Casual Bigotry in the Media
I’ve been searching for an inaugural topic for this blag. It’s taken a while. There are a great many things I could have written about, and I bounced a few possibilities from Raymond Chandler to parental brainwashing (or, in Skatje’s case, lack thereof). In the end, though, I came across a Media Matters article discussing comments made by Rush Limbaugh about Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Limbaugh is, of course, an easy mark, so I’ll let him pass by without further comment.
However, his comments recently are just the latest in a long string of casual bigotry and anti-feminist commentary about this woman that has run through the media since November 7 and before, most of it from mainstream sources. There’s the damaged goods incident as one example, the context for which being the utter non-event that was the appointment of Steny Hoyer over John Murtha, Pelosi’s choice, for House Majority leader. That in itself is a good example. For one thing, it was a ridiculously minor skirmish in the long view, and something that happens almost every time there’s a transition in power in Congress. For another, it couldn’t pass without using a loaded term like “damaged goods”, which originally referred to a woman unmarrigable or undateable for being promiscuous. That the term is now occasionally used with broader meaning, but the original meaning is not at all dead: ask AskMen. Applying the term to a woman, even in a political context, is absolutely a reference to the original meaning. And that is just one incident among several where the media trumpeted Pelosi’s weakness and her failure to exert influence over her party — somehow, getting almost unanimous support for her 100 Hours proposals doesn’t count as exerting influence, in media logic. And then there’s the “cat fight” narrative that always comes up, but that’s another story. I think the point is illustrated. The media can’t comment on Pelosi as a leader, only as a woman in a leader’s shoes, and every minor setback, every bit of a-day-in-the-life-of-Washington politicking that doesn’t break 100% her way is blown up into an example that she can’t hack it. (Presumably, the shoes are size 13 loafers, and the hacks would have us believe she’s more comfortable in stilettos or barefoot.)
But, hey, let’s talk about this. Pruden somehow manages to insist that “Yesterday was all about celebrating estrogen.” even while quoting statements from Pelosi like “I accept this gavel in the spirit of partnership, not partisanship, and look forward to working with you on behalf of the American people. In this House, we may belong to different parties, but we serve one country.” and “The election of 2006 was a call to change, not merely to change the control of Congress, but for a new direction for our country. Nowhere were the American people more clear about the need for a new direction than in Iraq.”
What did he have to back up his “estrogen” comments, repeated again at the end of his column? One statement from Pelosi: “This is a historic moment for the Congress, and for the women of this country. It is a moment for which we have waited for more than 200 years.” Ok, yeah. That’s about women and “estrogen”. But it is a historic moment. She has now climbed higher on the political ladder than any elected woman in the history of this country. (More enlightened democracies than us have, of course, had woman presidents and prime ministers.) Should she have let that moment pass without comment? Why? To assuage the fears of a couple of femiphobes with op-ed columns?
All the more, she should comment on that moment. Silence is harmful, utterly so. To bring things back to the title of this post, we’ve hit a point where bigotry is expressed freely and without censure. Why? Why can Rush Limbaugh say, “I wonder when she loses next if she’ll go back to the kitchen. If her kids and family allowed her to go from the — what do you bet she hasn’t been in the kitchen in a long time anyway?” and nobody cares? Why can Dennis Prager and Rep. Virgil Goode all but advocate converting an incoming Muslim Senator to Christianity before he’s allowed to serve and literally close our borders to Muslim immigrants just because they fear their personal faith might not completely dominate our public discourse if that happens?
Silence is why. Because nobody says anything in response when they do. That’s why I find this an appropriate first post. Because silence is emphatically not what this blog is about.