at lefty blogs like Daily Kos. That kind of hostility forces the Huffington Post to occassionally close comments on articles involving certain topics like Israel, the military or even Margaret Thatcher.

Right Wing News addressed this trend in its excellent ongoing series “Blogging While Female: 5 Conservative Women Bloggers Talk About Gender Issues and the Blogosphere.” (Pt 2 here). RWN sampled a variety of righty opinion from Michelle Malkin, Mary Katherine Ham, LaShawn Barber, Rachel Lucas and more, and they discussed experiencing misogynistic and often disturbingly aggressive comments.

Pictures of them are photoshopped into violent or sexually explicit positions, and they are stalked, online and occasionally offline. Liberals track down their addresses and phone numbers and leave obscene messages, even threaten rape. Moderate blogger Ann Althouse nailed the root of the hostility, “...people on the Left think you are evil if you don't agree with them, that you're actually a bad person” (all bold mine). 

Far be it from NB to suggest any correlation between liberal political orientation and a propensity for prostitution. But in the wake of the Spitzer scandal, the New York Times has run an article profiling three call girls, and we couldn't help but look for telltale signs of their politics. There were no particular hints regarding one of the ladies. But as for the other two . . . well, let's say it's unlikely they'll be turning up anytime soon as contributing editors at NewsBusters.

Ava Xi’an is the apparently apolitical pro. She claims to have gotten into the business to pay for a heart bypass operation for her father . . . who doesn't have health insurance. Bush made her do it, you might say.

As for the other two, Sally Anderson is "an unapologetic feminist" who was "raised in a fancy New Jersey suburb with what she described as 'very progressive parents.'” Oh, and she's planning to leave the profession "to study social work in graduate school." I'd say that wraps it up.

How's this for a balanced Today panel to discuss the impact of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's extremism on Barack Obama: two liberals who agree it shouldn't hurt him, with one suggesting the situation might even help Obama?

The panel discussion was preceded by a segment narrated by Lee Cowan, the NBC correspondent covering the Obama campaign who has admitted "it's almost hard to remain objective" about Barack. Cowan buttressed his case in that regard. After playing the clip of Rev. Wright using the n-word to make an invidious comparison between Obama and Hillary, Cowan claimed the words were "old." True--if Cowan considers December, 2007, when Wright uttered them--ancient history.

Then it was on weekend co-anchor Amy Robach's interview of Michael Dyson and Melinda Hennenberger. Dyson, who as Robach noted is an Obama supporter, is a Georgetown professor and MSNBC political analyst. He has in the past garnered headlines for his fierce criticism of Bill Cosby, claiming among other things that Cosby "battered poor blacks" with his calls for self-reliance.

In a revealing moment of MSM elitism, WaPo editorialist Ruth Marcus, discussing the decision of Silda Wall Spitzer to appear with her husband Eliot yesterday, wanted people to know Mrs. Spitzer is a Harvard law grad and a "serious" person, not a Tammy Wynette type.

Marcus was interviewed by Contessa Brewer on MSNBC this afternoon, and the pair turned to the question of why political wives tend to appear with their husbands who have been caught up in sex scandals.

RUTH MARCUS: I just don't think that we should also lump all these women together. And to use a line that got Hillary Clinton in some trouble back in the 1992 presidential campaign, Eliot Spitzer's wife is not some Tammy Wynette, stand-by-your-man kind of woman.

She continued . . .

Anti-male sexism once again became a topic on the March 11 edition of "The View." Discussing New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s prostitution scandal, Joy Behar, who called men "idiots" who "think with Mr. Happy," shouted "I am sick of men and their sexual proclivities." Sherri Shepherd quickly responded "don’t put it on men." Elisabeth Hasselbeck noted the prostitute was a woman and "there are two people to blame there, two people that tangoed here." Later in the conversation Behar claimed "I don’t hate men. I hate politicians."

Behar also added "it seems as though power and sex go together with men." She also said she "would like to see a scandal where a woman is getting great sex." Whoopi Goldberg then inquired what kind of reaction would ensue if a female politician was caught with a male prostitute. Behar theorized that "they’d burn her at the stake."

The relevant portions of the conversation are below.

Look for NOW to be setting up picket lines outside Rush's Southern Command, protesting the way Limbaugh has demeaned mature women, writing them off as the "hot-flash cohort."

Outrageous! When will these right-wing men realize we will no longer tolerate their misogynist --

What? It wasn't Rush? It was that avatar of elite liberal thought Tina Brown, writing in Newsweek?

Never mind.

Here's how Brown put it in Hillary and the Invisible Women [emphasis added]:

Newsweek magazine recently celebrated the latest trend in elite Northeastern colleges: sex magazines, complete with highbrow titles -- like "Boink." In applauding the shifting sexual mores of American youth, reporter Jennie Yabroff noted that these enterprising students "no longer see a distinction between their bedroom behavior and their publishing activities," and consider their sex-magazine careers in college to be building blocks for the business world.

"I continually tell my mom this is a great résumé builder," says Alecia Oleyourryk of her career publishing "Boink" magazine at Boston University. Newsweek now needs a sociologist to affirm the wisdom of these "young sexperts." Cue Pepper Schwartz, a sociologist at the University of Washington. "Maybe their generation will take this a lot less seriously than we do," she says.

Here at NB, we're not normally in the business of feeling sorry for MSMers like Harry Smith. But I can't help but express some sympathy for the Early Show anchor at the prospect of the feminist, Clintonite wrath that is likely to descend on his head after a comment he made this morning

Among the metaphors most likely to drive feminists up the wall is that of the angry woman yielding that symbol of domestic serfdom, the frying pan. But in discussing the prospect of Hillary's anger at Bill for his responsibility for her possibly impending defeat, Smith invoked . . . you guessed it. Harry was coffee klatsching with Dem consultant Joe Trippi and pollster Frank Luntz this morning, and it was the latter who first described Bill as a drag on Hillary's campaign. The issue was whether Clinton could stay in the race if she splits the Texas and Ohio primaries tomorrow.

JOE TRIPPI: I don't think she should get out if she wins Ohio and loses Texas but I think there will be pressure there.

FRANK LUNTZ: It didn't help her that her husband said that she's got to win both.

HARRY SMITH: Right.

LUNTZ: Bill has been -- I feel sorry for him the night, if she does pull out, he should not be at the home in Chappaqua.

That's when a chuckling Smith put his foot in it, even providing the sound effects.

The worm has certainly turned when Bill Clinton's former press secretary goes on a local TV show, calls Hillary a b---- in so many words . . . and a national news show then chooses to air the footage. It happened on today's Good Morning America in the course of a conversation that co-anchor Robin Roberts conducted with Cokie Roberts and Matt Dowd.

ROBIN ROBERTS: Many are wondering how far she can go in attacking Barack Obama. Even President Clinton's former press secretary Dee Dee Myers made a comment about it being harder for a woman to walk that fine line. This is what she said.

Cut to clip of Myers in a recent appearance on NY1, the NYC cable news channel.

DEE DEE MYERS: I think so many women in positions of authority -- and she's certainly one of them -- have to walk that fine line between being authoratative and being a bitch [worded bleeped during GMA airing]. And she you know, she hasn't always succeeded. I think it's hard for a woman to succeed.

View video here.

[Warning: Foul Language]

Besides her left wing activism, famous North Vietnamese propagandist Jane Fonda spouts foul language on morning network television, when some children almost certainly saw it. Discussing the feminist play "The Vagina Monologues" on the February 14 edition of "Today," Fonda used the obscene term to describe part of the female anatomy.

Although it is only February, this is the second time this year that a celebrity used an obscene word on morning television. On the January 15 edition of "Good Morning America," Diane Keaton dropped the F-word. Unlike host Diane Sawyer, Meredith Vieira did not appear shocked.

MRC President Brent Bozell previously expressed concern about networks airing foul language and some networks’ stubborness.

The transcript is below.

 Editors at CosmoGirl would do well to remember that when they point at somebody else, three fingers are pointing back at them.   

The popular teen magazine tackled the question "What is Sexy?" in the March 2008 issue, bemoaning the increased amount of sexual imagery being thrown at young girls but failing to acknowledge its own contribution to the problem. 

Writer Marina Khidekel pointed out that girls are exposed to sexual imagery at younger ages than ever before, citing the popular Bratz dolls and the fact that "stores such as Limited Too sell lingerie like push-up bras and skimpy low-rise underwear for pre-teens." 

Khidekel also rightly lamented that TV shows "with smart female lead characters (like "Gilmore Girls" and "Veronica Mars") are being cancelled, while shows that survive (like "America's Top Model" and "The Hills") focus mainly on girls' appearance and hookups."   When girls are bombarded with the message that appearance is the only thing that matters, Khidekel notes, they start to feel that it's their "sexual power - not [their] talent, brains or ambition - that counts most." 

Really, it's not sexual power that counts the most?  Because that's the opposite message portrayed by the rest of the issue. 

ABC anchor David Muir asked Barack Obama about some of his liberal positions in a pre-recorded interview, which was shown on World News Saturday, in which Muir asked about the Democratic Senator's support for drivers licenses for illegal immigrants, and about being endorsed by "liberal legend" Ted Kennedy and MoveOn.org. The ABC anchor also brought up the New York Times' evaluation of Obama's economic policies as being "more left than the Clinton administration's." Muir: "Does that offer red meat for the Republicans, that you could possibly be more left than Hillary Clinton?" (Transcript follows)

In Friday's New York Times, reporter Susan Dominus describes division in the feminist movement over who to support in the Democratic presidential primaries. Dominus describes two types: the hip, young, flirty feminist who's uncommitted, exemplified by Jessica Valenti, the founder of the blog Feministing (the one with headlines like "What's your butt's ethnicity?"); and the dour, old-school feminist who says support Hillary or you're sexist, exemplified by Marcia Pappas, the president of the New York chapter of NOW.

It's an interesting piece, written with obvious sympathy for feminism, and the newspaper's sympathy extends to covering up Jessica Valenti's other blog venture: she's paid by NARAL Pro-Choice America to run its "Bush v. Choice" blog (see that "About Jessica" link?). The closest the Times comes to exploring what pays Valenti's bills is this sentence:

People who oppose Hillary Clinton's presidential aspirations do so primarily out of sexism. That's at least how "The View" co-host Joy Behar sees it.

Discussing NOW’s attack on Senator Kennedy for supporting Obama over Clinton on today's show, Behar implied anti-Clinton forces are after her because she’s a woman.

"They’re piling up on Hillary from every, every corner, including Maureen Dowd, women are against her in many, many ways. And you have to say to yourself why is she at the mercy of so much more scrutiny than others? And the hatred that’s coming towards her. Think about it ladies. That’s all I’m saying."