Will Feminists and Women's Organizations Grow a Pair for 2010?

In the 2008 Primary Race, Hillary Clinton was bashed by the drooling press against the back drop of the red carpet rolled out for Barack Obama. Most of the media has demonstrated its complete lack of understanding of the words ethical and responsible reporting, but what has been said to the Women's Organizations who turned a blind eye to the attacks on Clinton and Palin.

Long ago I was an avid Feminist, having worked to support my kids; I've felt the sting of earning 60% pay to a man for the same work. I stood for equality with many other working women who at one time could not even buy a house as a single woman without the assistance of a male cosigner. The likes of feminism was sisters standing together, who understood what it was like being a minority based on gender, yet not a peep came from the bra burning brigade.

While the male candidates were glorified based on issues the females were judged based on their designer clothes and family responsibilities. Amazingly the winner of the Democratic nomination and the winner of the election had less experience than either Clinton or Palin in actual governing and still feminists organization sat as quiet as their grandmothers waiting for their grandfathers to vote.


NY Magazine got it in their article Titled the Bitch and the Ditz

In the grand Passion play that was this election, both Clinton and Palin came to represent—and, at times, reinforce—two of the most pernicious stereotypes that are applied to women: the bitch and the ditz. Clinton took the first label, even though she tried valiantly, some would say misguidedly, to run a campaign that ignored gender until the very end. “Now, I’m not running because I’m a woman,” she would say. “I’m running because I think I’m the best-qualified and experienced person to hit the ground running.” She was highly competent, serious, diligent, prepared (sometimes overly so)—a woman who cloaked her femininity in hawkishness and pantsuits. But she had, to use an unfortunate term, likability issues, and she inspired in her detractors an upwelling of sexist animus: She was likened to Tracy Flick for her irritating entitlement, to Lady Macbeth for her boundless ambition. She was a grind, scold, harpy, shrew, priss, teacher’s pet, killjoy—you get the idea. She was repeatedly called a bitch (as in: "How do we beat the...") and a buster of balls. Tucker Carlson deemed her "castrating,
overbearing, and scary” and said, memorably, “Every time I hear Hillary Clinton speak, I involuntarily cross my legs.”

"When Sarah Palin first stepped onto the national stage, I was, like many women, intrigued by her. Here was a woman who—even if you didn’t agree with her politics—seemed to have achieved what so many of us were struggling for: an enviable balance between career and family. She was “a brisk, glam multitasker,” to quote the Observer’s Doree Shafrir, with a good-natured stay-at-home husband at her side and several adorable young children in tow. She was running a state and breast-feeding a newborn and yet, amazingly, did not seem exhausted. There was something inspiring about seeing a woman so at ease with her choices, even as both liberal and conservative critics chided her for running for vice-president when her family needed her. Politics aside, when, at the convention, she delivered a politically deft speech like a pro, it was pleasing to witness the first woman on a Republican ticket perform so well."

So when will the Feminists actually address this as part of their agenda? I can't help but feel if we women don't start asking those in high places, that are advertising their support of women in business and politics start acting like gender matters. In other words, grow a pair.