That's not funny

[firecat]

I am no fan of Governor Palin, but I am also not happy about jokes at her expense that are based on her sex or her sexual attractiveness. I think such jokes are going to set back the cause of electing women to political offices.

Comments

[beaq.livejournal.com]

Amen.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

I don't think the jokes will hurt the cause of electing women, but otherwise I am in complete agreement. What I do think is that it will hurt the cause of treating women as people rather than sexualized stereotypes.

[leback.livejournal.com]

That's a really good point. It seems like a great many opportunities are opened *more* readily to women who will occupy them as sexualized stereotypes than to women who insist on occupying them as people. We're less threatening that way. After all, what's the harm in letting a woman attain a position of power if, in order to attain it, she's already had to trade in all the power that its attainment was meant to confer?

[clawbug.livejournal.com]

I agree - and why the heck should politicians be sexy in the first place?

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

I think many of the jokes, much of the satire, is aimed at highlighting the ridiculousness of sexism; a matter of holding that kind of thing up to the light.

[firecat]

That's not my impression from what I've seen, but you have probably seen more than I have.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

As you've probably gathered, I've been sort of obsessed with the election altogether. It's given my brain something to do while I've been stuck at home with this broken leg. *Hopefully* I'll be in a walking cast by this afternoon.

[firecat]

Yay for healing!

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that she gets more of these jokes because she sexualized herself.

[firecat]

Perhaps, but I don't think that makes the jokes OK, any more than the same argument makes sexual harrassment of any individual OK.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

No, but I think that makes the jokes less likely to carry over to other women.

[firecat]

These specific jokes, yes. But Senator Clinton comes in for joking based on her sex, too...only a lot of the joking is about how ugly she supposedly is. I don't think that's any better than joking about how attractive Palin is. They both reinforce "women should be sex objects."

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Huh. I guess I don't hear a lot of those--or maybe I just don't process them, I dunno.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

I think the Uncle Tom factor just adds to the ickiness, personally.

[tedesson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's not like there isn't sufficient material to satirize based on her actual decisionmaking qualifications. But then, a lot of commentary is pretty lazy.

On the financial crisis, but related (and funny):

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/822be2cc-9c6d-11dd-a42e-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1

[cheshyre]

I agree. The sexism expressed in arguments against female candidates is disheartening.

[clever-doberman.livejournal.com]

like the first woman to be a Supreme Court Judge (and the first Black person as well), it seemed like it had to be a conservative.

I hated the misogyny and drastically higher standards that Hillary was up against, and most of the time she did just fine, but I do wonder if she'd have been as electable because of her gender.

I find the comments about Palin's "attractiveness" irritating at best. and it's a disservice to our intelligence in making this choice based on something deeper than the cult of celebrity.


I do enjoy your thread title, however, and I am certainly one of those feminists that could be characterized by the joke

how many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
that's not funny.

[hislittlekitty.livejournal.com]

Is it wrong that my first thought for the answer should be either "Just one, we can do anything!" or "two, one to do it, and a second one to keep away all the men who keep offering to do it for them."

[clever-doberman.livejournal.com]

of course it's not wrong.

and there are a multitude of good answers.

it's just that in the 70s we took our selves so seriously, thus the joke.

[leback.livejournal.com]

like the first woman to be a Supreme Court Judge (and the first Black person as well), it seemed like it had to be a conservative.

ObNitpick: Thurgood Marshall was probably the least conservative justice the U.S. Supreme Court has ever had. Clarence Thomas was the second African American on the court.

[clever-doberman.livejournal.com]

YIKES!!!!


I forgot, and that's a big miss.


thanks for pointing it out, and I'm very glad to be wrong.

[leback.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! Justice Marshall is a personal hero of mine, so that jumped out at me. :-) I do think it's sad that after he retired, his seat went not to one of the many African American judges and lawyers who would have sought to continue his legacy, but to one who's worked hard at dismantling what Marshall accomplished.

Meanwhile, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Sarah Palin will turn out not to be the first female U.S. vice president, but only the second female major-party nominee. Seems to me she's very much the Thomas to Geraldine Ferraro's Marshall.

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

Upon reflection, I can easily see Clarence Thomas and Sarah Palin as being cut from the same cloth, career advancement-wise.

[firecat]

Yep that was the joke I was aiming at with the title. :)

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'm not American, but I haven't actually seen many jokes that seem to be about Sarah Palin's sex or sexual attractiveness. I've seen quite a few that aim for her "gosh darn it, aren't I cute?" behaviour (and some of them miss), and I think they're quite legitimate, because to me that is preposterous behaviour from someone campaigning for high office, just as George W. Bush's "good ole boy" is.

What I've been really offended about, and to some extent still haven't gotten over, is the sense that Sarah Palin was chosen to attract disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters. The idea that she, by sharing sex chromosomes, is remotely a substitute, and that we're not supposed to notice (or care about) all the actual policy, experience and personality differences between them - that's what has been most sexist about this campaign, to my mind.

[firecat]

What I've been really offended about, and to some extent still haven't gotten over, is the sense that Sarah Palin was chosen to attract disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters.

Yep or at least there was a pretense along those lines. The reports of disaffected HC supporters were promoted by a McCain partisan.

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

The disaffected Hillary supporters I know were chased into the arms of Obama by Palin. If McCain had picked somebody more middle-of-the-road, they might have gone with McCain.

[clever-doberman.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, that plan has backfired, much to the credit of the intelligence of the women who supported Hillary.


I've also heard that Palin has her eye on the 2012 election, and so does Hillary (or maybe she's looking ahead 8 years).

anyway, wouldn't it be grand to elect Hillary when she runs against Palin? on the other hand, I don't want Palin to get that close again.

[aquaeri.livejournal.com]

I sincerely hope Palin doesn't get anywhere in the vicinity of running for that kind of office again. Unfortunately, she strikes me as not remotely attentive enough to clues the outside world is providing about her incompetence at this level. (And that's certainly not intended to be sexist - she reminds me very much of a male former friend who also had plans of running for public office, and I thought "the real political operators are going to eat you for breakfast, mate", but didn't say it, because I don't think he'd remotely understand what I meant.)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Word.

[leback.livejournal.com]

I've probably seen relatively few of these, on account of being somewhat culturally out of it, but I suspect I've also failed to give them due attention (and/or recognize the gendered nature of the humor) on occasions when I have encountered them. Since I purport to be a feminist, this obliviousness worries me. Should you encounter examples that you feel inspired to call out individually, I'd be glad to have the food for thought.

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

They're just as offensive as the watermelon and fried-chicken references about Obama.

The Republican VP candidate offers a choice array of mockable opinions. Why settle for worrying about her cheekbones?

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear. This is just the flip side of the "ugly" memes about women like Janet Reno, and both of them are based on the assumption that a woman's only value is in her looks.

There is one point at which I'm rather of two minds about Palin. I'll admit that I'd be happier, personally, if she didn't seem so determined to reinforce the "airheaded cheerleader" stereotype -- but the fact that she is, and is doing such an outstanding job of it, is very much to the advantage of American women right now, because it's pushing moderate voters toward Obama. So I can't be altogether upset about it either.