Obama made these comments today at Tulane University:
Obama took the stage at Tulane… he seemed to have Clinton in his sights when he said, "You challenge the status quo and suddenly the claws come out."
A poll up on Daily Kos seems to indicate that most people think this is a "non-issue," so I thought I’d find out what the opinion here is.
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- Late Night: In Asshole Maneuver, Noted Asshole Begs to Be Pelted with Garbage for Pulling Sexist Shit
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Jane!
He could just have easily been referring to Republicans.
For pete’s sake–are we going to do microscopic parsing now?
I really don’t find it sexist. Then again, in my mind. Guys are just as capable of claws, and the status quo crew is full of both genders that have ‘em in spades. Claws is a better choice of words than ‘knives’ at this point as well. Which is probably why he chose it.
no only is it sexist, the connotations are far more negative than anything that either Hillary or Bill have ever said.
I done ain’t got no views.
Cat claws (lion, tigers, cheetahs – get the pic?), but it’s not necessarily sexist. There’s also bear claws. Ever been slapped by a bear?
Then again, IF he was speaking about Clinton in the previous sentences or afterwards, then it could be determined to be sexist or at the very least – lookin’ that way.
Jane!
Please please check your email…
I think I may have to leave FDL for now. The tone has changed.
I wonder if it would be better to declare the blog’s preference.
Jezzus! Why worry about sexism when it’s pretty fucking apparent we need to worry about grammar.
He said that “if you challenge the status quo” could refer to the DLC. If he said Sen. Clinton, then maybe, but he didn’t according to the quote that you have.
And on that note, i’ll see about the context as well. That seems to be another sticking point, though an important one. *heads up to link after starting up the crock pot dinner to cook*
with all due respect, claws are made for scratching and gouging — and in terms of implication, lets face it, men fight with their fists, women with their “claws”… and a guy who fights with is “claws” rather than his fists, is considered to be fighting like a girl…
In fact,
Badly written. Bad journalism. “But he seemed…”? Please. He was talking about the cons.
Male cats have claws too.
It depends on your definition of “out”.
would it be sexust if she said “you win one state and all of a sudden the baseball bat comes out”
or something masculine like that?
I don’t think so, I think this is really not an issue
See, I can undoubtedly see how it can be called sexist. I’ve said things because it’s an adage without apparent regard for gender.
He could, in his own head, be referencing Hillary, but unless there’s a reference to her somewhere nearby – either overt or oblique – you have to take it as is.
Anything is an issue if we want it to be.
Sexist, no. Referring to gender, yes. A reference can be gender-specific without being sexist.
guys have claws too.
All “claws come out” means is that when a cat is playing nice the claws are retracted, and when it’s aggressive the claws come out…both male and female.
This sort of garbage, Jane, is MODO meme. Can we ACTUALLY discuss the issues here! Spare me, this is a ludicrous piece, and if this is going to become an push-Clinton and clobber Obama site I am outta here until after the election.
I heard that Heather told Britney that Megan was a bitch.
Everyone here should read “Cracking The Code” by Thom Hartmann.
It exposes this kind of shite for what it is.
Can it be a gender based comment and not be sexist?
I amn a straight white male, and think that all presidential candidates will act like goofballs and commit stupid campaign tricks regularly, and will need time outs, or maybe bedtime with no dessert.
Yes, I think it could be construed as a covert sexist swipe.
Overall, I think there needs to be some grown-ups who can tut-tut the candidates, be willing to put this kind of childish behavior on the part of the candidates in perspectie without indulging it, and remind them that there are more important things they can be doing that will help them win the general election(FDL?).
Our country is at stake, the best we can do apparently this cycle, has been Edwards, Obama, and Clinton. They all have serious problems. We need to maximize chances that either Obama or Clinton win. Everything else is secondary (except new and better more aggressive congress)
Oh meme, kabuki, narrative. . .it’s sooo smart here.
I like Obama.
Current poll tally: 48 say sexist. 81 say not sexist.
Radical, Jane.
Now, how about putting up a little vote clicker to see which one we think ought to be the party’s nominee? I think that would be even more interesting. :o)
wow. has it really deteriorated to this? Claws as sexist language? I use it to refer to ‘going on the attack’. Next thing you know, we will have to start looking at the use of terms like, ‘black sheep’ or worse ‘bean counter’
I’m not much into health food, I am into champagne.
I’ve got to meet you by tomorrow noon, and cut through all this red tape.
At a bar called O’Malley’s, where we’ll plan our escape.”
but you didn’t hear that from me!
LOL
how so snowbird?
we are all on edge, we all know how important it is to win the presidency this cycle, it’s more important then any other time in our history
not too many of us are thrilled with either Hillary or Obama but we support any democrat over any republican for this election
it’s gonna get testy I guess, we are all hoping the person we think is going to win gets the nod
long before Hillary declared I thought it would be a terrible idea for her to run, too much time has been spent by the republicans developing the vile hatred they have
they knew she would eventually run and they prepared
they didn’t know Obama would run until just before he announced and they were salivating at the mouth, they think they can get enough bigots out to vote for a republican if we run Obama
this is tough stuff for me to deal with, I have always thought Hillary would make a great president but then I found out how cozy she is with Murdock and how much money she gets from the corporate world
anyway, we’re all on edge here
Jane,
Seems to me you are making arguments in favor of Hillary because she’s a woman. Just my take.
I don’t like the either or choice I must make to cast a vote so I didn’t. Perhaps, deep in Obama’s psychi “claws” is a reference to women. Perhaps. I’d rather deal with issues. I have only so much energy so I prefer we look at issues that count.
“Claws” is a dig at women. It’s right up there with “old bat”. Or, “has been” and all the other sexist remarks that permeate the language. One of my favorite when women had a discussion was the NYT front page headline, “Cat Fight”. Men discuss. Women are catty.
Claws, catty. It’s all there. Is it ugly? Yes. Can I fight each slip of Obama’s tongue? No. Is Obama taking on some nasty stuff from the Right. Yes. And, it’s ugly.
I believe it can be gender based and not sexist…however a cat is not gender based at all, they are both male and female
The remark is questionable. Whatever, I don’t think it appropriate. And my view is that some of Bill’s statements have been, shall we say, somewhat over the top as well. I want a Democrat in the WH next January. Lets get on with it. HIllary and Obama need to find their way, as kiddo is fond of saying, “out of the sandbox”. If we are going to win. I’m sick of it. One or both of my candidates need to elevate themselves. You’re in the gutter. Right wher Rove wants you.
Lahoma.
Please don’t be too hasty about this (Based on the previous thread I think I know why you’re saying this.)…Be patient. Something might happen soon.
I believe Obama already covered the term “black sheep” when he applied it to Cheney. And I didn’t even catch the “double meaning” (if it was even intended) until now.
anyway, we’re all on edge here
Please bear in mind “it’s all bullshit”.
Yea, and when we say “cat fight”?
ah, but of those 81, how many were women.
this poll is sexist to start, I am a man and didn’t think it was a sexist remark but I don’t know how I’d feel if I were a women
Somehow with the death and burial of the Constitution today I really can’t get worked up over this.
Please read the previous thread for your answer, and please if you can, keep the comments on that issue on that thread…
Did I sign on to a Fox news blog by mistake. The quote does not even mention Clinton so I don’t have enought information to make a judgment.
“Has been” is a sexist term? I thought that term was usually applied to older (mostly male) athletes.
Yeah, I’m getting that impression, as well. Seems to me that voting for a candidate because she is a woman is as sexist as not voting for a candidate because she is a woman. I think I detect the dynamic in the comments, too.
Not the same, word play and tongue and cheek at work there.
This thread is like Dkos 2.0
that means women, you make a good point, but that’s a social distinction that developed, cats have both gender…it’s sexist because of our culture, it’s not sexist from the point of objectivity
Obama needs to clear his head.
If he wins, he’ll have to deal with the genuine thugs of the planet.
They’ll undercut him with more than ‘claws’.
If he’s smart, he’ll start watching Hillary and take advantage of whatever political mentoring he can get, because in about 8 years, he’ll be in his 50s with a great deal more experience, and the US could really use his talents.
K-k-k-karl Rove must be sh*tfaced with joy to hear Obama whining on about ‘claws’.
Jeebus!
Sonja: Boris, Let me show you how absurd your position is. Let’s say there is no God, and each man is free to do exactly as he chooses.What prevents you from murdering somebody?
Boris: Murder’s immoral.
Sonja: Immorality is subjective.
Boris: Yes, but subjectivity is objective.
Sonja: Not in a rational scheme of perception.
Boris: Perception is irrational. It implies imminence.
Sonja: But judgment of any system of phenomena exists in any rational, metaphysical or epistemological contradiction to an abstracted empirical concept such as being, or to be, or to occur in the thing itself, or of the thing itself.
Boris: Yeah, I’ve said that many times.
i do have an issue with the poll…the word sexist is a loaded word
“claws”?
immediate association – cat (s)
immediate association – catty
immediate association – catfight
immediate association – fingernails
sexist?
nah, couldn’t be.
obama is a pure and learned man merely indulging in a bit of metaphysical speculation, e.g., schroedinger’s claws.
of course it is possible,
though it would be so unlike barrack,
that he he was doing to guys
what bill clinton was doing to whites two weeks ago in south carolina – sending them a coded message.
well well,
what’s sauce for the gander remains sauce for the gander (or is that gender?).
but, in the current media climate, whether this parallelism appears as such in the media depends, apparently, on whose gander the media gets to gore.
in any event,
this comment of obama’s makes it clear that
“transformative” politics and “transformative” politicians
is just another cocaine-laced, anodyne for the politically naive in america.
special offer:
get captain obama’s secret decoder ring when you make a campaign contribution to the big BO.
p.s.
my spell checker keeps trying to replace “obama” with “IBM”.
does it know something i don’t?
Supper is served. And my lady is pissed about the claw statement. So I know what the dinner table discussion will be about. And she and I voted for Obama day before yesterday. If our candidates keep saying these stupid things, we just might hand the election to McCain. Words, and how they’re strung together… matter.
Obama meant that as snark and irony, mockingly, or did you miss that… I’ve already talked about how this is loaded, and a minefield, metaphorically.
I think that’s what Dean was trying to accomplish with his statement today that he would bring them in and get one of them to drop out before the convention.
If that’s what you’re worrying about, you’ve taken your eye off the ball. This is the EXACT sort of bullshit that gets our asses handed to us cycle after cycle.
For those who thought this wasn’t sexist, curious to know if you thought Bill Clinton’s use of the term “fairy tale” was racist.
Just like to know what the community temperature is with regard to these things. It’s an honest point of inquiry, not a judgment.
here’s the thing. If Hillary had made a similar comment (”the knives come out”) it would have been labelled as ANOTHER instance of her “dog whistling” that Obama is black.
there is simply no question that the phrase itself is sexist, especially when uttered by a male. Its a reference to the way “girls” fight — not manly men who fight with their fists, but “girls” who scratch and claw at each other.
Should it be an issue — no. But then again, the entire “the Clintons are running a racist campaign” thing should never have been an issue — yet not only Obama’s suppporters, but Obama’s own campaign, pushed that despicable campaign tactic.
So count me in as far as promoting the “Obama is running a sexist campaign” meme is concerned — after his campaign’s swift-boating of Hillary on the race issue, its the least he deserves.
No, it was not racist.
Oh, I though he was saying Barak was a fairy:)
I don’t come here to address this sort of stupid, pedantic, deconstruction of a term used. I get enough of that in my real life. What I have loved here are the minds. This sort of thing is simply gutter crap.
That the Democratic party is fractured is evident in the posts here as well as the posts on DK and C&L.
Hillary as Dem nominee will be the hammer that fractures the Dem Party.
Which is good. Because America needs a new, Progressive Party.
Jane it was not the “term” fairy tale, it was the implication that it was fictitious, made up.
A professor huh?
I don’t expect every post here to be Pulitzer quality, lord knows, but this is really scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Without the context, it is impossible to tell who Obama was referring to – Hillary? DLC? Republicans? All we have is the reporter’s inference.
Is the word “claws” inherently sexist? I neither know nor care.
Good night.
(found out).
Murder IS justifiable, depending on the circumstances, such as self-defense. All morality is situational.
I was an Edwards supporter and no one attacked. I have kept my opinions of other candidates quiet because this blog was about issues.
I dont believe in dynasties and machines and I hate Evan Bayh. I love the way the young are flocking to Obama. I really dont like the way this is going on FDL
LOL, particularly if you put that in the context of Andrew Young’s comments (snark he said) about Bill knowing more black women than Obama.:-8
No, I don’t think it was. And I don’t think he was referring to teh gay either.
Not.
Oh good, Woody wasn’t done yet:
Him: Come to my quarters tomorrow at three.
Sonja: I can’t.
Him: Please!
Sonja: It’s immoral. What time?
Him: Who is to say what is moral?
Sonja: Morality is subjective.
Him: Subjectivity is objective.
Sonja: Moral notions imply attributes to substances which exist only in relational duality.
Him: Not as an essential extension of ontological existence.
Sonja: Can we not talk about sex so much?
BTW, gang:
Cool down your jets re: the dKos diary talked about (that attacked looseheadprop’s post on Obama and Rezko) in the last thread. A rebuttal to that diary is coming soon on FDL…
See last thread, and please discuss it there…
This is almost a perfect allegory of speaking truth to power… there’s no sexism involved.
I confess to being a male who does not find the comments, in the absence of any context, sexist.
It sure would be nice to have some context for this remark.
My first thought was of tiger’s claws…
That’s the nice thing about this place, in a few minutes there will be a new post.
Barack Obama, but: Ehud Barak…*g*
Biodun, I respect you lots, and the site. But this particular post, coming on the heels of the last post’s discussion and the Kos site post, did NOT help the situation.
Claws are witchy.
I knew way back in April when the HRC show came to FDL that this site was going to be a Clinton site. None of this comes as a surprise.
Four more years of war with HRC in office. Greeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaatttttt.
Jane: there was nothing racist about Bill Clinton claiming that Obama’s claim of consistent opposition to the war was a fairy tale. Clinton was not being a racist. He was, however, lying. I would expect Mr. Clinton to support his wife; I did not expect him to engage in falsehoods, and that’s why he was so strongly attacked.
In 2004, a reporter was trying to trap Obama into condemning John Kerry, the party’s nominee. Obama refused to play, and gave Kerry a possible out (the bit about maybe Kerry’d seen something Obama hadn’t seen). Bill Clinton used this, falsely, to claim that Obama was wavering in his opposition to the war. He wasn’t, and Clinton knew better.
If morality were not situatioal, we wouldn’t need to try individual cases. The rules would be obvious and no trials would be necessary. The exitence of trials proves morality is situational.
Get over it snowbird! I seem to recall you were an Edwards supporter. Me too. Do you really object to holding a magnifying glass to the candidates words and actions? Or do you think that we just do that for Obama? That there’s no criticism of Hillary, or the Clintons here?
OK, good point, and we know Biodun in the past, and others now will be so busy refreshing in the fishing for a zed that they won’t have time to post and read. (snark, meant to be funny, NOT an attack….)
I’ll betcha Obama’s polishing and sharpening his claws as we speak…
I don’t think I’ve ever heard the term “claws” used in reference to a man… so, yes – sexist…
Fairty tale as racist? nope…
His BHR maybe
No, issues are issues. This is sniping
Can’t we all just call for tax relief for the Corporatists?
People claw their way to the top. Claws are worn by warriors and kings as symbols of power. Claws mean lots of things. If we are going to microscope every thing that the Dems are saying, we are truly no better than the Rethugs. It is actions, folks, that count.
I have been enjoyed FDL since your great Libby Trial coverage. But in the last few days, Jane, you have turned it into a Hillary Clinton push site. I am taking FDL off my Favorites list and moving on to read and learn elsewhere.
BHR?
Bear claws.
Crab claws.
Fairy tale as racist. No, it was an inference of immaturity, age bias if you will. Only children, or non-adults believe in Easter bunnies, Christmas, and ogres.
Yep. Everything but everything needs to be exposed to debate. The body politic (including the socius) is healthier that way. Nothing swept under the carpet. Otherwise leads to public trauma–and possibly neurosis…well, at some point for sure. Look at the Vietnam War in this respect. We thought we were done with it. Until the 2004 elections, when Kerry mistakenly and foolhardedly made it the theme of the Dem Convention, which then led to the famous Swiftboating (which has since passed into political lexicon and into history), and which…
It is just that sort of thinking that has provided the option/reality for individuals and nations to attack without reason. Police over respond and kill civilians. Israel and Palestinian attacks on each other. US attack on Iraq, possibly Iran. Murder sometimes happens in self defense, but it is not justifiable.
Candidates Show Claws.
Romney/Huckabee
My 100 addressed to Ecahn’s post on justifiable murder for self protection.
Richmond, with all due respect, you called women over 50 “elderly” yesterday. I realize you didn’t mean it as a slur but nonetheless I think most women would take it as one. I understand people wish that discussions of race and gender would go away because they make them uncomfortable but unfortunately this is the time we get to have them, because the national profile is up and people are paying attention. It’s the time when we get to let well-intended folks like you know that you may be speaking and thinking in ways that are hurtful to us.
It’s what this blog has always been about, from day one. It’s about honest inquiry and leveling the playing field. It may not always happen in ways that make everyone happy but that’s the price of wading into the tough stuff.
Black Handled Razor, that’s what we called em in Chicago “back in the day”.
excellent find Loo Hoo!
update
I’m a woman and I find it sexist 18% (83 votes)
feedback bar
I’m a woman and I don’t find it sexist 23% (109 votes)
feedback bar
I’m a man and I find it sexist 18% (87 votes)
feedback bar
I’m a man and I don’t find it sexist 41% (195 votes)
As a former Edwards supporter, who agonized for 10 days about how I would vote on Super Tuesday and finally came down for Obama, I do not see it that way at all.
That is unfortunate, and your loss.
I’m on one of the laptops at the dining-room table with my girl. She’s very not happy with the Obama remarks. How do I know this? She’s not talking. I agree with Lahoma that these statements are over the top. She feels betrayed. And so do I. And even though I cooked supper tonight, and the usual deal is that whoever cooks doesn’t do the cleanup, I’m going to do KP too. I just can’t stand to see Lahoma unhappy.
bathtub claws?
Yeah, but neither of these candidates are running on the issues, are they? Isn’t this the cult of personality? Character? So, then, let’s look at those things.
Maybe you thought we were done with it. It was stupid of Kerry to pull that “reporting for duty” bullshit but O’ Neil and the rest of those fuckers we primed either way.
As a daily reader, infrequent commentator, I hope this is a joke or this site is going down hill. Yesterday, threads of info knitted together to insinuate the appearance of scandal/impropriety by the Loose head (too many games without a scum cap-I’m a fly half) and now this. I was for Edwards but he clearly did not have the goods-for whatever reasons-ignored by media/horserace, whatever. Obama is the real deal. If you saw him and the crowd he attracted and the way they responded to him, and his absolute command of the moment in the Hartford recently (as I did) you would see why. (He made Caroline, Teddy, DeLauro, Larson, Murphy all look like second/third tier). He’s the real deal. If people thought Ned Lamont was inspirational (and I did and volunteered for him and was crushed by his loss), multiply that by about 10,000 and then you are getting warm. I have a friend in Chicago who is a long time Federal Defender there. We went to Catholic U with McAuliffe and Gillespie and know them well and so have more than a passing interest in this stuff. My friend is a real life Atticus Finch and unimpeachable in his liberal bonafides and he has followed Obama as his star has risen. His view is that the Chicago stuff is much ado about nothing. He has convinced me and I have convinced myself that Obama is our only chance to capture or recapture what we have been hoping for for a long time and only in a very small way have had a taste of in our last two Democratic presidents. He may not be perfect but this is our shot and it may never come again, and I for one and going for it and not spending time on the sideshow nonsense.
I think if we nitpick every offhand remark we run the risk of handing the election to the repukes.
People need to get over themselves and deal with the fact there is a real repuke candidate who has a real chance of winning, the repukes, while not united, are farther along in that regard than we are and if people insist on this sort of PC bullshit, rather than looking at defeating that lunitric McCain, we really WILL be in Iraq for the next 100 years and there WILL be more wars.
Is that what we want?
Lobster claws…mmmm…now I’m getting hungry.
What we have to look forward to from the right. There is no lack of ugly stuff on the Clintons.
I’d love to know how the dynasty issue is explained
interesting
1) more men (59%) than women have responded. (Jane, is this the usual demographic for this blog?)
2) 69% of the men have said “not sexist”. Only 57% of women felt it was not sexist.
I’d be willing to bet that Obama supporters were far more likely to find it “not sexist” than Clinton supporters…
Yep yep. Pace my 99…*g*
I thought “fairy tale” was patronizing but not racist.
Given all the comments that have been made between Team Clinton and Team Obama, the only one I thought that was truly “coded” or over the line was Bill’s Jesse Jackson comment after South Carolina. And I think everyone knew it was over the line, too, which is why we haven’t seen much of Bill lately.
I’d also like to say that I think I’m in the minority on the whole Clinton vs Obama issue. I think that a prolonged primary fight will be good for either one of them, no matter who the eventual nominee is. We have nine months until the election, and the only stories on the Republican side for the next nine months are going to be variants of the “Do conservatives still hate McCain?” flavor. The Dems, on the other hand, still have quite a bit of free publicity to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each of their candidates. That can only help us.
This blog is swell. I say all kindsa shit that is counter to what is posted and no one ever told me to get lost. . .shut the fuck up maybe.
I saw the video clip of Obama making that comment earlier. It never triggered with me as sexist. Perhaps lifting it out of context and printing it prefaced by the words “seemed to have Clinton in his sights” alters the way it is perceived. Maybe some can find the video and link to it so everyone can see/hear it in context before rushing to judgement.
“Claws” is a term most often applied to women. I’m not sure that this fact alone makes it demeaning to women….although it may be demeaning to the specific woman against whom it is leveled.
“Watch out with her- if you disagree with her, the claws come out.”
And for the record, if someone told you to STFU, did you? *g*
Jane: Inmy research I work extensively with elderly women and men because of their brilliance (wisdom, keepers of knowledge and tradition – ask Biodun), and it was not meant as a slur. I was simply pointing out the key demographic of Hillary’s largest body of supporters: women over 60, followed by women over 50 – and of course others. But, what happened after I wrote that was your writingthat I called you an old bag, and others said I did that and worse. Sorry, but that is NOT OK with me. Nor, I think, is it OK with many of us who come to this site because you and Christy have made it a place where we usually feel welcome, and comfortable in addressing sometimes difficult issues without the sort of petty attack that we get in our everyday lives.
Definitely sexist. Please don’t let this woman-hater be prez
Ah, Vietnam! The gift that keeps on giving, won’t stop till the last REMF
dies.
Yah. Let’s have at it!
Fuckin A.
I’m frightened by McCain’s skull.
Guys,
Accept it. After the next election, no one here is going to be happy.
Yea, grunts never talk about it.
Me? Moi? You betcha that I didn’t we were done with the Vietnam War. I used “we” in the er, royal sense.
And yes, what Kerry did was stupid, inter alia (among other things…*g* including that windsurfing bit…
“Only” 57% of women found it non-sexist. Sorry, but that is quite a significant statistic.
50 is elderly? I’m 43, in seven years my life will be over. Crap.
woman-hater? WTF – you think Bill, with all his affairs is a woman lover? Do you think he really wants Hillary to become president so that he will be secondary to her. Not.
Yes, but… these are the PRIMARIES! We get to vet our candidates! Doesn’t the FISA vote remind us that you don’t automatically get a white hat because you are a democrat?
EARN OUR VOTES!!!!!!
It’s beginning to look like it, isn’t it?
What if he’d said “the knives come out”? Would people then assume he was making an obliquely anti-Semitic reference to the Dolchstoßlegende?
My lady jogs all over the ethernet and comments here and there. But she tells me her fave place is FDL. I am in accordance with that view. I like all the commenters here. Even the one’s I sometimes don’t agree with.
You were faster than me, biodun
;)
Does anybody care about this kind of crap, really?
The larger demographic is post 60. You get your damn AARP card at 50. Can we get beyond this name calling crap. Please?
back atcha homa’s
I am a passionate supporter of Hillary Clinton. I support her because I think she would be a much better president than Senator Obama. Despite this, I don’t think you can necessarily attribute Senator Obama’s comment to sexism. None of us have the ability to read Senator Obama’s mind so we simply don’t know what his motivation was in making that remark. Similarly all those Obama supporters who criticized Bill Clinton’s comment about Jesse Jackson winning the South Carolina primary, twice, were off base in calling President Clinton’s remark racially motivated. Both comments are open to interpretation and unless you are clairvoyant, it is impossible to know what motivated either comment.
What has been sexist about this campaign is all of the sexist comments made about Senator Clinton by the main stream media and by the progressive blog world.
It is sexist to comment on Senator Clinton’s cleavage. It is sexist to call her voice shrill because women’s voices have a higher timbre then men. It is sexist to comment obsessively about Senator Clinton’s relationship with her daughter. It is sexist to comment obsessively about Senator Clinton’s relationship with her husband when not doing the same about the male candidates spouse and children. It is sexist to require the female candidate to make peace with her inner voice while not requiring the same thing of the male candidate. It is sexist to call a female candidate a bitch. It is sexist to comment on the way a female candidate dresses. It is sexist to claim that women in New Hampshire are so stupid and emotional that they voted for Senator Clinton because she teared up (which she didn’t)instead of making an intelligent decision about who they thought would be the best president (I guess that’s something only male New Hampshire voters can do.)
Since the campaign for president began, so called liberal columnists for the New York Times and Washington Post, pundits on so called liberal cable stations like CNN and MSNBC, and so called progressive blogs like Kos have said all of these things about Senator Clinton.
And while they were doing that, Senator Obama and his supporters have remained conspicuously silent. Senator Obama and most of his supporters are smart and claim to be progressive. But they have decided that the temporary tactical advantage accruing to Senator Obama’s campagn by this sexist commentary directed against Senator Clinton is helping their efforts to get him nominated. So they have said nothing and that is profoundly and disturbingly sexist. Giving these tactics a pass will hurt women candidates for a generation. But they don’t care, and that’s sexist.
What’s really ironic is how many Obama supporters wax eloquent about their hatred for Fox News. It’s ironic because their silence makes them complicit in exactly the kind of sexist world that Fox news seeks to promote. I think, in a certain way, so called progressives are even worse. After all, Fox News is just trying to make money. Senator Obama and his supporters know better, they just don’t care. That’s sexist!
Uhm, which speech? I just read the transcript of Obama’s Wed, Feb 6th speech, and there was no reference to “claws” — I did read him beat the shit out of bush’s “policies” though…
Another kind of claw:
And I have known the arms already, known them all–
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
Despite the offensive looseheadprop article, I don’t think that FDL has become a Hillary push site. But I do have a concern about the way this issue has been raised. Has anyone noticed that Sens. Clinton and Obama seem to have a much better personal relationship than their backers do? Do we escalate every phrase uttered into a club to beat the other side with?
In this case, it appears that a reporter was trying to stir up trouble, and Jane, I think you took the bait. You put something between quotation marks, but it wasn’t a quote of something Barack Obama said. It was a quote of a reporter’s interpretation, saying that Obama “seemed to have Clinton in his sights”, together with only a fraction of a sentence. Maybe if we heard the whole speech we wouldn’t notice this phrase. Or maybe it would stand out as sexist.
But what do I know? I’m just an elderly 50 year old.
Richmond…
The significance lies in the different perceptions of men and women. Men are more than twice as like to see it as “non-sexist” than women. (for ever male who says “sexist” there are 2.5 males who say “non-sexist”, for every woman who say “sexist” there are only 1.2 women who say “not-sexist”.
But what I really would like to see is the percentage breakdown for Obama, Hillary, and undecided supporters by gender….
Yeah I wanted to break it down, do it as a survey…didn’t have time, but it’s kind of interesting. Is the correlation based on who you support? How much of a lens does candidate support put on someone’s assessment of the situation, and does it vary by gender?
I’m going upstairs now, and I’m going to read and discuss something else. But I’d just like to leave you with this; I’ve gotten the impression all day here that there have been a number of trolls and sock puppets that I’ve never seen before, drive by comments meant to stir the pot, etc.
I’m just sayin’.
Yup. And, I’m an elderly near 60 year old FWIW.
I don’t find the claws remark to be sexist. Similarly, I didn’t find anything the Clintons’ said to be racist.
Hmmm, how is it you replied to my comment but it doesn’t show up in the list? No matter…
It’s one thing to vet the candidate, it’s quite another to form an opinion based on a single quote. There has been enough sexism/racism to go around in this campaign and I fear by the time the primaries are done, we’ll be so bled out, the repukes will walk over us like Sherman marching to Atlanta.
Yea, whose’s dis mofo talkin bout REMF’s?
The fact that morality is situational does not mean there is no morality.
No jane, it is simply not one of those truly sexist comments. And, focusing on this sort of thing, rather than issues, is not going to get us any closer to where any of us want to be.
Richmond: it would be a significant statistic if the 43% formed this judgment by watching the speech, in context, instead of reading a sentence fragment preceded by a reporter’s interpretation that this was a shot at Hillary.
There’s been plenty of sexism thrown in Hillary’s direction this campaign, no question.
But in this case? Not enough info to tell.
I am male. I have a male cat and a female dog. I would never have associated claws with female or even “catty”.
It seems I don’t quite pick up on stuff like that as quickly as some folks do. Now I’m wondering if people insult me all day long, and I don’t even realize it.
and I am a 65 yr old woman.
60 minutes on Obama and nice article talking of how he doesn’t plan to use the old stuff on the Clintons
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories…..4268.shtml
Funny
My problem is that it is this sort of comment that has led individuals and states to justify violence and far more death than simply self-preservation. I would love to have a thoughtful discussion of Palestinian-Israeli relations with you at some point (because I know you would engage in this thoughtfully), but this why the Bushies were able to get our nation of sheep to follow him into war against Saddam.
the gender differtial is extraordinary, IMHO. as I mentioned to Richmond, men were more than twice as likely as women to find it “non-sexist” — and while I think that may be influenced by candidate preference, I also think it reveals some “unconscious” sexism among males
Maybe we can do it as an FDL/lukasiak co-production. I think polldaddy or surveymonkey can do it, if you want to design it we can put it up here and get the data.
Should be interesting, because I genuinely do think it’s a measure of how committing to a candidate causes someone to interpret things in a certain way. Although, I suppose it could also be due to the reasons people have for supporting someone in the first place.
Anyway, I think it would be an interesting project.
But that was not the question asked. The question was, what do we/you think. So, as a statistic of what those of us on the site now think, it was pretty telling.
It seems like there’s a bit of a double standard in the liberal blogosphere — Daily Kos and Open Left as well as other progressive blogs are replete with adoring posts re: Obama and disparaging ones re: Hillary. And this is all very cool — or so it seems. But if Jane asks a simple question about a pretty clearly sexist remark by Obama Firedoglake is suddenly a pro-Clinton blog. Huh. Seems sexism is alive and well among us progressives — and it’s not suprising at all that men don’t recognize this and some women downplay it.
I think that the statement is a sexist smear. Worthy of Limbaugh and Billo.
LOL…. sorry jane, but I don’t do “projects” anymore ;-)
You can slice data many different ways. You can look at that differential, and you can also look at the fact that a large majority (64%) of those who voted did not find it sexist!
When did this turn into Coffee Talk with Linda Richman?
The Civil War was neither civil, nor a war. Discuss amongst yourselves.
I’m with Richmond – if this is turning into a pro-Clinton blog with all the depth of a Redstate discussion about Whitewater, I’m outta here.
BTW, gang:
I know who Richmond is…It’s a handle, not a name. We have lotsa mutual friends where Richmond teaches, and trust me it’s a prestigious institution. I think if people really know who Richmond is they’ll be in for a surprise, to say the least.
But Richmond made me promise not to out Richmond–and of course I will never do that. I will never out Richmond, until Richmond outs Richmond in bits and pieces here and there. Because of what I know, this info has to be out there on threads, but any clever person without the info I have will also be able to do it… Sherlock Holmes!
There are those so in the tank for either Hillary or Obama that every perceived slight is a huge big freaking deal, and they are likely to find everything the other side says as offensive, and to reject any claim that their candidate ever did anything wrong. On the Big Orange Satan these crowds all recommend each others’ comments and diaries and build up parallel worlds: one world where the Clintons are appalling racists, another were Obama is an appalling sexist woman-hater.
Yet the last time I saw Obama and Clinton on a stage together, what do you know, they actually like each other. Could it be that neither one is a monster? Could it be that when one or the other says something that could be seen as racist/sexist, it has as much to do with sheer exhaustion as with evil?
“Tho’ nature red in tooth and claw…” Lord Tennyson
Don’t think that reference was oriented towards females. Well maybe nature is female. Maybe…
Personally I think there is a lot of PROJECTION here…
Could, for example, “the fists come out” be used with the same broadly recognized meaning. That phrase is apt for the meaning that he clearly intended. That when one challenges the status quo one is no longer going to treated nicely…there will be resistance. The phrase works whether one is talking about the Bush Administration, the Republican Party, or, perhaps, Hillary’s Campaign.
I agree with an earlier commentator that something appears to have dramatically shifted here at the Lake. There are more posts dealing with utter innuendo and attempts to find secret meanings in minutia than posts about policy distinctions, verifiable actions by the candidates that signal how they will govern, or far more important areas.
One would almost seem to think that many of the regular posters are running away from discussing policy differences that are on the record between Obama and Clinton. I appreciated the discussion about the land-mine/cluster bomblets issue, and Obama’s non-votes on certain pro-life issues as a State Senator in Illinois.
But which is more important cluster bomblets or tea-leaf reading about what he might have meant by “claws”?
yea, maybe he was talking about bear claws. like in, donuts.
you challenge the status quo and then suddenly everybody starts eating donuts.
Clinton Won’t Committ To Renew Constitution…
’nuff said
That was truly the best comment I’ve ever seen. Really and truly. Without a doubt.
;)
A childhood ignorance of mine was that cats and dogs mated and if their offspring were boys they were puppies and if they were girls they were kittens. But I’m old enough now to know that tigers have claws that are to be avoided, and it doesn’t make a shit bit of difference where the gonads are.
Interestingly, my female partner has been disappointed in Hillary for not being feminist enough, in her view. She perceives her as isolating her feminine qualities amongst a male dominated field and is sending a weaker message as a result. She feels that we definitely deserve and would benefit from a female president, just not this woman as it stands. I don’t have a strong opinion about her view, but find it interesting nonetheless.
Na na na na na (LOL) – Love you Biodun!
Claws?
Both males and female creatures have claws. Both male and female creatures use them.
Not sexist. Observant.
Don’t leave out Diddy Bops and Shake&Bakes!
JANE!
ENOUGH ALREADY!
Waaaay behind on threads and comments today, but midway thru Jane brings up Bill’s use of “fairytale” and what that might imply.
My take is it’s a tactic to “juniorize” Obama…a reinforcement of the Hillary experience meme…same with Hill inviting Barack to her Maine town hall. As if he’s not quite ready to play with the big kids. A way to marginalize that’s neither gender nor race-based, but has the same effect of a subliminal fear tactic.
I haven’t been able to find the video of the exact quote, so until I do, and no I do not trust MSNBC for my news, I will suspend jusgement, but there was a very similar unjustified attack on Michelle Obama not long and I do trust Media Matters to dig into the story, here it is for those interested:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200708220010
My immediate response was a mental picture of Wolverine.
I must say, one thing I haven’t noticed a lot of from Jane’s posts in the years, now, that I’ve been reading them, is hidden agenda.
There are legitimate informational reasons to ask what people think about these words, especially considering that we’ve now heard a lot of back-and-forth between the two sides. It would be valuable to know how the public is taking all of this, if it’s doing any particular noticing at all.
Drip Drip Drip It may not happen consciously…but slowly some women are starting to dislike him more and more…until a full contempt emerges…His arrogance and sense of entitlement is mind boggling.
What I thought you were saying.
Hey, I know!! We could try to have a survey, and—
(OK, I’m going to my corner now.)
Now that works. The fictional one or the actual one. Don’t EVER mess with a wolverine, either gender. *grin*
Wouldn’t it be better to explain why Hillary will be better than Obama and why.
Thanks, I tried not to value-load the post (I realize asking the question at all does do that, so I referenced the Kos poll to try to take the onus off.) I genuinely wanted people to feel free to answer honestly without pressure one way or another, in order to gauge where folks were at.
no, but I sure had an issue with the whole Jackson comparison.
Yeah. Considering that Bill Clinton’s been Hillary’s most ardent pit bull over the past two weeks (Oh no, I compared Bill Clinton to a dog! How sexist of me!), to say that Barack was saying that Hillary’s defenders are catty just sounds, well, like looking for something that isn’t really there.
It’s like when people are accused of being sexist when they say “Hillary” instead of “Clinton”, when all they’re really doing is making sure you know that it’s not Bill they’re talking about. But if those people are on the other side of your agenda, then any accusation is fair game. (Partisan prophylatic for Senator Clinton’s fans: I wrote this piece last month which many persons saw as an unfair hit against Senator Obama.)
Uhm, which speech? Where is the link? This one doesn’t mention the “claw” remark at all!
Primary source, please?
The Kos thing is up to 259 comments.
As though there is something wrong with a woman defending another woman..? Even if its because we feel a commonality ? Get used to it.
This Hillary Hate is unleashing a whole host of forces…and many women are sick and tired of the nature of the attacks and the unfair coverage. When things resonate…there’s a reason for it.
Coming from this woman, that is sexist. I am afraid I haven’t read all the posts above, so I apologize if this has been mentionned, but it would have been fun to have that poll enlarged as to the same facts repeated with I am an Obama supporter or I am a Hillary supporter. I mention this becuase it appears that no matter what Obama comes out with, it is sluffed off as no big deal, get over it, etc. If it had been the other way around someway,I don’t know how, then it would be media news for hour upon hour.
I have found the Obama barbs are coming out much more often against Hillary, but then she is held to a higher standard in not being able to say anything against Obama.
I am afraid I am getting the notion that being a woman is still worse than the color of your skin.
I don’t think Dean will be able to get one of them to drop out. I just don’t see either of them “quitting” after all the work they put in.
I hope one of them wins the delegate count without the super delegates and the other gets behind the winner.
We need to be united to take the white house and we want long coat tails!
In order to determine statistical significance one has to actually know the numbers of responses by men vs. women and run a T-test. You can’t determine statistical significance without N-1. It might look significant, but it could be a few respondants in a small sample (on either side).
Then one has to analyse what that difference means. Clearly, if it’s significant, some number of women given the information provided (whether in or out of context) feel that the phrase attributed is sexist. Actually that should be prefaced by saying that the information that was given stated that it was Barack Obama saying this about Hillary Clinton. That calculation will have to be above some median based on the actual numbers.
There are actually two questions here, in fact. 1) Is there a male-female difference in the interpretation of the statement. And 2) is there some real effect by those sampled in the poll that the words were sexist (or intended to be sexist), or that will be attributed to be sexist because Obama said them (and the individual doesn’t like Obama, anyways).
So the words were not provided in a vacuum. Some individuals may feel that Obama is a sexist already…and read into the words intent based on other information. Some may actually “want” Obama to be a sexist for partisan reasons. Or the reference to claws in any context, by anyone, is sexist.
Women no longer need to apologize for taking Hillary’s side. WE don’t even need to have a reason. We can just feel angry about her treatment…and act on it. Women are too concerned with appeasing their critics and especially if accused of supporting their gender. But never are African Americans questioned in the same way. If anything, this systematic attack on Hillary’s character has a cumulative effect.
Alas, discrimination of BOTH blacks and women is still way up there. For example the trope out there that she is about substance, and he is all aboutstyle/sensation (which you did not say) – certainly can/should be read in racist terms.
This is a joke, right? Get a life people and stop being so god damned sensitive. Do any of you work in the real world? Deal with real people? Get over it and move on. There are too many issues (and emptywheel depressed us with them today) that are a million times more important than looking for slights and sexism in every corner.
leider, ja
This reality is dawning on a lot of women…and they don’t like it one bit.
Good comment.
All good points, and decidedly not my field of area of specialization. My only point is that in the data provided, a majority of those who answered did not see the comment as sexist.
Is anybody else catching Abrams takedown of Lars Larsen…? This should be a clip posted at C&L… ;-)
Inane
Very well put. Perhaps the poll should ask: “Do you believe Barack Obama is biased against women?” (sexist)
The dynasty thing is neither sexist or racist. It is about not going back and having the same families for generations.
Ceabird, the source for the comment is the MSNBC article cited by Jane. Haven’t seen any audio links.
Richmond February 7th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
64
In response to readerOfTeaLeaves @ 52
I don’t come here to address this sort of stupid, pedantic, deconstruction of a term used. I get enough of that in my real life. What I have loved here are the minds. This sort of thing is simply gutter crap.
Ummmm… was that because I said that Obama was playing into K-k-karl Rove’s hands by dog-whistling about Hillary’s ‘claws’? Is that what prompted you to demean me as stupid?
Or was it that I said Obama needed to ‘clear his head’?
Maybe that’s what prompted you to judge me as ‘pedantic’?
For the record, I happen to agree with Larry Johnson at NO QUARTER that most of the time the Dems act like ‘whining p*ssies.’ Now, that’s name calling, but it’s also frank, candid, and sane. And unless the blogs inject some frankness and honesty into American political dialogue, the dialog will consist of William Kristol whining about whether Bill Clinton ‘hurts’ or ‘helps’ Hillary. I suspect that Kristol only whines crap like that when he’s got his claws out; you know, when he’s channeling his Inner Femininity. The rest of the time he’s simply a pussy like the rest of those wankers.
Well, now that I reread your comments about me.. I guess you didn’t actually ‘call me a name’. Just happened to mention that I am ’stupid, pedantic’ and I ‘deconstruct.’
I can be pedantic. I’m sometimes ’stupid’.
Once in a while I ‘deconstruct’.
So, yeah… let’s get beyond the name-calling.
After you.
still watching DVR’d KO. Night court – feh.
Unser dolchstosslegende hiesst auf Vietnamischer MIA.
I’d love to see a video of this or a transcript or something more than a quote out of context and apparently including a reporter’s interpretation.
off base….okay okay Not that we don’t have the context of the message not to mention his tour of black churches this past sunday …okay yeah
My comment? Or the whole issue.
Love that Rachel Maddow!
Du hast recht, Wackelig Bits!
Here’s the paragraph from the MSNBC site:
I think I’ll save my criticism for direct quotes rather than a reporters “seemed”
No. I meant that this sort of micro-managing a term such as “claws” that was said off the cuff by someone who is speaking extemporaneously every day of the campaign is beneath us, and doesn’t get us closer to where we want to go.
It seems the Lake has been silting up of late, perhaps being fed by a Marsh.
My apologies to Christy, but I’ll be sloshing straight to Emptywheel with gators on.
I prefer a blog to a bogg.
Ditto.
Siun, this is same as my comment at 120. Out of context with a reporters “suggestion” attached.
Guaranteed to start a fight. (It did.)
Even Beinart jumped in…! It was one for the ages…! ;-)
This is sad. Jane you are fanning the flame wars here girl (oops, I mean woman).
Look at this statement – Obama took the stage at Tulane… he seemed to have Clinton in his sights when he said, “You challenge the status quo and suddenly the claws come out.”
He seemed to have Clinton in his sights …. WTF.
This is so sad, so absurd, and so destructive.
I agree that these issues should be exposed to debate, but the
Obama’s comment picked up on a long standing hateful meme: Women are vicious, clawing bitches when their turf is threatened. I have never heard anyone speak of a man with “claws.” The comment is ugly–it was meant to be ugly and to cast Hillary as a “clawing bitch.” It is sexist, without doubt. This is not the language of hope or change. It is more mean-spirited, sexist nonsense, and indicative of a pretty nasty character.
Okay… I don’t seem to see any particular reference to Hill, it could just as easily be a barb directed at the Maladministration or even the MSM…!
What if you are a woman of color?
I see your comment. Do a hard refresh and you’ll prob’ly see it too.
The thing about these charges that Obama is a closet sexist that doesn’t compute for me is Michelle, and his life history.
Did you see Michelle’s speech at UCLA last week?!? It literally was one of the better speeches I can ever remember seeing (I think it’s on Obama’s YouTube page). For me, more moving than his Convention speech in 04. Up until a few years ago, she was far out-earning him. She was his superior when they met. There’s never been even the slightest hint that he’s cheated on Michelle. Sexists don’t usually end up with women like this, and I can’t see Michelle being with him if he was sexist.
In his “Dreams from My Father” book, which he wrote when he was in his low 30s, he talks intimately about his life with an absent father and his strong mother, and how his grandma was the responsible bread-winner in the family.
He seems to have a great relationship with his two daughters.
It seems to me that Obama has a tremendous amount of respect for women and what it’s like for them in a male-dominated world.
I think I saw mentioned upthread here, and in previous posts similar to this one, that this primary season is providing an opportunity to expose the extreme amount of sexism that exists in American society, and that is a reason for these type of discussions. I agree that’s a good effort and especially in the BigMedia coverage, it’s so overt how big the problem really is. But to do it at Obama’s expense is unfair to him as a person, and as a candidate. Just some customer feedback…
You are exactly right! The sexist commentary used against Hillary Clinton has been used against women for ages. If we don’t stand up against it, no female presidential candidate will ever stand a chance. If the so called liberal media pundits (writing for the NY Times and Washington Post)and faux progressive blogs (e.g Kos)get away with all the sexist commentary they are promoting, women everywhere will suffer.
The silence of Senator Obama and his supporters in the face of all this sexism is very telling. They care about winning, that’s alright we all do. But their silence in the face of this sexism makes them complicit in it. It makes them sexist!
So it’s worse to have something borderline racial which can be said of anybody: “shuck and jive” ; than something borderline sexist like this?
I don’t really think it was sexist, but turnabout is fair play. Of course, saying quasi-sexist things is ok in today’s media, whereas quasi-racist things is not.
richmond -
you really are a pompous academic ass
- who loves the attention inherent in standing in front of a class (i.e., commenting extensively here)and pontificating
and
- who uses his/her special knowledge to slyly insinuate that a) your position is valid and b) that of others not so.
the comment at 159 is especially histrionic and silly.
to other commenters here who seem to have a hard time comprehending, or accepting, reality:
the obama comment about “the claws come out”:
- was a message;
- was not an incidental or accidental utterance.
- was intended as a criticism of clinton, who, you may have observed, is female.
this of course is why, richmond,
the israelis attacked the chinese,
the palestinians hate the ligurians,
and
the walls of jerico fell.
[RBG Note; make your points without the insults next time or the mods will remove your comment from the thread.]
pick up on 221 -
I agree that these issues should be exposed and debated, but not in this context. People are too emotional. I think we need to cool it down and debate these things when we aren’t in the middle of a primary. The discussion of misogyny should be a stand alone post and not balled up in this conjecture crap.
As far as the flame wars go – We are choosing a candidate, we are not choosing sides. We’re all on the same side. Aren’t we?
Hi,
I’m Rosaleen. I’ve read here many times, but today I decided to post. I think this is an interesting question! In my opinion it’s sexist because it alludes to the term “catty,” which is usually applied to a woman. Just my opinion.
BTW, I’m a fan of Jane’s.
I agree with you. Michelle Obama is amazingly strong.
LOL!
Was fuer scheisse, na? Unglaublich dass, wir ueber jedes Wort reden muss.
Yeah. Especially, as Ceabird mentions, the MSNBC article references that quote, implying that he said it during his speech while a transcipt of the speech in the New Orleans Times-Picayune does not mention that quote at all.
Granted, it’s unlikely that the reporter invented the quote out of whole cloth; Obama may well have said something along those lines before or afterwards. But, unfortunately, it’s not exactly unknown for respected American news sources to pass along stuff that they have to know is utterly bogus.
mussen
Whew, a lot of vitriol tonite! Claws are not inherently a feminine trait, why all the angst…? I’m disappointed with ya’ll… :-(
name calling not really needed here.
if you want to insult someone try being subtle:
“did you forget to take your meds today?”
Is that along the same meme that anything associated with the word ‘black’ is negative and bad?
Please see my note added to the earlier comment.
Hey Rosaleen! Welcome to the fray. Hope you’re wearing your flak jacket.
sorry, didn’t mean to show my claws…
When my husband looks over the dinner table with shining eyes and silently mouths the word “bitch” at me, we both laugh. It’s like the height of marital intimacy. He loves me after thirty years, and appreciates my comments: they’re usually about him. :)
Catty is a term women use, isn’t it? Or do men wield that word as well?
I’m listening to the speech now over on Obama’s site
Haven’t heard it yet – have heard some great knocks on Bush though.
I just saw your post, bonkers. Great name, btw. I just want to say that lots of men who are dyed in the wool misogynists have loving relationships with their wives. I don’t know how to say it exactly, but it’s like the saying “Some of my best friends are Negroes.” Or you will often hear a bigot tell a person of color, “You’re not like other people of color.” Just because a man is a misogynist is not indication he doesn’t like having sex with them, either, but I suppose most people know that. I have some experience with this subject because my father was a misogynist and he adored my mother. Of course she was a misogynist, too.
I think when Michelle Obama said that HRC couldn’t run the WH because she couldn’t keep her own house in order, referring to Bill’s philandering, she was demonstrating misogyny as are all those blaming HRC for being unable to keep the big dog on the porch. And I don’t think Russert would have invited a male on stage to call another male dishonest to his face nor would a male have done it as it could have lead to some fisticuffs.
I’m sure there are levels of misogyny, and I don’t think Obama is any Bobby Knight type freak (”If rape is inevitable the woman should relax and enjoy it.”) but I have seen him be dismissive of HRC in ways he wouldn’t be of a male. Just my take.
Es ist unheimlich dumm, daß wir über diese Worte ein Jammernfest haben sind.
But, Catty wasn’t used by Obama…
Thank you for the welcome, Carolyn! I’m looking especially good in asbestos today!
Somehow I just don’t think Obama is sexist.
I think the real issue is that FDL has become a Hillary support blog. Like many others. Larry Johnson is just loaded with Obama hate, I dont go there.There are some others too.
I am sad FDL has given up its civility
And this didnt happen when Hillary was way out in front.
I’ve used the term claws come out just like the gloves come off for men both straight and gay, and women. Never even gave it a thought it might be sexist, and I have never heard the point brought up either.
I would think if Obama made a hand gesture after using the term it would be sexist. What I do think is this, Obama isn’t being attacked so much by the Republicans right now, he is being attacked by the Clinton campaign, by male and female surogates, especially there for a while by the big dog himself. The last time I checked, male dogs have claws too.
Koennen Sie mir warum erzaehlen? bitte? Na ja, ehrlich es ist mir scheiss egal
Yes, I read that, but where are the transcripts? I posted one above, but this is all over ONE reporter’s “interpretation”?
PRIMARY SOURCE, please!
i know, I was responding to the OP
If anyone on this thread thinks that they are neither sexist nor racist, I’m afraid you are sadly mistaken.
Maybe three, four, five generations from now. Nah, probably more.
You might want to read this link from Media Matters. It might change your view that Mrs. Obama was criticizing Mrs. Clinton about how she runs her house.
http://mediamatters.org/items/…..f=s_search
I’d like to qualify my response. I’m a man, and I don’t think it was necessarily a sexist remark, but it might have been. I’d still call it a non-issue. Whether he’s being sexist or not, there is a slight wiff of desperation in the comment. Too bad Secret is for women and cartoon octopusses only.
But we can hope, can’t we?
Thanks for the reasoned response. Good points. As a male, I do feel somewhat threatened by the sexist charges flying around so freely, but with further introspection, and your point about even Michelle herself saying that, I’m beginning to understand a little better why Jane might want to keep bringing up these issues. Even though I often get called a “man-hater” by men and women over the years for being so vocal about the misogyny in our society, these conversations illustrate just how pervasive it really is (still no reason for me to vote for a lesser candidate however, based soley on gender).
To those saying “claws” is only used to describe women…that’s just not true. I could give all kinds of examples and several commenter have, including someone earlier linking to a BigMedia article titled “The Claws Come Out.” The title is above a picture of two Repub candidates and it’s about the Repubs getting nasty with each other.
I believe you’re right. This whole ugly skirmish could have been avoided if Barack had said “gloves come off” instead of “claws come out.”
To all: apologies for MY earlier comment.
I sense a current of smug superiority in Obama.
He is my Senator, and I subscribed to his podcasts back when he still evidenced a moducome of interst in his constituents.
The fact that he likely is as smart as he thinks he is does not make it less annoying.
I do not get the impression that his feelings of superiority is gender-related.
But what do I know, I am a middle-aged white man.
(I learned recently that I would be elderly if I was a woman)
Read the link @ 258, people.
RBG –
Of course.
I’m an old bat, and I’m proud. :)
(CNN) — Dozens of people were injured — at least 30 of them critically — in an explosion at a sugar refinery near Savannah, Georgia, Thursday evening, a hospital official said.
Police and medical officials say the blast at Imperial Sugar in Port Wentworth happened at about 7 p.m.
At least one witness estimated that 200 people were injured in the blast.
Yeah because we used to be really, really civil.
Just ask Ol 60 Grit.
(BTW, where is Punaise?)
The video available on Obama’s site is about half the speech – no claws in it, but also the speech was long and the vid is not complete.
He detailed a full plan for New Orleans rebuilding … good solid stuff and some innovative ideas.
The transcript of the full speech is here: http://www.barackobama.com/200…..w_orle.php
no claws anywhere nor any references to Clinton but lots to Bush … if someone has video of any questions and answers, I supose that might be where something was said but otherwise there is no record of him saying this except one reporters interpretation.
As an “elderly” (ha!) woman, I do not see “claws coming out” as a sexist remark – then again, all our pets including three cats are male …
Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This.
Damn, I take back my earlier comment about Michelle projecting misogyny as well.
The Wisconsin Dept Nat. Resources confirmed this week (DNA results, no less) that a male cougar is roaming around in the county south of Madison (southern WI)…needless to say, all the headlines and articles and news stories have talked about his claw prints. It’s pretty cool actually.
Thanks Siun.
Macbeth:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Well, as we have learned all too well, our friends in the media can be quite sloppy…hey RBG, diplomatic, no? ;)
Diplomatic, someone call me?
update:
I’m a woman and I find it sexist 22% (227 votes)
feedback bar
I’m a woman and I don’t find it sexist 24% (242 votes)
feedback bar
I’m a man and I find it sexist 17% (168 votes)
feedback bar
I’m a man and I don’t find it sexist 37% (375 votes)
feedback bar
BTW, I would like to change my vote.
Oh, you can only vote once???
Sure, you could be, like, ambassador to the U.N. or somethin’…
“For those who thought this wasn’t sexist, curious to know if you thought Bill Clinton’s use of the term “fairy tale” was racist.”
I don’t even know how what the racist connotations of “fairy tale” are. Maybe homophobic in the right (or wrong) context. Has this got something to do with Eddie Murphy, tranny hookers and Shrek?
Snowbird,
you keep making little noises about retiring to the fainting couch. You’ll have to clear your throat a quite a bit louder than that to before the Anchoress scootches her fat ass over for you.
Hey now baby, step into my big black car.
And, I the elders, :-)
Is that some kind of sexist remark?
Found this in a comment at Eschaton:
…Obama, he said, “just mesmerizes me.”
“He’s such a dynamic power. This guy, he’s got a glow to him,” said Ekfelt. “He’s new, he’s fresh. He’s not part of the old guard.”
But, did he see the light? Did he see the light?
http://www.cjr.org/campaign_de…..php?page=1
When he [Obama] took the stage he said, “At some point in the evening, a light is going to shine down and you will have an epiphany and you’ll say, ‘I have to vote for Barack.’”
Good piece from CJR.
Cream, Wheels of Fire “Politician”
Huh?
I just want an answer to the dynasty question. I think it sucks for this country.
and Im a woman fought for womans rights all my life.Im 65 and I dont like Hillary and dont think she should be Pres just because she is a woman.
My female other thinks the ‘claws come out’ comment is something that would not be used in reference to a male and for that reason it qualifies as sexist. She also feels that Hillary uses her gender to an advantage in a way that turns her off, or as a crutch, but has a harder time explaining it. She pointed to her tag team use of Bill circa SC. Bottom line is she feels Obama “could have said it better” but that it’s not any deal breaker (she favors him right now).
tell it
Never heard of the Anchoress? Nevermind. It’s not funny if it has to be explained.
You are interjecting your own spin on another person’s words. Claws are not a male or female term. They are gender nuetral. This kind of parsing gets us nowhere and when the media grabs this stuff we loose valuable time in discussing the real important things. People that pick this stuff up are looking to push one candidate over another or score some political point based on something that is non-existant. If you are this easily offended, you must be offended all the time. I don’t mean to be snotty, but let’s not be looking for hidden meanings where none are intended.
Anchorite (male)/anchoress (female), (adj. anchoritic; from the Greek ἀναχωρέω anachōreō, signifying “to withdraw”, “to depart into the rural countryside”), denotes someone who, for religious reasons, withdraws from secular society so as to be able to lead an intensely prayer-oriented, ascetic and, circumstances permitting, Eucharist-focused life. As a result, anchorites are usually considered to be a type of religious hermit,[1] although there are distinctions in their historical development and theology.
Jane, I think we have to be really careful to not overreact and throw that word around so much it becomes trite and meaningless. It’s just an expression. It’s what surrounds that expression that’s the tell. What else did he say? How did he look? What was the expression on his face? And would he ever refer to a male in the same terms? So, I can’t vote because, it depends.
Yeah, you!
(I almost got myself in trouble on another thread and decided not to go there.)
Thanks for the definintion.
Keep on rockin in the free world
I find myself tempted toward some really treacherous waters here, so I think I’ll just try to say that the overall tone of the race, even before it got down to these two, is more like that of a man looking to assert himself over a woman, in particular a man who has not yet learned the varied ways in which a woman can get the better of him.
Since at the top we were talking about weapons, I should emphasize that my frame of reference is precisely martial training halls, where it’s easy to mistake strength for invulnerability, but I’m thinking not so much of Sen. Obama’s remark, which does not interest me that much in isolation, as of a figure of disengagement and slight regard that I keep thinking I’m hearing run through his discourse.
BTW c1246 if you’re still there, I left a reply to one of yours on Swopa’s thread (I’m usually late as the dickens), about that Senate campaign; so you know, it’s a stylistic thing;o)
Thanks for the Greek lesson, but I wasn’t referring to those nuns walled up in a church waiting for the eucharist thru a little hole in the wall. I was referring James Wolcott’s former favorite blogger.
I think you must be mistaken. There are many of us that are not in the Clinton camp.
Probably having dinner with his famous neighbor who lives next door to him…Michael Chabon…and I’m definitely not kidding here.
Siun gets another one right. :o)
This is just MSNBC doing a little shit-stirrin’ on the democrats. :o)
With some help from the same Hillary supporters for whom a syllable about Clinton from MSNBC is so tainted that posting it would be grounds for getting drawn and quartered.
Now, when some MSNBC stringer interprets Obama’s comments for them, and SUGGESTS that they were directed at her holiness, his words become Canonical Writ, and the Clinton Torquemadas put on their robes and wigs and get to work. :o)
Then I am even more jealous of him than I already was…
“Hope”? Clearly, an attack on Obama!
I’m sorry to see this blog becoming a push-blog for Obama.
/s
I don’t think it’s a Clinton site. I think her supporters would LIKE for it to be a Clinton site, but with only 10 percent of the readers here going for her in the only poll taken on our preferences, that might be a tough mission to accomplish. :o)
Beautifully said, Amen! Only one additional comment. Caroline Kennedy is a very private person and may not have given a lighting speech, but her editorial was wonderful and certainly a benefit. As for the rest being outshown at the event, isn’t that what we want. We are so lucky to have Obama, everyone needs to see him outshine the others.
I don’t think it’s a push-blog for Obama, either. And as an Obama supporter, I don’t want it to become one. I just want the readers to post why they think either one would be a bad/good candidate, and, whenever possible, to put up links to information that they feel supports their view. :o) And, my 2c, with all that’s riding on this nomination, a little piss and vinegar is not to be despised, in some moderation. :o)
As much as the Clinton campaign stuff was racist…
FDL is a covert Ron Paul blog
Really covert
It just occurred to me that my previous comment made no sense whatsoever!
*g*
Well said
My daughter, whom I love dearly has voted for Bush twice.
All of a sudden she is interested in politics and Obama.
She is 34
sorry for the double post. It’s been a long day. :o)
You’re taking your cues from someone who voted for Bush? TWICE?! I suppose this is a positive development for your daughter, but I don’t think you should be recommending her judgment to anyone else, or your own for that matter.
You want to talk about issues and then complain repeatedly about dynasties? Dynasties are not the problem, they are just the symptom of how powerful money has become in politics. But for you it is just a handy excuse to dismiss Hillary.
Hillary and Obama definitely have major negatives in my book. The thing that puts me off Obama more and more are the irrational, worshipful tributes to someone whose greatest accomplishments seem to be inspiring irrational, worshipful tributes. I haven’t witnessed a phenomenon like this since…last month when I ran into a bunch of Paultards in Austin.
I thought this messianic crap was for the evangelicals. It’s spreading and it’s starting to get a bit scary.
If I wasn’t afraid of getting banned by the moderators, I would call some people Obama-tards. So I won’t. But you know who you are.
[RBG Note; and let’s leave it at just this once. OK?]
Now, really. Would Barack Obama use the claw metaphor if his competitor were a man? Of course not. I frequently rant that Mr. Obama too often gets hearts and flowers in the media and they rip Hillary, constantly and unfairly. The old lies and misogynistic attacks pumped into our consciousness for years about Hillary poisons rational discussion about her. In “news reports” (hit pieces) about her, media hacks casually inject references such as “likability, baggage, sharp, polarizing, ambitious, aggressive, shrill, strident, etc. Now thanks to Mr. Hope’s rejection of the status quo of “old politics as usual” (subtle dig at Hillary’s age?), he has now given the talking heads “claws” to add to their invectives about Hillary. Sexism is so pervasive in our culture we are numb to recognizing obvious manifestations of it. I equate misogyny with racism. If Hillary had said, “Mr. Obama has been “tap dancing” around the question of why he continued to vote to fund the war, when it does not comport with his claim to good judgment to oppose the war at the start, would that be subtle race baiting? Mr. Obama said that “words matter” and on this, we can agree.
Jumping the shark.
That quite a few assumptions you are making to bolster your argument
1) that he wouldn’t have said this had his opponent been a man
2) that men only use this term when the context involves a female
3) that all of us have been exposed to the ‘old lies and misogynistic attacks’
4) rational discussion about Hillary are poisoned
I’ll stop here.
It is your opinion to equate sexism with racism but I don’t think you will win that argument with ANY woman of color.
It sounds caty to me. But then Obama is trying to become a bulldog fighting the cunning tiger. His attempt at snide remarks are revealing.
I’d like to be a fly on the wall to listen to that one. The spectre of Dean trying to get one of two people of colossal ego and ambition to pack it in after a maximum stakes campaign would have to be entertainment of the highest order.
My prediction for the first few words out of the mouth of the intended sacrificial lamb:
F**k you and the horse you rode in on.
I nearly fell over with laughter when I read that one.
So now Howard (who I supported for head of the DNC and am using the tools he provided to parties at the county level)is trying to make up for his single blunder at the DNC.
I’m refering to the denial of delegates to two of the most populous states (Michigan -8th, Florida -4th). A bone headed act that deserves a place of honor in the Bone Head Hall of Shame. The punishment should have been a loss of a quarter of the delegates instead of the death penalty.
Dean believes that a brokered convention would hurt the party.
Now to bail his ass out he’s asked Michigan to run a caucus in place of the legislative mandated primary held in January that was financed by the state at a cost of millions. Howard hasn’t stopped to think that the state party would have to foot the bill for the caucus and that would take away money for Democratic candidates in the state.
Way to weaken the state party and its candidates against the Republicans.
This is ridiculous. The claws come out from the status quo regardless of gender… that is true from from a broad range of status quo. Just more boo hooo hillary defenders for votes. gaaaaaagh.
Oh come on. People are drinking the freakin’ kool-aid here. Obama has no consistent opposition to the war. He was against it when he had no power and the moment he had any power his voting record was essentially identical to Clinton’s. Bill Clinton was right.
What is so pathetically laughable about all the angst about Clinton and Obama is that on most issues there is so little real difference between them. People act as if this is a really significant nomination battle — it may be, but it’s not because of substantial policy differences.
If he told the truth, I said, what would he say? it’s all bullshit, and then what would he say,have a laugh and go hug your kids and tell them you love them.
Yes, “the claws come out” is just as much a sexist reference as “shuck and jive” is a racist reference.
There is a video up of the speech, see for yourself,
http://blog.nola.com/tpvideo/2…..ulane.html
the comment comes nearly at the end, if you do not wish to listen to the whole speech. I listened to what he said, it was after he talked about how other’s put down his references to “hope,” and his being raised by a single teenaged mom and his grandparnts after his father walked out when he was 2.
I feel that it is sexist to divide the responses into male and female, so I refuse to answer.
You know…. just by mentioning that someone, anyone could take this “claws come out” as a specific remark made at hillary is actually the person taking exception admitting that she is catty and in fact the only catty member of the status quo. Which, I think is where this stuff always ends up. garbage in garbage out. Useless and petty nonsense. Red herring alert at orange on this one.
It’s sexist because it suggests a cat fight. One of my main problems with Obama is that he tells people what they want to hear. He panders. Guns in Boise, Reagan in Reno, licenses for illegal aliens in Los Angeles but not in Des Moines, Jesus in Columbia. And yet no one seems to recognize the pattern.
Harry Shearer had some less than flattering words after his visit to NOLA.
Thanks for the link, now people can hear the actual context of the remark. *sigh*
It is sexist, period. I’m getting tired of Obama’s frequent personal barbs, especially considering how thin-skinned he was to Bill’s “fairy tale” insinuation.
Watching KO this evening, I found myself irritated at how he covered the Heidi Fleiss story; the background (male) guffaws to the sexual innuendo was grating.
You know, people will manage to find slights if they really really want to find them. I deplore sexist language and watch my tongue, but sometimes my wife gets into a mood where anything I say can be insulting or demeaning, like ‘good morning’ or ‘thank you’. I suspect that to a certain extent language encodes a bit differently for males and females, so some word or phrase can have connotations that the other sex is unaware of. If there were a linguistic study of this, and both sexes were made aware of the subtle pitfalls, life would be easier to negotiate. Perhaps all political discourse should be conducted in first year high school German or French, so that no nuance could be imputed; where every word has only a single meaning.
Did you ever hear anyone refer to a man as a “Cat” or as being “catty”? Come on, it was about Clinton and pretending it wasn’t is just dishonest. Not the first time he’s done this kind of parsing either. But we aren’t supposed to notice when Obama does things like this.
And you don’t think that saying that your wife is so unreasonable that anything you say is insulting or demeaning is insulting or demeaning? But that’s okay cause it’s just the little woman in one of her moods.
Claws is not just used to refer to women. It simply is not. Apparently many here have not reader through earlier comments where examples were given to prove this. How this article from CNN last December referring to the male Repub candidates:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITI…..index.html
It’s titled “The Claws Come Out” with a picture of men below it. Overnight, I just remembered a headline I saw last week in a paper the used a “claw” reference to describe men.
How do people keep going around saying it’s only a female reference?
My biggest concern for this election is that we Democrats, once again, let the perfect become the enemy of the good.
I’m no fan of Obama or Hillary, but I’m going to work to get one them in the White House.
(oohhhhhhhhhhh – another veiled racist reference? Give me a break.)
My God, people, is this really what we’ve come to? Really? Unbelievable.
Personally, I’m sick to death of all this “sexist” fainting couch horsepucky. Get a grip, people. Our President now admits to having tortured people, and the Congress says flipping nothing, and we’re worrying about whether Obama meant “female fingernails OMG OMG” when he said claws. Crikey. Grow up.
Yes, it has the suggestion of sexism. As racism was suggested by the “Jesse Jackson” comment made by Bill. Both men choose their words very carefully.
I agree. Jane you are looking for parsing every little expression of Obama. Take a deep breath.
Kos never finds sexism an issue.
“I’m sick to death of all this “sexist” fainting couch horsepucky. ”
Well gag me with a bottle of smelling salts! One swears to CEASE getting one’s panties in a twist about it, realizing that sexism IS a such a trivial issue, compared with the big big important manly issues. [edited by mod]
[Mod Note; Please do not insult other commenters. Thank you.]
It can be sexist without being insulting. I like my claws.
By the way, were going to need some claws in November. If he’s not ready to bring his out, he better step aside for someone who is.
DailyKos doesn’t think this is sexist. Gee, that’s a shocker.
“Catty” is about as gender neutral as “bitchy,” which is to say not at all. If “catty” were as gender neutral as all these folks want to believe, why would pointing out its “neutral” use by Obama make FDL a Clinton push site? The only thing offputting about the post is that dudes get to vote on it at all. It’s like letting white people decide what racism is — first off, it keeps the power dynamic one of paternalism (you don’t know what sexism/racism is person experiencing it — I KNOW!) and clearly, because of vested interests in maintaining the status quo, what type of answer are you going to get? Why don’t we send this over to Feministing or Feministe or Pandagon and see what they say?
I, of course, am afraid to post this and expect dudes to pile-on. Because, after all, the moment you tell a dude that he doesn’t have a say in defining what sexism is or is not — is the moment you’ve become catty!
To paraphrase Twisty Faster, all men exercise and benefit from male privilege whether they want to or not, and the exercise of male privilege is misogyny.
Also, when people use “claws” in reference to men, it is to feminize and therefore, demean them. The republican men are in a “cat fight,” or “an altercation between two women, typically involving scratching, hair-pulling, and shirt-shredding as opposed to punching or wrestling,” the masculine and appropriate modes of fighting things out.
Also, when people say discussing this is taking our eyes off the ball, well, isn’t the way half (over half) the country gets treated and discussed and thought may validly be called “the ball”? This is a priority for me and I hope it will be for my next president.
Cool, I no longer have to wait for Tweety and the MSM for gossip and conjecture, I can come here first. Just what we need another source
to divide Democrats and the little people. Good job Jane.
“Cat fights” and “claws” are two words that are always gender specific. I will bet you that when two men are arguing at the office you never hear it described at a “cat fight” or they have there “claws” out. You will hear men called a “Pussy” which is another female gender specific term to insult the man. Whether Obama meant it to be or not, these are terms that have long been accepted to cubby hole women. I personally like both of these candidates and wish we could get off of terminology, which is only fodder for the other side, and get on to the specifics of their plans to make the Democratic candidate the one that most Americans want to vote for in November regardless of race or gender.
What’s wrong with calling a spade a spade? A rose by any other name is still a rose. . .
I agree. I wonder how Obama would feel, if Hillary used “Balls” in place of “Audacity”?
I was insulted by his coverage of Angelina Jolie. When was the last time he visited or did anything for people that are living in tents in the close proximaty to cesspools. He could have done much more for those refugees if he had shown the pictures of her visit to the camps as opposed to her having lunch and speculating on her pregnancy while making a joke about her not being there for a child adoption. It was mean spirited and he should either eliminate the last 10 minutes of his show or get another format. I turn him off right after his “Worst Person” segment.
Jeez-US Christ people get a clue. The other side wants to kill,maim and destroy any and everything that disagrees with their Ideology and you’re parsing about Obamas use of the word “claws”.
Frankly this post is idiotic!
How is it dividing Democrats and little people to have a discussion about one of the candidate’s uses of language about HALF THE PEOPLE IN THE COUNTRY AND THE WORLD? Maybe it tells us something about how he will behave in office? About the state of the world in which we live? These are worthwhile discussions to have.
Moreover, it’s not off topic, it is the topic. The Republicans have open contempt for women and the very first thing the RepubThugs did when they took office was to attack women’s reproductive rights, at home and abroad, with the Mexico City Policy that denied U.S. aid to foreign non-governmental organizations that educate women about or provide for abortion as a form of family planning. They proceeded from there. It’s all part of a epistemology that creates hierarchies of value upon the lives of human beings based on what they deem the supposed facts of their birth. The interrelatedness manifested itself later, when the clearly woman-hating Bush administration started their pre-emptive war, driven by a paternalistic drive to “defend” Burqa-clad women.
I’m not comparing Obama’s usage to that, by any means. But what I am saying is that sex and gender are not ancillary to the democratic campaign, nor is race, nor class — discussing the manifold forms these “isms” take in our institutions and lives and how we can uproot them to form a more just society should be a major component of any campaign.
Casual misogyny is a symptom of a larger systematic contempt towards the lives and liberties of women and all people; a symptom of the structural inequities that prevent the fulfillment of democracy’s promises. It is the very stuff of which the status quo that Mr. Obama so very much claims to want to change is made.
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for (a quote from June Jordan — it’d be nice if Obama cited her). We are the people with the ideas. Discussing them is important. It makes them better and prepares us to defend them and fight for them. You sound just like a Republican when you tell folks to pipe down and keep their concerns about “petty” sexism to the side.
I saw the comment last night, I think on KO, could have been Mathews or Dan Abrams. I think Abrams has been sharp lately as he begins to focus on national legal issues like Bradbury’s attempted appointment by Bush last night and uses his Harvard law education to hone in on issues that are rarely covered by Cable networks but are covered here and at EW. To me it’s welcome that Abrams is starting to do that, and a much better use of TV time than the usual sensationalistic police blotter knife and gun club crap with the resident former assistant DA yammering on and on–the type of stuff the local news affiliates often do because like Don Henley’s song said “If it bleeds it leads.”
When I heard Obama say “the claws come out” I didn’t perceive it to even be a veiled sexist reference to Clinton or a back handed insult to her. I thought it was just an honest observation of a politician who is getting his experience and maturity reenforced by the harsh realities of campaining. I don’t think he was referring specificially to Clinton in any sexist way, but he may well have been referrring to her campaign or people who opposed him in general and wanted another candidate.
I remember that last fall, Fox/Faux News actually used that as a graphic when Michelle Obama began to become more active on the campaign trail ( and I sure as hell didn’t find out about that because I watch a nanosecond of Fox–life is way too short for that)
Claws phrase coming from Fox Anchors in August 2007
Here’s an exercise:
Senator Clinton tells a bunch of reporters:
“You challenge the status quo and suddenly the Saturday night specials come out.”
Or:
“You challenge the status quo and suddenly everybody puts on their colors.”
Both statements could, in theory, apply to men and women of any race. Do you believe Senator Obama’s supporters would accept so innocent an interpretation, or would they decry the remarks as racist?
I can only speak for myself, but when I hear the phrase “claws come out” I perceive it as meaning someone’s going to play more hard ball. Sure, many women have long nails and manicure /polish them more often than men, but I put it in the same category as “clawing your way to success” which to me doesn’t have any gender connotation or “tooth and nail” which doesn’t have a gender connotation either.
Obama’s way too smart to let a sexually degrading reference fly, just as
Senator Clinton is much too smart at this point in the game to have anything that could be perceived as a racial reference come from her IMHO. I’d be very surprised if it were otherwise.
Camorrista,
Just to be clear, Clinton didn’t actually say those things, right? I trust you are speaking hypothetically.
All I did was say to my wife, “That piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah!”
In never thought the term ‘fairy tale’ was racist. Make no mistake though: the Clintons have actually communicated that Obama believing he could win is par with believing in fairy tales, and that Obama’s message of hope and change is synomous with a fairy tale.
Couple that with the “Jesse Jackson won in ‘84 and ‘88″ comment, and it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to connect dots…
The first line of my post reads, ”Here’s an exercise.”
Believe me if Clinton had said anything like those imaginary lines, Obama’s supporters would turn that into her ’Macaca’ moment.
Baloney, claws refers to cat claws. Which implys catclaws, stop making excuses. When did you ever hear of claws coming out for any man??
Even if claws (and to me they refer simply to a tougher stance or tactics) refer to cat claws, both male and female cats claw with equal prediledtion to doing so.
With all respect to everyone, I don’t think you’re going to see either Obama or Clinton make references that can give them anything close to a “Makaka” moment. I think the recent situation that caused Senator Clinton/others to ask President Clinton to temper his remarks a bit has put enough attention on the gender/race situation to prevent this from happening.
While gender and racial references should never be used, the way I saw that comment that I happened to see replayed last night wasn’t gender based. I think Obama is focused on fighting Clinton and winning, and it never occurs to him or his wife to try to do so in anyway that reflects negatively on a woman as a candidate for President any more than Obama or his wife would want to reflect negatively on a woman attending Harvard law school or any other school for that matter.
I’m far more worried, and interested in the situation that is shaping up with the Super Delegates versus the delegates we’re voting for in this election, and the situation with how Michigan and Florida are going to play out with the potential for a revote in those states now if their delegates are to be allowed to count.
I expect to see and hear a number of very interesting posts and comments on this in the weeks to come at FDL and EW as well and look forward to them.
Did you ever hear anyone refer to a man as a “Cat”
Actually, in the old days the AA community, or at least the jazz community used Cat to refer to a man. Granted it’s dated or has fallen out of favor, but never say never.
I don’t think the claws remark was sexist. It’s like saying someone has balls- balls being gender specific, but not sexist. Count me as another one who thinks this micro-parsing is too silly.
“You challenge the status quo and suddenly the Saturday night specials come out.”
You’re comparing a common phrase with an intentional dig. Not a good comparasion, sorry.
They may not declare it an actual racist remark, but considering the current state of our prison systems, I could see them declaring a stereotype foul.
This is the most thoughtful, intelligent comment in this long line of posts! Wreck, thank you.
It’s inherently sexist to speak of ”claws” about a female opponent. He would never have used it against a man, and knows all about the baggage that kind of ”catty” stuff carries, and he knows that most of the media already paints her that way to begin with.