I always suspected that the reason most Dem men are so passionate about Bernie is that he’s not a woman. Every time I try to ask such men why they choose Bernie over Hillary, they have nothing to respond other than some vague sounds about insiders, outsiders, Washington elites, etc.
The worst kind of sexism is that of people who are convinced they could never be sexist.
The worst kind of sexism is that of people who are convinced they could never be sexist.
Women as well?
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Of course, there are quite a few women who despise other women and themselves.
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Yes. I agree with your points. It’s why I sadly think Clinton can’t win. I think we will have a woman president one day. But it won’t be someone like Clinton. It will be someone motherly or more traditionally feminine. Clinton has enraged American men since she was First Lady. It’s depressing.
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Fictional female US presidents
Sexism definitely plays a huge role, but it’s hard for me to separate out sexism from general objections to Hillary in particular. It’s difficult to know how many men just aren’t voting for her because she’s a woman.
Rhetoric about insiders/outsiders/purity/oldness/youngness doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in a race full of insiders and old people. Anybody talking about how they’re going to reform Washington and make it work again sounds like they’re reciting fairy tales for children. Bernie Sanders is a long running senator from a tiny state who happens to be very old and caucuses with the Democrats despite being a socialist because he’s not an idiot.
I feel cynical.
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It’s difficult to know how many men just aren’t voting for her because she’s a woman.
Many, I am convinced. My husband, for instance, is passionately for Bernie and hates Hillary. While he’s very supportive of me and more of a feminist than most men, I know from talking with him that there is definitely an underlying disbelief that a woman can be an effective president. Also, being that it’s Hillary, her “unlikability” is a big issue; we can try to dissect why she is unlikable (not pretty, not motherly, whatever) but it boils down to her being where people think she does not belong (high-stakes politics) because that’s a men’s arena, and people wanting her to just go away. (People dislike Fiorina in a similar way, although given her disastrous record at HP, I wouldn’t let her pet sit for me, let alone be my president. Then again, the whole GOP slate would be hilarious if it weren’t fuckin’ scary.)
Sanders has been a complete unknown until recently. He’s quite old and a socialist, both serious electability issues (he’s also not a very charismatic speaker, but that’s neither here nor there). Yet, people have flocked to him with such fervor, so quickly and so passionately, as if they are simply relieved they have someone — anyone — other than Hillary to vote for.
I am a woman and I have asked myself a few times whether I really like Sanders or if, deep down, I just cannot accept Hillary as a real candidate. I like what Bernie is saying, but honestly wonder if I really like it or if I just need to like someone better than Hillary…
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Hillary voted for the war in Iraq. This is one of many differences. However, this alone is sufficient without appeal to any other differences.
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If Sanders does not win the nomination, I shall vote for Jill Stein, assuming the Green Party nominates her, as I expect.
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That was how many years ago? Twelve? 🙂
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I don’t subscribe to the idea that people don’t evolve, especially in the realm of their professional achievements. If I were to be judged today on my professionalism of 12 years ago, that would be very unfortunate. And very unfair.
Twelve years ago, Hillary was a beginner politician. It’s inevitable that a rookie would mess things up.
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She is and always has been more hawkish and more conservative than the candidates I am more interested in. The yes vote on Iraq was not a “mistake” that should have been made.
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And in the name of condemning her for that vote 12 years ago, let’s hand over the White House to Bush #3. That will teach her a lesson!
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Hillary voted for the war in Iraq. This is one of many differences. However, this alone is sufficient without appeal to any other differences.
That was how many years ago? Twelve?
Another great difference between Clinton and Sanders is that he is opposed to private prisons, whereas she supports them. Private prisons have been suing at least one state for not sentencing enough people to long enough prison terms and thereby hurting their profits.
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“Another great difference between Clinton and Sanders is that he is opposed to private prisons, whereas she supports them.”
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Here is Hillary’s speech against mass incarceration: https://www.hillaryclinton.com/feed/its-time-end-era-mass-incarceration/
I don’t see anything objectionable in it.
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I like Sanders better than Clinton because of policy. As much as I like President Obama, it makes me sick to see him giving Jamie Dimon a hug for whipping the Senate to pass cromnibus. I want Jamie Dimon strung up, or in prison if I can’t have that. And if I can’t have that, how about we reinstate Glass-Stegall, and revoke Taft-Hartley while we’re at it. Let’s get some real leftists who are actually hostile to the financial elites. Sanders might be one. Clinton, is not. And I will gladly vote for her in the general election if she’s the nominee.
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“I want Jamie Dimon strung up”
“Let’s get some real leftists who are actually hostile to the financial elites. Sanders might be one. Clinton, is not.”
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I like Sanders’s policies better than Clinton’s also. I just don’t think a 73 year old man who calls himself a socialist is going to win the presidency. And people who are going gaga for Sanders or threatening to vote third party because Clinton isn’t liberal enough are risking a Republican presidency. And no matter what one thinks of Clinton, I hope we can all agree that she represents a world of difference from the likes of Cruz, Walker, and J. Bush. It’s like the Gore/Ralph Nader problem all over again. But this time it’s inflected with a nasty bit of latent sexism.
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“It’s like the Gore/Ralph Nader problem all over again. ”
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“…an election that is ours to lose.”
Not necessarily. Independent voters and not party loyalists ultimately determine the outcome of American elections, and independent voters tend to be uncomfortable with the idea of one party holding the white house longer than two terms.
That’s only happened twice since the end of World War II — in 1948 (Truman following Roosevelt) and 1988 (George H. W. Bush following Reagan).
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There’s still one huge problem, though: the Republicans don’t have a candidate. The voters only support Trump because everybody else is so uninspiring. Where is the candidate? ??
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Well, I STILL think it’s ultimately going to be Bush, since the Republicans can’t be suicidal enough to actually nominate Trump (I don’t think!), and Bush is the one acceptable candidate who has enough $$$$$$ to flood the primary states with enough political ads to reach everybody. We’ll see…
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I just don’t think a 73 year old man who calls himself a socialist is going to win the presidency.
Exactly the same as was the “common wisdom” eight years ago about a black man not being able to win the presidency. I did not believe it then and I do not believe it now.
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Well, I personally would LOVE to see the Democrats make Sanders their nominee 🙂
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I am predicting a Sanders vs. Trump General Election.
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GAD!!! You certainly have a sick sense of humor.
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If it comes down to Trump vs. Sanders, I’m going to call NASA and ask them if I’m too old to go back on active duty and volunteer for that planned one-way mission to Mars.
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I’m so coming with you. And I’m not even half-joking.
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I think the bigger example of sexism re: Clinton is the support (such as it is) for Biden to jump into the ring. Sanders real policy positions that set him apart from Clinton and a lot of the other centrist Dems. Biden’s only appeal is “It’s like voting for Hillary, except you won’t have to accept a woman as president.”
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“It’s like voting for Hillary, except you won’t have to accept a woman as president.”
DING-DING-DING! We have a winner!
This sums it up nicely. I wish I weren’t this cynical, but I think Hilary lost to Obama largely because people would rather have a black man than a woman as president. She may lose the nomination to the questionably electable Sanders because, honestly, I think there are enough people out there who fancy themselves enlightened but would rather take another Bush than a woman president.
I hope I am wrong, but in my experience sexism is alive and well and twisting the gonads of many to the point of having them vote against their own interests.
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Yes, I’m very much afraid that we’ll face a lost election because too many people just can’t get over their sexism. I find this beyond sad and shocking.
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A lot of people can’t get over the fact that she’s Hillary CLINTON, with over 20 years of baggage, and a terrible campaigner, and a public manner as phony as a three-dollar bill. The only thing I agree with her on is foreign policy (the way I think she’d do it as president, not as a secretary of state chained to Obama). But if we have to have a Democratic president in 2016, I certainly hope she’s the one. If the Republicans run a maniac, I won’t vote against Hillary.
Some of the strongest national leaders in recent history (since World War II) have been women: Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, to name a few, in countries at least a sexist as the U.S. I just don’t see Hillary’s gender as a major impediment to whether or not she’s elected.
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I also don’t see her gender as an impediment, and know lots of men who are for Hillary. Foreign policy is one of the areas in which I agree with her the least, and I find the Clintons shady, but I will vote for her in the general election if she is the nominee because she is still so much better than the Republican candidates. I will vote for someone leftier than her in the primary, if there still is anyone leftier in the race by then.
I am predicting a Clinton vs Bush election. I don’t like the Sanders vs Trump scenario at all because I am afraid Trump would win unless the Sanders campaign is more brilliant than I expect it can be.
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I agree it will be Clinton vs Bush. And it will be a crying shame to lose to this vapid, sleepy, mumbly fellow.
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I don’t understand how people can look at the graph Clarissa provided and declare that gender has little to do with Clinton’s declining popularity. What else can explain the clear difference in her appeal between female and male voters? Are men somehow more liberal than women? (Voting patterns prove otherwise). More interested in “outsiders” than women? (Patently ridiculous.) What can explain the the divide between male and female opinions of H. Clinton? What are other options besides sexism that can explain this sharp divide?
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When I look at that graph, it occurs to me that there may be more women voting for Hillary because she’s a woman than men voting against her because of that fact.
As for me, I’d gladly vote for a Carly Fiorino/Nikki Haley ticket (not that an all-woman or all-black ticket is going to happen in either party before my grandchildren, if I had any, are pushing up daisies).
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Look at the graph, though. Minus 25 is obviously much larger than plus 5.
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Well, a size 5 in an American woman’s dress (based on who knows what?) is much bigger than a size 25 in an American man’s pants (which is sensibly measured in inches). So it all depends on how you interpret the graph. 🙂
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My husband said something like that — women vote for Hillary because she is a woman, while men… I filled in for what he was going to say, which is along the lines that men presumably vote because they follow real issues, I am guessing unlike them girls with their girly brains.
Stating that women vote for Hillary because she’s a woman (like there are no actual reasons to vote for her and like the default is of course to vote for a dude) is really quite a sexist statement, in one sweep telling women they don’t understand politics and vote based purely on genital similarity, and saying Hillary is not a real candidate that any thinking individual would endorse.
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Well, a number of female journalists (Joan Walsh at “Salon.con” and Michelle Goldberg at “The Nation,” among others) ARE publicly saying people should vote for Hillary specifically because she’s a woman. Yes, that’s the reason they give — to make this a”historic” election. Walsh has even stated directly that it would be sexist of Biden to run against her for that reason.
Are you going to accuse Walsh and Goldberg of being a couple of “them girls with girly brains”?
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Extrapolating the statements of two people onto millions (the absolute majority of whom don’t even know these two persons’ names) is a fallacy.
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Are you going to accuse Walsh and Goldberg of being a couple of “them girls with girly brains”
Haha! Please. Let’s not overestimate Walsh’s and Goldberg’s reach. When people say “Women vote for Hillary because she’s a woman” they don’t mean “Women vote for Hillary because she’s a woman, and they do so because they all listen to Walsh and Goldberg and all in unison want to make it a historic election.” No, they rather assume women don’t understand or follow politics and vote solely because she’s a woman, knowing nothing about what Hillary stands for. Women’s supposed inability to follow politics or think about issues was aptly satiricized in a Samantha Bee’s Daily Show skit “Condescent of a Woman”
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/lu6a0w/condescent-of-a-woman
or the bit on McCain choosing a running mate http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/1dsyhc/john-mccain-chooses-a-running-mate (Samantha Bee’s part starts at 3:00 mark).
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My husband said something like that — women vote for Hillary because she is a woman, while men… I filled in for what he was going to say, which is along the lines that men presumably vote because they follow real issues, I am guessing unlike them girls with their girly brains.
There’s this persistent notion that men, especially white men do not engage in identity politics but everyone else does. If some percentage of likely voters would not vote for a specific female candidate because she’s female, then it follows that if a specific candidate is male, some of those people will vote for that candidate because he’s male.
Romney surely got votes just because he’s a man and a specific kind of man who looks and sounds a certain way and fits into a box in people’s minds.
But we’re not talking about Republicans but people who are Democrats or Democratic leaning. Leftist men can be pretty sexist, but they’ll cloak it in terms of “oh your issues are distracting from the coalition” or “I want somebody pure and exciting” or “pragmatism”. Of the men who prefer Sanders to HRC, how many of them would vote for Warren over Sanders? Would we still see a huge gender gap? How many of the Sanders partisans would vote for Warren over HRC if Sanders wasn’t running?
I read somewhere that the number of people who wouldn’t vote for Obama because he’s not white is the equivalent of a home state advantage for his white opponents, so I don’t know if analogous advantage exists for male presidential candidates over female candidates?
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As one datapoint: I like Sanders more than Hillary precisely because he is more socialist. Besides, he was mayor of Burlington, VT, I go there frequently and I like what Bernie made of it.
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So how many Americans, do you believe, will be more excited than scared by the word socialist and will be ready to get Bernie elected in a general election? Especially when the alternative is a familar, sleepy, I offensive Jeb Bush?
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Why should I care about many Americans? I am not a US citizen. And if I was, and if it turned into Hillary vs any Republican, male or female, I’d vote for Hillary. Besides, in order to make definitive conclusions about sexism there have to be more female candidates. In particular, Democrats should have more candidates, including more female ones. (I stress – in order to make conclusions about sexism. In order for Democrats to win it is better to have united front.)
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The point I’m making is that Bernie is unelectable in the US.
As for sexism, everybody who wanted to notice it already has. And everybody who doesn’t want to notice it will keep waiting for more evidence.
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I like Sanders too and I do like the Socialist aspect of his approach to government. But again I am surprised that hardly anyone is commenting on the graph Clarissa pointed to. The gender divide is startling. What can explain it? Why are Dem men gravitating towards Sanders and turning away from Clinton in such large numbers? Do all these male voters really just prefer Sanders’s far left politics to Clinton’s? That seems unlikely given that Dem women tend to be the most liberal voters in the country.
And despite all this, most of the comments on this blog are just repeating that they like Sanders on the issues. Fine. I like Sanders on just about every issue myself. But the graph indicates something other than ” the issues” is afoot when it comes to Clinton v. Sanders. Here is another quotation from the same WaPo article that the graph came from:
“Clinton trailed Sanders overall by nine points, but among men by 24 points, 48-24. She led among women by six. In fact, in the latter poll, Sanders’s lead was bigger among men than among “very liberal” voters.”
So men who are NOT “very liberal” are turning away from Clinton towards Sanders. There is no reason for a “moderate liberal” to prefer Sanders. So again, what explains the fact that male voters prefer Sanders in large numbers?
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“But again I am surprised that hardly anyone is commenting on the graph Clarissa pointed to. The gender divide is startling.”
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Certainly sexism exists, just like racism, and always will to some extent. But despite all the racism, Obama got elected president twice against two very mainstream white men — so racism didn’t derail those elections, although I can a imagine a similar graph showing the racial divide in the voters of 2008 and 2012.
So I just don’t see sexism as being the determinative factor in the coming 2016 election (though it will surely be blamed if Hillary loses).
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And so Hillary will be elected. The problem, though, is that all these quasi-Liberal men from this graph are people I, Evelina, Shakti, and all the rest of women have to deal with on a daily basis. And that is very tiresome.
It’s not Hillary I’m worried about here. I’m worried about me. And from personal experience, I have to say, yet again, that even the best, most civilized, educated, gentle and intelligent men have to be formatted every single day if one is to make a peaceful and connected coexistence with them possible. A lot of energy is being eaten up by all that. My energy that could go into other things instead.
And after Hillary is elected, we will all pay for that, just like the black people paid with seeing a spike of racism for Obama being elected.
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It was getting hard to read on top so I’m posting down here but this is in response to Clinton’s vote on Iraq:
I don’t like Clinton’s vote on Iraq myself. To me, it’s a horrible, indefensible vote. And honestly, if Biden comes up, I will probably vote for him because–now that I have seen the polls and read the predictions– I don’t think Clinton will win the national election.
But liberal voters need to start seeing how unelectable Sanders is on a national level. This isn’t an Obama situation. The Republicans couldn’t run a a campaign against Obama’s blackness but they CAN run a campaign against Sanders “socialism.” Do you know how many times and in a horror- movie type voice the word “socialist” will be repeated in anti Sanders ads? Do not underestimate the terror that the word “socialist” will inspire in many Americans. Sanders will not win the national election. Especially if he runs against a younger, more vigorous-seeming man.
And how is any Republican better than Clinton on foreign policy? Every single Republican candidate has threatened to repeal the Iran deal–which would be disastrous. Some Republican candidates gleefully threaten war against Iran–which would be enormously catastrophic. No matter what one thinks of Clinton’s Iraq vote, she will be eons more reasonable than any of the Republican candidates.
Honestly, at this point a vote for Sanders is synonymous with a vote for a Republican. I hope people begin to see that.
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History lesson for those with short memories.
Back in the 2008 campaign a bunch of left-leaning media went out of their way to promote Obama over Clinton because of her pro-Iraq vote.
IIRC it was Matt Yglesias (who had previously been tenatively pro-invasion) wrote words tot he effect that if she had voted ‘no’ she would have been the next president. They were Very disappointed when she was appointed secretary of state.
I wasn’t crazy about the vote but it was classic realpolitik, she wasn’t a swing vote – it was going to pass anyway and she knew a no vote would definitely be held against her no matter what happened. She did the politically smart thing in a basic no-win situation.
(to be continued).
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I can’t help thinking that this obsession with that vote is fake. Maybe 8 years ago it was more genuine but today? It’s been been over a decade since that vote. Nobody is that stuck in th ed past.
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Well the point I’m sort of getting to is that the progressive love affair with Obama in 2008 was largely sexism masked as principled policy.
Oh and I hate Iowa and it’s dysfunctional caucuses.
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Exactly. On both points.
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Though to be fair, Clinton’s biggest problem is the charisma thing, it’s really hard to be enthusiastic about her (I write this is a person who wanted her to win in 2008 I thought she was the best of a weak field).
There’s always going to be buzz around any guy who seems to be a real challenge (which can easily end up unseating her).
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She’s definitely not a charismatic leader. But there are also endless attempts to castigated her for not being a stereotypical weepy woman. And those attempts don’t come from the conservative side, by the way. One egregious example was her meeting with the BLM movement where she was insistently pushed to drop the language of policy and concrete action in favor of a weepy discussion of “what was in her heart.” Hillary’s response was strong and dignified, yet she was then condemned in many liberal publications for being cold and unemotional in this discussion. And this shit keeps happening.
As is the case with immigrants, Liberals only seem to like those they can pity.
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“Liberals only seem to like those they can pity.”
Yep. That is exactly what pushed me away from a _lot- of liberal politicians and liberal policies. They seem to want to make sure that they’ll always have inferiors to be gracious to.
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As I practical matter, I don’t see a lot of difference between Bush and Clinton in foreign policy:
Clinton supported the Iraq war but now says that was a mistake; Bush says he wouldn’t have started the war knowing how it turned out. Clinton supports the Iran nuclear deal; Bush thinks it’s a bad deal, but says he won’t try to undo it. Both want a more aggressive foreign policy to counter the power vacuum in Europe and the Middle East being filled by Putin and ISIS.
The real differences are domestic, and those differences aren’t earth-shattering:
Bush is MODERATELY conservative and favors tax reform and slowing the growth of government expansion (nobody can really reverse it). Clinton is MODERATELY liberal and would follow Obama’s trend of eagerly expanding government paid for by new taxes. Both support Wall Street policies, no matter what either says. Neither would have much effect on social issues like abortion and women’s issues and gay rights, no matter what either says. (Those issues are determined at state level and/or by the courts.) The main lasting difference between a Bush or Clinton government will probably be through their Supreme Court appointments.
So I’ll vote Bush but won’t run off into the wilderness if Clinton wins.
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“If it comes down to Trump vs. Sanders, I’m going to call NASA and ask them if I’m too old to go back on active duty and volunteer for that planned one-way mission to Mars.”
Oh come on. As I have expressed above, I don’t want Sanders to be the Dem nominee but he is infinitely more qualified than Trump. He actually served as a senator and a congressmen. He isn’t some reality show blowhard. He’s an actual viable political candidate.
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The facts in your second paragraph are correct as far as they go, but a Sanders presidency would be disastrous because of his extreme socialist goals (most of which would probably never through congress) and his obvious naivety in foreign policy.
“More qualified than Trump” hardly equals “qualified.” McGovern and Kucinich were “viable political candidates,” and their presidencies would also have been disasters.
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Your second paragraph is correct as far as it goes, but a Sanders presidency would be disastrous because of his extreme socialist goals (most of which probably wouldn’t make it through congress, but we don’t need four more years of congressional gridlock), and because of Sanders’ obvious naivety on foreign policy.
“More qualified than Trump” doesn’t equal “qualified.” McGovern and Kucinich were “viable political candidates,” and their presidencies would also have been disasters.
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Sorry for the double posting. I didn’t realize that I’d accidentally posted my comment as “Anonymous” — I thought I’d clicked on something erroneously and that my first attempt at replying had simply disappeared.
Not that my point isn’t worth repeating. 🙂
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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