American Presidential Politics: Freedom to Exercise Sexism Without Shame

Cynthia Ruccia, the founder of Clinton’s Supporters Count, Too, used the word “disheartened” to describe her feelings in the waning hours before the 2008 presidential election. In her post the other day at the New Agenda, Ruccia writes:

“Like many, I have been completely disheartened (to say the least) by the sexism coming from the Democrats, first against Senator Hillary Clinton, and then a newer, cruder, more virulent strain of it against Governor Sarah Palin. I am not a great writer—I’d much rather talk—but the sexism has become so painful, I have been unable to do either. I find myself wanting to curl up into a ball and hide so I don’t have to see it and don’t have to listen to it.

“For all of us, it is too achingly familiar. We have all experienced sexism, and it hurts. It hurts because we are marginalized every step of the way. We have never been dealt with fairly because our femaleness has allowed all cultures, ours included, to feed the prejudice that people like us, females, don’t really matter for much. It is a discrimination that goes as far back as history itself. We women have fought back against it at certain periods in history, with mixed results. Many of our female heroes had to give their lives for the cause (remember Joan of Arc?), and although they set into motion the mechanism for advancement, they never lived to see the promised land (Susan B. Anthony comes to mind).

“As women, we have several positions that we fall back on. One is exhaustion, which is where I believe many find themselves now. How can we not be tired when everywhere we turn these days there is one heinous example after another of our national disease: Misogyny. Unlike racism, which we are growing to tolerate less and less in America, sexism is absolutely acceptable. If this campaign year has proven anything, it is that Americans not only tolerate discrimination against women, in many instances they revel in it.

“Another position we women take is denial. And why not deny? Who wants to spend a lifetime screaming about this inequity? It’s exhausting, and let’s face it, joy is a much more pleasant way to live.

“But our best position by far is when we decide we are all in this together and we rise up against this injustice. Believe it or not, we have so much to be grateful for having watched these two courageous women, Hillary and Sarah, buck the system. By going where no woman has gone before, they have been human targets, willing to take the incoming fire. Although what Hillary withstood has receded a little in our memories, we have the spectacle of Sarah being eviscerated with glee by the Democrats. They are taking her apart with great creativity and total impunity. Why? Because as a society, we still permit the exercise of sexism without shame.”

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