Wednesday, January 16th, 2008...12:15 am
About that Bob Herbert Column…
With Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s win in New Hampshire, gender issues are suddenly in the news. Where has everybody been?If there was ever a story that deserved more coverage by the news media, it’s the dark persistence of misogyny in America. Sexism in its myriad destructive forms permeates nearly every aspect of American life. For many men, it’s the true national pastime, much bigger than baseball or football.
Little attention is being paid to the toll that misogyny takes on society in general, and women and girls in particular.
Good, Bob Herbert!
In its grimmest aspects, misogyny manifests itself in hideous violence — from brutal beatings and rape to outright torture and murder. Fifteen months ago, a gunman invaded an Amish schoolhouse in rural Pennsylvania, separated the girls from the boys, and then shot 10 of the girls, killing five.
The cable news channels revel in stories about women (almost always young and attractive) who come to a gruesome end at the hands of violent men. The stories seldom, if ever, raise the issue of misogyny, which permeates not just the crimes themselves, but the coverage as well.
Right….
It just so happens that the Democratic presidential candidates are campaigning this week in the misogyny capital of America: Nevada. It’s a perfect place to bring up the way women are viewed and treated in this society, but don’t hold your breath. Presidential wannabes are hardly in the habit of insulting the locals.
Prostitution is legal in much of Nevada and heavily promoted even where it’s not. In Las Vegas, where prostitution is illegal but flourishes nevertheless, Mayor Oscar Goodman has said that creating a series of legal, “magnificent” brothels would be a great development tool for his city.
The fundamental problem in all of this is that women and girls are dehumanized, opening the floodgates to every kind of mistreatment.
“Once you dehumanize somebody, everything else is possible,” said Taina Bien-Aimé, executive director of the women’s advocacy group Equality Now.
A grotesque exercise in the dehumanization of women is carried out routinely at Sheri’s Ranch, a legal brothel about an hour’s ride outside of Vegas.
Oh boy. Look, I’m not one of those people who thinks that the conversation stops once a choice has been made. When the expression of different preferences leads to problematic outcomes (a dearth of women in the sciences, a high male drop out rate), we should be asking uncomfortable questions about the way those preferences are shaped. But if you’re serious about changing the status of women, you might just mention the distinction between choosing to work in a legal brothel and being mowed down by an Anti-Amish psychopath. I realize that Bob Herbert thinks both of these items go in the Misogyny Box, but in discussing the mistreatment of women, it often helps to consider the outlandish possibility that they may in fact be rational agents. If women are being dehumanized in Nevada brothels (and I would argue that they are not), at least allow them to share in the moral culpability by arguing that they are dehumanizing themselves. The switch to the passive voice is reprehensible. (Dehumanizing!)
4 Comments
January 16th, 2008 at 4:00 am
no, YOU’RE a symbol with some serious problems!
January 16th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I suspect that Clinton’s problems, if they really surface in any existential way at all, with sexism, misogyny, etc. would have more to do with the confluence of her gender and her politics. I would consciously have no problem electing a woman per se, that is if she were Christine Todd Whitman for instance. Where I imagine the problem arises with most men of the conservative, libertarian, and even centrist persuasion is in Mrs. Clinton’s ideological zeal for nanny statism and overall government control as it relates to her identity as a female, and thus to her relationship to a male public. While she would be criticized simply for her liberal ideals in a relatively analytical discourse were she a man, a more visceral reaction results due to the deep subconscious associations of female emasculation. A politician who wants to run one’s life and take his individual rights is taking his liberty. A female politician who seeks to do the same is taking much more symbolically … his manhood.
January 21st, 2008 at 3:48 pm
The “dehumanization” and “objectification” myths are the great lie of feminism and, in their own way, as misogynist as it gets. To imply that working women (prostitutes, porn stars and so on) are victims is to imply that they have no brain, no freedom of choice and no ability to quit. Bob Herbert just carries that lie over to the campaign.
Hillary’s emotions are no different than John Edwards’ endless semi-tearful tales of his youth. And talk about objectifying, yelling, “My wife has breast cancer,” in front of a campaign sign DOES reduce her to an object or a symbol.
Hillary (and I am no fan of her in any way) has been criticized for her attire, emotions, singing voice (all women are supposed to sound like song birds) tough talk (women are not supposed to be tough) and more. All of which are based on the singularly misogynistic view of the primarily male media establishment. Note that that leading light of liberalism, Tim Russert, was among the first to go after the “emotional moment,” followed by Olbermann and Colmes.
The hard truth that these men have to swallow is that she is running as an equal, not as the “little lady from New York,” and get past their own fear of women and dislike of empowered women.
If they fear so much for their “manhood,” then they ought to learn to keep it put away.
January 21st, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Keeva,
By the by, I haven’t seen the commentaries in question, but I’d be willing to wager that a sanctimonious shill like Olbermann would hedge his bets sooner than toss Hillary under the bus in regards to MSNBC/CNN’s marching orders as to who’s been anointed successor of the Democratic Machine. And it looks like Hillary’s the one.
Also, I was referring to manhood more in a Jungian sense rather than the “brandishing his johnson in his hand” sense. “Manhood” as such, that is to say masculinity just as femininity, in all its complexity, cannot be simply “put away”. Gender, as I’m sure you know, is a very deep part of our personalities, perhaps one of the earliest that develops. Strike at that, and you’ve not just hit a nerve, you’ve hit THE nerve.
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