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writing for godot

Michele Bachmann and Sexism: Why We Have to Take a Stand

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Written by LHolland   
Tuesday, 29 November 2011 18:21
As women, how many times have we been upstaged while some prankster, thinking he was hilarious, made a sexual joke about us behind our backs? We know what it meant: We were not to be taken seriously. Any respect we had garnered at that point was quickly washed away in the torrent of snickers and howls that followed.

So whatever we may feel about Michele Bachmann’s views, we should all know what playing “Lyin’ Ass Bitch” while she was on Jimmy Fallon’s show was all about.
Since then Ms. Bachmann has denounced this sly decision by the band’s drummer as “sexism” and was right to do so. If the drummer had only meant to mock her views, he could easily have made a sex-neutral choice. As Joy Behar quipped, maybe “Don’t Know Much About History.” Instead he chose a song whose denigrating message was specific to women.

While citing sexism, however, Bachmann seriously misunderstands it. Instead of taking the opportunity to speak for women generally, she whines that only conservative women come in for this kind of treatment. Invoking the First Lady, she complains:

"If that had been Michelle Obama who had come out on the stage, and if that song had been played for Michelle Obama, I have no doubt that NBC would have apologized to her and likely they could have fired the drummer, at least suspended him.…"

Was Bachmann not around when Glenn Beck referred to then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as a “stereotypical bitch”? Does she recall his guffawing that, “every man in America would go insane” if Clinton were to become president?” And speaking of the First Lady, did Bachmann voice her opposition about the Fox News stereotyping of Michelle Obama as an “angry black woman” during the last campaign for president? Or more recently when Rush Limbaugh referred to her as “uppity”, a reference in the past to women as well as African Americans who had "forgotten their place"?

Bachmann also misses the boat in her attack on the “Hollywood entertainment elite” as the source of such pranks. Sexism is hardly limited to any one sector of society. Business, education, religion, sports, radio, film, and family reunions all host their share of sexist commentary and ridicule.

Unfortunately, many liberal women are no better than Bachmann. While there were a few notable exceptions, too few liberal women spoke up when mainstream news sources referred to Sarah Palin as an “indisputably fertile” politician, a “dominatrix” and worse, as her vice presidential campaign began.

While we may differ sharply on other matters, women must respond to sexism with a unified voice. If we defend only those women we agree with, we will rightly lose credibility. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once argued, it is “not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate” that needs protection. Likewise, the test of feminist principles is our willingness to stand up for the women we most disagree with, when it comes to sexism.
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