David - As usual, you are RIGHT ON. I said in my comment to Mark Ragan's article that this country is tremendously sexist, and it's reflected in the responses we're seeing on youtube and even on Ragan. The attitude is that a woman who cries is weak (a point fellow Dem John Edwards made - he just lost my vote) and manipulative -- using tears as some sort of ploy to ensnare and fool us. Men, by contrast, are praised as strong, even brave, when occasionally giving way to emotion in a public forum. I also said this in my comment to Mark's article, but g-d help us all in a profession that's predominantly women when it's getting harder than ever to fight against that "sneakier, more subtle, quieter, deadlier" sexism in our society. - Amy

Amy, in my experience what's even more troubling, and I purposely hinted at this in my headline, is that it's not only men who hold the "attitude" that you discuss--double standards in which men win if they cry and lose if they don't--but women too, lots of the time.

Now I will say that I think men get the raw end of some deals in society. But when it comes to attaining power, as Hillary Clinton is trying to do, it does seem to me three times as hard and agonizing and conflicting and, yes, tear-inducing for a woman as for a man.

I'm a huge Obama supporter, as I've made clear. But somebody said recently, "How far would Hillary Clinton get with two years' national political experience?"

Like, try NOWHERE .....

And this added perspective, from old Steinem herself:

">http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/opinion/08steinem.html?_r=1&em&ex=1199941200&oref=slogin>

David - the answer to your question, as you know is: "Yes, some do."

There has always been, and I believe, will always continue to be, a portion of the population who are ignorant, bigoted and discriminatory against various groups of people.

While I would agree that the ways this discrimination presents itself today is more covert than in past years, I would also suggest that the simple fact that two of the possible candidates in the current presidential race are a woman and an African American is proof that progress can be made against ignorance and hatred.

The only thing we can really do, is keep trying to educate people (particularly those of you who are parents) to hopefully reduce the number of haters in the next generation, and refuse to allow intimidation and ignorance to stop those of us in discriminated-against groups from from doing things we want to do.

Whether Hillary Clinton gets elected or not, just by being a candidate she's struck a blow against everyone who said that couldn't happen.

Maybe, since it's very hard to say how "people" think, we should do this on an individual basis.

I do not hate women.

But, I had a college roommate who, I think, did.

So that is 1:1. Only 4 billion or so more votes to be counted, and then we can know the truth.

Steve C.

David - You're right - women are a huge conributor to sexism. There's still this image of feminist out there as hippie '60s radical - no bras, no shaving your legs, no makeup, eat tofu, be strident, be a lesbian. It's a ridiculous stereotype, but it's a powerful one, and not one most young women want to be associated with. But in rejecting feminism because of this stereotype, women are giving away any chance we have of banding together to get equal pay, respect, and opportunity in our society. Want to know the biggest secret in corporate America? Women hate working for each other! Women undermine each other as bosses and as subordinates. We're the authors of our own fate, and right now, we're writing a pretty limiting, sorry tale for ourselves. - Amy

Amy is right - women do not help each other in corporate America, which blows my mind.

With regards to the crying video, I see many sides to the story. 1) I wouldn't put it past Hiliary to have manipulated the situation after Iowa taught her a lesson. 2) She could really have meant it. 3) I was reminded of one of the "Apprentice" finales when two women were the finalists. Trump asked the eventual winner why she had cried in the boardroom when she had been project leader and won her particular test. I loved her answer, which I paraphrase, "Mr. Trump, I've seen 300 pound lineman hold Super Bowl trophies over their head and cry in front of a global audience. I don't think crying shows a weakness on my part." Of course the audience (and myself) hooted and applauded. She was right.

I don't know what the answer is in order to force people in the workplace to respect each other. I do know that I follow my father's advice, which was, "Put your head down and do the best job you can. At the end of the day, it's your name on that project. The rewards will come in time." While sometimes I may wish things would move faster or slower, it doesn't matter, as he has been right. So that is what I do. I don't try to change the world as some of the people I work with wouldn't change even if they had lobotomies. However, I do put my best foot forward every time and I have seen some changes here and there with a few clients. I guess I'm taking the "grassroots" approach.

Let me know when there's a column on, "Do people hate fat people?" There's a lot to say on that one.

Diane:

I would like to vote on that one as well.

I do not hate fat people.

And I know my wife doesn't hate fat people, because she married one.

So that is 2:0

We should also break this into subsets:

Do Fat People Hate Women?

Steve C.

I'm a fat person and a woman, and I can't say that I hate either.

But you really must read the comments on the Chicago Tribune article about how morgues deal with fat people. They are vitriolically hateful, and include helpful suggestions such as rendering and use of fat for energy.

I can't say I've ever seen so much creative group hatred in my life.

Makes anti-Clintonism pale.

But then it's probably all coming from people who are bitterly thin.

I hate thin people.

Steve C.

I'll take sweetly thin people over bitterly thin people any day. I don't hate fat people, but I steer clear of bitterly fat people. Most of my family is sweetly fat -- there are some bitterly fat ones. Sweetly fat people are cool.

Will

"Sweetly fat people are cool." This could be an original English sentence.

Steve, as you know by my headline I don't mean to literally suggest there's a single answer to this question. I meant only to express the occasional surprise (the question that pops into my head) when I see evidence of what seems to be socially-fed misogyny. Misogyny best evidenced, to my way of thinking, by people who "hate" Hillary Clinton because she acts like a politician.

Speaking of, a friend once told me his mistress called him a misogynist.

"Can you believe that?" he said.

"No," I said, in what would be my best rejoinder ever, "I can't believe she'd attack you at your strength."

Understood, my friend. But it's a bit of a straw man to use Hilary as an example. I love women. I want women to succeed. I'm married to a woman who is twice as strong as me. I would vote for a woman tomorrow. I think a woman would be a great president.

But I don't like Hilary, and I don't trust her. Neither does my wife.

NOW . . . your second point, about the female bloggers . . . that is really interesting. I did some research thinking I could call you on that, and was sad to find that you are exactly right. Articles in the Washington Post and other publications have reported on female bloggers getting horrific sexual harassment and other threats.

That is really, really sad and disturbing . . . but it's a whole different issue than why so many people dislike Hilary Clinton . . . and to link the two things----and then throw in your friend's weirdo misogynist brother----seems to me to be linking a whole bunch of different things, under one "this country hates women" umbrella.

Steve C.

Understood, Steve. I know these are disparate points, but they are linked, however loosely, in my brain. I don't claim them to be of equal importance or even equal prevalence.

Why don't you trust Hillary? And what is it do you think she's going to pull?

I'm not saying you have to support Hillary Clinton for president—I don't support her myself—but people "hate" her, whereas they don't nearly as commonly use that term to refer to other politicians, like Mitt Romney, Al Gore, Ralph Nader or Barack Obama. I can't explain why. Can you?

Given that women are more than 50% of "people," this is a particularly interesting question. Do we hate ourselves?

In a psychology of gender course in college (more than a decade ago) our text discussed that even women refer to other women as "them," rather than "we."

The assumption that "people" are generally white men is epitomized by the brain teaser about the father and son that get into a car accident. When the son arrives at the emergency room and needs surgery, the doctor says "I can't operate on this boy - he's my son!" How can that be? If you've never heard it before it might stump you. Most of us assume doctors and lawyers (and presidents) are men, not women.

That linguistic issue is important because it reflects our underlying paradigms. We're much more forgiving of ourselves than we are of others. We feel free to criticize every little thing about those other folks.

Finally, we're expected to be nurturing and relationship-oriented. Successful professionals and politicians (and probably bloggers) aren't often either of those things. Perhaps we're conflicted because we have to make sacrifices in one area or the other, and sometimes both: personal success at home, as wives, mothers, and daughters, or public success in the rest of the world, as doctors, lawyers and politicians.

Hillary, as a female politician, is screwed. Same for the female bloggers. Your friend's misogynist brother resents the girlfriend getting a free ride just because she's sleeping with your friend. Maybe he has a crush on his brother.

One area where femininity comes in handy is communications. There, sensitivity, nuance and attention to relationships are huge assets. But how many communications' leaders are women?

(I had to edit this twice to remove all references to they/them/themselves/those wacky women.)

Sometimes people "hate" people because 1) they have proven themselves to be untrustworthy, etc., 2) they are scared of the person they "hate", 3) they see something of themselves in the person they "hate", something they don't like about themselves, and 4)the person they "hate" has never shown his or her "real self".

This is general information remembered from my Psych 101 course in college - 20 years ago.

Frankly, I still hear a lot of people who can go on and on about how they "hate" Bill Clinton, and I think Hil(l) gets some of the spillover, plus there's disapproval that she stood by her man over Monica Lewinsky, etc.

I don't hate her. She's too much a politician for me to trust. Mostly, I don't want anyone named Clinton, Bush, Reagan, etc., in the White House. We are a nation of 300 million people. I want to see someone in the White House who doesn't have a family member who's been there before. I am weird that way.

I've actually been doing some soul searching about the Hilary issue the past few days, wondering if my reaction to her is on some level a subconscious prejudice against a strong woman. But I ultimately concluded that many of the things I don't like about Hilary are similar to the things I don't like about Bill--it has nothing to do with her gender.

As for the other examples, maybe it's just that when people dislike or are threatened by a woman, they tend to revert to stereotypical expressions of that dislike. They don't hate women any more than men, they just use sexist words to express their hatred of a woman, and other ways to express their hatred of a man. Perhaps the real problem is that people hate each other, period.

"Perhaps the real problem is that people hate each other, period."

See comments on anger, next thread.

I don't hate women--I'm in love with one, in fact.

As for Hillary, there are some who believe the intensity of my opposition to her is misogynistic.

But my opposition to her is based far more on her sense of entitlement around the presidency (her whole 'inevitability' pretense prior to NH), her attachment to the institutional Democratic party (the corrupting Dem lobbyists, staffers and hangers on who seize power when the Republicans lose it), and her shameless willingness to gratuitously disrespect the Chicago Cubs when confronted with the opportunity to profess a 'secret childhood loyalty to the Yankees' during her maiden Senate race in NY.

Of course, I could, with minor modifications, think similar thoughts about Mitt Romney for his disingenuous shift towards the Right. Would that make me a mis-mormonist?

Mike Klein
Delft, NL

I sit here struggling to decide from which perspective to respond to this thread. I envision a survey asking for demographic info – ok, maybe it’s a progressive survey:
Female corporate professional (with a female boss!) – CHECK!
Feminist activist – CHECK!
Hillary supporter – CHECK!
Lesbian – CHECK!
Female student in a mostly-male MBA program – CHECK!

Since there’s not much to say from the my-boss-is-female angle (the mere mention of the word “feminism” returned a deer-in-the-headlights glare from her), I suppose most of you, at least Steve C., would be interest in my Hillary supporter angle.

I will come outright and say that while Hillary being a woman is not the only reason I support her, I admit that it does play a part. I don’t feel the need to explain the reason why, except that IT’S JUST F-ING TIME FOR A WOMAN PRESIDENT. Seriously people, how long do we have to wait?! Ok-ok, it will also be great (perhaps just as great) to have an African-American male president. And I have to admit, most of Barack’s speeches put Hillary’s to shame. But I don’t think Barack is as qualified as Hillary. In fact, I would say that John Edwards is more qualified than Barack.

I haven’t seen much of an explanation for why people don’t trust Hillary, so I’m suspicious of that. I’ve heard a lot of people say they don’t like how she’s so tied to corporate money and while I appreciate this, I will just say that not all corporations are evil (call me a bad Dem if you wish) and frankly, it’s a good thing that at least some of our corporations are supporting the Dems, otherwise we might not have a chance in hell of winning against the Reps!

Of course I’ll vote for Barack or John or any other Dem that may win over Hillary. For now, my vote (and my wife’s) goes to Hillary.

I guess that’s 2:10 for this blog.

I sit here struggling to decide from which perspective to respond to this thread. I envision a survey asking for demographic info – ok, maybe it’s a progressive survey:
-Female corporate professional (with a female boss!) – CHECK!
-Feminist activist – CHECK!
-Hillary supporter – CHECK!
-Lesbian – CHECK!

Since there’s not much to say from the my-boss-is-female angle (the mere mention of the word “feminism” returned a deer-in-the-headlights glare from her), I suppose most of you, at least Steve C., would be interest in my Hillary supporter angle.

I will come outright and say that while Hillary being a woman is not the only reason I support her, I admit that it does play a part. I don’t feel the need to explain the reason why, except that IT’S JUST F-ING TIME FOR A WOMAN PRESIDENT. Seriously people, how long do we have to wait?! Ok-ok, it will also be great (perhaps just as great) to have an African-American male president. And I have to admit, most of Barack’s speeches put Hillary’s to shame. But I don’t think Barack is as qualified as Hillary. In fact, I would say that John Edwards is more qualified than Barack.

I haven’t seen much of an explanation for why people don’t trust Hillary, so I’m suspicious of that. I’ve heard a lot of people say they don’t like how she’s so tied to corporate money and while I appreciate this, I will just say that not all corporations are evil (call me a bad Dem if you wish) and frankly, it’s a good thing that at least some of our corporations are supporting the Dems, otherwise we might not have a chance in hell of winning against the Reps!

Of course I’ll vote for Barack or John or any other Dem that may win over Hillary. For now, my vote (and my wife’s) goes to Hillary.