One of the many blatant hypocrisies that has stood out for me during this election is the fact that Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin supporters, who are so quick to cry sexism, remain silent when seemingly sexist connotations are assigned to Michelle Obama.
Most recently, Bill O’Reilly stated, “Now, I have a lot of people who call me on the radio and say she looks angry. And I have to say there’s some validity to that. She looks like an angry woman.” I wouldn’t be surprised that if such a description was attributed to Clinton or Palin, supporters would assert that there’s a double standard that women who are smart, serious and professional are considered “angry.” Not to mention that such a statement seems completely untrue. At most appearances, Michelle is either smiling or serious – and certainly does not come off as an “angry woman.” What’s more, the Fox News’ characterization of Michelle Obama as “Obama Baby Mama” in June was also met with radio silence from the feminist community. But why?
Could it be that the intersection of race and gender just gets too hairy and so the battle is best left alone? The “Obama Baby Mama” comment is soaked in both sexist and racist connotations and perhaps many supporters of Clinton and Palin would rather avoid a subject where racism plays a role. It is clear that some republicans are trying to associate Michelle with pejorative images that are specific to African-American females. They would like to perpetuate the image of the “angry black woman” to instill hatred and fear in small-minded people – much like Ronald Reagan tried to do with the image of the “welfare queen” during his presidential campaign.
Or are we dealing with that aged-old taboo question from the Suffragist Movement that Women’s Rights has always been an exclusively white middle class woman phenomenon and black women are rarely invited to the dinner table? Such a question reemerged during the primary election, when Geraldine Ferraro asserted that; “Gender is the most restricting force in American life.” It is a zero-sum game to try to quantify sexism, racism or any other “ism” for that matter, but many women of color shuttered when they heard this comment. It brought back the fears that women of color and black women in particular have always been on the sidelines when it comes to fighting for equal rights for women and that they are virtually ignored when sexist comments are hurled their way.
A lot of things catch my attention these days of general elections. It is an interesting time for the United States and for its image throughout the world. As there are two very different candidates for the most important office in the country, the first black man running to be the commander in chief and a woman for VP, one thought keeps coming back into my mind all the time. How do we really vote?
In conversations I hear people saying that it would be inadmissible for a black person not to vote for senator Barack Obama. Is that for real?
So, because the Republican Party has a woman on their ticket, does that mean we woman, no matter from each party, should vote for her party because she is also a woman?
How do we really vote? What is important to us as citizens? Women have always played an important role in politics, even if sometimes we were not aware of it. Women are the strength of every single society every where in the globe. There are more women in the work force than ever. Woman are making more money and are the heads of their families and are supporting many, many men.
What are we going to do in this coming up elections? How are we going to vote? Does color of skin and gender matter? Is that what defines a human being? Does it tell about a person character? Does it tell if they are best qualified to be the next President? What do you think?
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I think Michelle Obama did a nice job with her speech. Especially, since she is not a politician, and she was following Senator Ted Kennedy. Here is a video of Michelle Obama’s full speech…
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If you ask me…This satellite cameo of Obama with the kids, is priceless. What do you think?
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So, now you’ve seen it for yourself. Here is some reaction by other bloggers…
From Women’s Voices for Change…
History met hope tonight, to borrow words from Michelle Obama’s stunning address in which she posited herself as American everywoman, a hardworking wife whose most important and cherished role is to be as good a parent to her daughters as her parents were to her. With her mother in the audience and her two young daughters beside her, she gesticulated with hands and arms as she spoke to suggest that while she is Princeton and Harvard, she possesses a common touch. To those who thought that she was somehow too exotic, too removed, and somehow threatening, to appeal to ordinary Americans, she dispelled qualms never mentioning race, and celebrating the achievement of Hillary Clinton this week when America celebrates the 88th anniversary of American women gaining the franchise.
I think most of us can agree that Michelle Obama gave a fabulous speech tonight. She managed to hail Hillary Clinton and talk about all women in a way that was celebratory. However, what I’m most interested in are the reactions from the Right of Center bloggers included in the National Journal Bloggers Poll with me. We were polled yesterday on whether we felt Michelle Obama would hurt or help Barack Obama’s campaign. Well, first of all, its really kind of a ridiculous question, but it does show us clearly how low our public discourse on this election has gone.
I thought it was awesome. I was incredibly impressed. She’s grown a lot on the campaign trail. Tonight’s from Michelle Obama speech was honest, from the heart and very moving.
The Obama Campaign thinks they have John McCain hog-tied, hung, deleted, and on the ropes over the latest John McCain being John McCain. The man is so absurdly honest the press still doesn’t know how to handle him, even after 8 years. He doesn’t care what he says.
There’s more here than just the usual campaign rantings of desperation. It reeks of class(less) warfare. There’s also something of a double standard here. There was nothing wrong for John Kerry to have a rich wife. Evidently only Democrats are allowed to have rich wives. Perhaps Barack Obama’s real problem, what angers him the most is that John McCain had the good sense to marry a very rich woman.
The double standard analogy doesn’t stop there. In many ways we are insulting a few men who really don’t need to be insulted. The male ego is fragile enough, without having rich wives thrown in their faces. How many men who marry very rich women actually stay married to them? At least they are now allowed to admit they’re married to a rich woman. Up until recent history, often that male ego demanded a woman “live on his income”. Fortunately that went out with women’s lib.
It’s tit-for-tat and payback’s a b_t_ h. John McCain was owed one good zing on behalf of John Kerry and his very rich wife. Now- we’re even, right?
Two weeks ago, we at Citizen Jane Politics blogged about an affair involving Emily’s List, the “Washington Times” and an article about a girlie show. Even though the matter has been settled for now, we couldn’t help passing it on for posterity…
We were alerted recently that Emily’s List, the group established to elect pro-choice Democratic women to public office, launched a petition to “demand fair, credible coverage” of women in “The Washington Times.”
What gives? You ask. Well….In an article about an event featuring Michelle Obama and the governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm, a Washington Times writer described it this way:
“The tone of the event was as much estrogenfest as it was campaign rally, as Michelle Obama hit the stump in Michigan Wednesday as part of two-day Midwest swing and a revamped strategy designed to soften her image and attract more female voters, a bloc much needed for her husband to win the White House.
“Even Michigan Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm got in on the girlie show as they campaigned together in struggling Pontiac, Mich. Yes,
OK. What do we think about this? I can tell you one thing. It hurts to look at it, even though I guess I understand what the artist, Barry Blitt, says he was trying to do. Rachel Sklar’s Huffington Post interview with the magazine’s gifted editor David Remnick explains further.
Obviously I wouldn’t have run a cover just to get attention — I ran the cover because I thought it had something to say. What I think it does is hold up a mirror to the prejudice and dark imaginings about Barack Obama’s — both Obamas’ — past, and their politics. I can’t speak for anyone else’s interpretations, all I can say is that it combines a number of images that have been propagated, not by everyone on the right but by some, about Obama’s supposed “lack of patriotism” or his being “soft on terrorism” or the idiotic notion that somehow Michelle Obama is the second coming of the Weathermen or most violent Black Panthers. That somehow all this is going to come to the Oval Office.
The free speech and marketplace of ideas concepts that I’ve treasured all my life clash with my reaction to all of this; I know that. The Constitutional protection of freedom of speech exists to guarantee the right both to speak and to hear not only popular, but also unpopular ideas. We don’t need to protect the popular ones; it’s the ideas that enrage people that need the protection. And I’m all for that.
But for a responsible and respected publication like The New Yorker to abuse that freedom by offering such blatant stereotypes to make its point, particularly when the subjects are the first African American Presidential (Columbia and Harvard-educated) candidate and his (Princeton and Harvard-educated) wife, an accomplished attorney — each of whose life trajectory suggests two stars who did everything expected of them to grow into exciting, productive citizens — seems to me abusive and dangerous. In an effort to make a point about the hate that’s being distributed concerning these two, they’re feeding it.
It will be interesting to see how many right wing websites and publications make use of this image. There’s been plenty of reaction so far and most of it is far more sophisticated than I could dream of being. I’m having too much trouble with my emotional, gut sense of right and wrong to be very thoughtful; this just feels wrong - perhaps even more so because of who printed it. I’ve been a New Yorker groupie since I was a high school kid in Pittsburgh wishing I was in Greenwich Village living the life of Susie Rotolo. Like this - walking through the Village with Bob Dylan.
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So it’s particularly disturbing to me that something so terribly offensive was pubished by this beloved icon.
The stereotypes don’t fit the Obamas, obviously. That’s what the New Yorker is trying to demonstrate by feeding these stereotypes out there in such a naked way. But even if they did, how many of us who ever cared about anything is willing to stand by every position we adopted in our younger days?
Congressman Bobby Rush was a Black Panther. Now he’s chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection, serves on the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet and is a co-chairman of the Congressional Biotech Caucus. Isn’t that what we want? Growth.Even if the Obama’s were flamers back then (and I don’t think they were, by a long shot), isn’t the American way for young activists to rebel, maybe the wrong way, early in their lives then “grow up” to ultimately help to make change from inside? Justice Hugo Black, one of the great justices of the 20th century, started out as a member of the Ku Klux Klan - then went on to be a staunch defender of civil liberties for all. If we deny our future leaders the capacity to grow and question while they’re young, we will end up with leaders who may be what we deserve, but not who we need, by a long shot.I guess what I’m saying is that this effort to force Americans to confront political trash talk by offering up a visual representation of it all is, to me, a terrible mistake. An image that casts a shadow over the remarkable symbolic gift of this landmark candidacy - an image that lingers like a scar. [cross-posted at The Care2 Election Blog] Also See: McCain, Obama campaigns agree: New Yorker cover is not satire.
This is from a post by Lisa Witter for The Huffington Post…
I’ve got whiplash. That’s how quickly the national discussion of women’s leadership has changed from one of the merits of an accomplished senator turned potential first female president to the clothes of the potential first ladies.
Media coverage everywhere is “Michelle vs. Cindy.” Where do they buy their dresses? Do they make bacon for breakfast? And, of course, which one can we compare to Jackie O?
Is anyone else as appalled as I am at how quickly we have gone back to thinking of women in the oldest of stereotypes - as only wives and mothers?
I’m a wife. I’m a mother. I love my family. But I’m other things, too. We all know that the presidents’ wives play an important role in policy and diplomacy in one way or another.
What I think: Although this is said to be a rumor (Michelle Vetoes Hillary as a possible VP), it wasn’t surprising to me at all. But it is very troubling, especially if it’s true. Having a strong woman as a First Lady is a good thing, and getting her input on possible running mates is acceptable. But, Michelle Obama putting her foot down on Hillary as a possible VP, is unacceptable…It’s just not her place to make that decision. Months ago, I heard Michelle Obama make comments that if her husband was not elected this time around, America would not get another chance at him. I didn’t like the tone or the implication then, and I feel the same way now.
For all the complaints from some progressives about having Bill Clinton back in the White House as the First Spouse, I find this little tidbit interesting:
Close-in supporters of Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign are convinced he never will offer the vice presidential nomination to Sen. Hillary Clinton for one overriding reason: Michelle Obama.
The Democratic front-runner’s wife did not comment on other rival candidates for the party’s nomination, but she has been sniping at Clinton since last summer. According to Obama sources, those public utterances do not reveal the extent of her hostility.
Sure it’s just a rumor, but plausible it seems. Michelle Obama strikes me as a strong willed woman, not unlike myself and Hillary Clinton who will fight to get what she wants. That’s fine and dandy… but not when it comes to choosing our next Vice President. It’s just that she’s a little jaded you know… and that’s not a good reason to not choose Clinton as VP. Personally, I see Hillary more prone offering the VP slot to Obama than the other way around. And the buzz from the Obama camp, rumor or not, sure seems to be heading that way — no VP slot for HRC.
If there is any credence to the rumor, it sure would make it even more apparent that Barack Obama is not interested in Unity.
Michelle Obama Has Spoken — I have a bet with a coworker who believes the combined ticket will occur while I believe there is no way in hell that they will run together. It would take credibility away from both of them to combine (though most politicians rarely worry about credibility). He portrays her as part of the politics as usual crowd of DC and she says he cannot garner the white vote and has not been properly vetted. These are valid arguments and show how the ugliness of the protracted campaign further hamstrings the Democratic party and its choices.
I believe there is one factor here than trumps all others and that is the Michelle Obama factor. She does not like Hillary and she also knows that Hillary as VP brings the baggage of Bill who will hover. They would make Obama an outsider in his administration. Not to mention the fact that Mrs. Obama does not like Hillary Clinton and is not happy with the tactics employed by the Clinton campaign.
What do you think? Is Michelle Obama having too much influence on Barack?
Answering the question, Where are all the women political bloggers? Well, if you are here, you have found them. We are dedicated to giving women bloggers a voice, starting with our list of over 500 women political bloggers. And now, in addition to guest bloggers, and our growing community, we will also feature regular contributing editors.
One of the many blatant hypocrisies that has stood out for me during this election is the fact that Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin supporters, who are so quick to cry sexism, remain silent when seemingly sexist connotations are assigned to Michelle Obama.
Two weeks ago, we at 
