The front page of Monday's Style section in The Washington Post is dominated by an article on Racism vs. Sexism and Hillary and Barack by reporter DeNeen Brown. It lines up a pile of black and white female leftists to fight with each other, including Gloria Steinem, Kim Gandy, Lani Guinier, and bell hooks (apparently, capital letters are oppressive). None were described with a liberal label (although "feminist" was used).The standout line came from Robin Morgan, who fervently asserted that sexism was so much worse in America today:
"Anything that can be interpreted as racist in the campaign is leapt upon and should be," Morgan says. "Stuff that is blatantly sexist is not leapt upon. It's often ignored, trivialized and laughed away."
Only now has it been highlighted after "women said, 'Excuse me!' Morgan says the attacks on Clinton have ranged from trivialization to outright venom. "The Hillary Clinton nutcracker doll being sold in airports. They would not dare do that with a Stepin Fetchit doll in the image of Senator Obama. And they shouldn't do that and there would be national outrage, and there should be national outrage."
How on Earth is a Hillary nutcracker doll as offensive as a Stepin Fetchit image? It doesn't suggest Hillary is subhuman or stupid or meant to be subservient. I suppose it can be said that a woman running for high office is by definition a nut-cracker. Personally, I think it's the wrong image for Hillary. She's never seemed to stop her husband's sexual incontinence.
For more on Morgan's nuttiness about how the "phallic malady is epidemic and systemic," see here.
Several of the pundits in the story (including Gandy) made the point that their opponents are loving an intramural brawl between black and white feminists, and Brown concluded her story with that sentiment from Mary Frances Berry, the leftist who had to be dragged away from what she thought was a never-ending appointment to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. Don't fight, ladies! It's just what the conservatives want you to do!
