Whomever you plan to vote (or have voted) for, I hope you are writing the media about the way they insist on picking apart every detail of Hillary Clinton's appearance--her attire, her hair, her laugh, her emotion, her smile, . . . . They obsess over Obama, too, but they do so in a "wow, he's a rock star" way. They talk about his charisma, his presence, his supporters. No mention of his suits, his hair, his laughter. The media seems to have fallen in love with Obama, and they respond to Clinton in a very different way.
As Jane Hamsher notes in a must read post at Firedog Lake, "They obsess over her in irrational and completely contradictory ways and just seem to find it unseemly that a middle aged woman won't quietly remove herself from the national stage and stop making a bunch of men under 35 uncomfortable with her very presence." She goes on to cite a NYTimes opinion piece by Stanly Fish about Hillary-Clinton-haters, and while I'm no fan of Fish, it is an excellent account of the pathological Hillary Hating phenomenon.
Here's what's painfully clear: Bigotry and hate is alive and well in America, and hatred of women permeates our culture. Misogyny, like racism, runs very deep in our culture; one difference, however, is that is no longer acceptable to be openly racist in the mainstream. And that's as it should be. We should never condone racism. What troubles me here is how much openly sexist commentary fills the airwaves, and how little attention it's getting.
Where's the outrage? Media Matters' campaign to call attention to Chris Matthew's overt sexism prompted an apology, of sorts, from Matthews, but the problem continues and is more widespread. So write the networks, the talking heads, and the Ceos and tell them openly sexist commentary is not acceptable.
Contact various ABC news programs here or send a letter to:
ABCNews
7 WEST 66th Street
New York, NY 10023
Contact CBS news programs--Evening News here or send a letter to:
CBS Evening News
524 West 57th St.
New York, NY 10019
Contact CNN here or send a letter to:
Wolf Blitzer--wolf@cnn.com
Jack Cafferty--caffertyfile@CNN.com
Contact Fox News here
yourcomments@foxnews.com
Contact NBC and MSNBC here or write to:
MSNBC
letters@msnbc.com
MSNBC TV
One MSNBC Plaza
Secaucus, N.J. 07094
Chris Matthews
hardball@msnbc.com
Tucker Carlson call him @ Call 1-877-TCARLSON or email him @ tucker@msnbc.com
Can't locate anything but forms for email Joe Scarborough and Dan Abrams.
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