Friday, September 12, 2008

Political Ranting

It’s rare that I comment about political matters on my blog, for a number of reasons that are best discussed over a cup of coffee and a long, long weekend. But I couldn’t help myself today. Even though my internet connection is too slow to download the campaign smut, I mean, ads that are coming out of the US, I can get commentary and the text with a quick Google search. And so, while doing a little research this afternoon, I came across this offensive little gem.

"On a campaign conference call last night, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) lumped together Obama's reference to a female reporter as ‘sweetie’ last May, his decision not to choose Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) or Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as his running mate, and his use of the saying ‘lipstick on a pig’ in comments Tuesday to denounce what they call a pattern of sexism."”

Contrary to some people's belief, not choosing a woman as your running mate isn’t sexist. Choosing a woman as your running mate doesn't make you NOT sexist. (But I am sooooooo not going there!) How does one show prejudice in the gender realm of vice-presidental politics? By not contemplating a woman as your running mate. Since the general public wasn't privy to the lists of potential candidates, I'm guessing neither was Ms. Blackburn. Hard to say, then, what the Obama contemplated or not.

The logic used in this comment is nothing more than intimidation: if you don’t choose person X, then you are (pick your poison: racist, sexist, homophobic, heterophobic, etc…). The real sexism is in the statement made by Ms. Blackburn. Obama needed to choose a woman to prove that he wasn’t sexist? That’s like having a token black friend. It proves nothing, other than that one is willing to use others to look good. And that, my friends, is worse than simply sexist.

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