by BooMan

I think the topic of sexism and misogyny is
important and interesting, especially in the context of the
presidential race. But I think there is a lot of sloppy and aimless
discussion going on, too. It pays to lay out some different areas of
focus and to try to analyze the issue in a compartmentalized way. For
example, a central premise of the Clinton camp is that antipathy for
Clinton's candidacy is driven in large part by antipathy for women.
That antipathy can be of the mild sexist variety or the hard
misogynistic variety, but it's a factor. We should make a distinction
between lazy sexism and hard misogyny, and we should also make some
effort to decide whether these factors were in any way decisive factors
in the failure of her campaign.

We should also distinguish between the sexism and misogyny in the
traditional media. And we should ask how that may have influenced the
outcome. And when discussing the blogosphere, we should distinguish
between the front-pages and the diarists, and between the front-pages
and the comment sections. We should also take note of which bloggers
permitted sexist and misogynistic comments and which bloggers made
efforts to discourage or punish them.

And a last topic is whether the blogosphere was sufficiently active in
condemning examples of sexism and misogyny that came up in the
traditional media.

On this last point, I remember approving of the suspension of David
Shuster when he said that the Clintons were 'pimping out' their
daughter. But I don't really remember having much else to say about
sexism in the traditional media. My consumption of cable news is
sporadic at best, and I let Media Matters and Crooks & Liars, and
other video based bloggers do most of the work on watchdogging those
programs. I'm a more print based consumer and critic. But I probably
didn't do enough to speak up about some of sexist things people were
writing in the newspapers. Having said that, I spoke up and condemned
any sexist language I noticed on this blog. I know other bloggers made
no such efforts.

My overall view is that Hillary Clinton succeeded in convincing the
American people that she was the presumptive frontrunner, which means
that people were able to picture a woman president without much
resistance. That frontrunner status was so ingrained that I think it
actually hurt her campaign, as people rejected a coronation. Meanwhile,
the black community displayed a lot of resistance to the idea of a
black president. This was evidenced by the slowness with which they
rallied around Obama. Prior to his victory in the overwhelmingly white
state of Iowa, the polls showed Clinton running even or ahead among
blacks in South Carolina. In other words, Obama had a harder time
getting people to accept the idea of a black president than Clinton had
getting people to accept the idea of a female president.

The Clintons have consistently tried to convince people that a black
man is unelectable (whether they sincerely believe it or not), while
the Obama campaign has never to my knowledge tried to convince people
that a woman is unelectable. The Clinton campaign has used a million
and one excuses for their losses, including that certain states have
too many black people in them. The Obama did not make the converse
argument to explain why they lost any states until West Virginia.

I don't think there is any comparison between the two candidacies in
terms of who was willing to employ identity politics. The traditional
media has been more of a mixed bag. There has been plenty of overtly
sexist language and very little overtly racist language. But, at the
same time, the media saturated the airwaves for over a month with
Reverend Wright outtakes. What was that other than an effort to test
whether a black man can be elected in this country? On balance, a few
sexist comments did much less damage than an effort to vilify the black
church and crucify Obama by proxy.

I haven't seen a single example of a high profile blogger in the
left-wing blogosphere using overtly sexist language, let alone
misogynistic language. But there have been examples of racist language.
So, on the whole, I do not think the case has been proven that Clinton
suffered more for her gender than Obama suffered for his mixed race.
And I see no convincing evidence that sexism played a big part, and
certainly not a decisive part in her losses. In fact, I think her
gender is probably the main thing sustaining the high level of support
she currently has. I don't think Chris Dodd or Joe Biden would still be
getting donations and votes if they were facing the same math as
Clinton has been facing for the last three months.

Those are my thoughts on the matter. What are yours?