Political Gender-Baiting (from "girlie men" to "sensitivity")

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

I'm starting this thread in part to discuss this tactic (which has been a running implication during the RNC) and in part to share the following, from Slate, which just made me spit half of a chewed-up strawberry across the room:

"It grates on my nerves, this compassion day, the metrosexual makeover we're giving the convention," bitched Malkin, before going on to characterize the expansion of Medicare benefits as "abominable." Yeah, caring about senior citizens is just so … faggy. Next thing you know, the Republican party will be getting its nails done and steam-ironing its shirts. To hear Malkin tell it, the only manly men left in the party are pre-Queer Eye-makeover Republicans like Bush and Cheney, sprawled in front of the TV with an open pizza box, scratching their balls and privatizing Social Security.

How do you feel about gendered politics? I mean, I can imagine and all, but discuss.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 2 September 2004 17:33 (twenty-one years ago)

wasn't that the expected approach to this election from the beginning, with kerry appearing on leno riding the harley and being mr. super jock and touting vietnam, and with bush's constant trips to crawford and generally seeming aloof, assholic and self-absorbed? it was a race to see who could out-man the other, a tactic made even more understanbable/insidious considering the gay marriage debate and the fact that (hello?) there's a war going on, so enough with the fucking macho posing. if you be rambo then enlist, don't try to run the fucking country.

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Thursday, 2 September 2004 17:37 (twenty-one years ago)

if you want to be rambo... (tho i think i like the "if you be" construction much better)

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Thursday, 2 September 2004 17:38 (twenty-one years ago)

so be a man and stick with it!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 2 September 2004 17:39 (twenty-one years ago)

totally. being a leader isn't making the right decision but actually making a decision!

(at what point did the flip-flop thing become "fact" in regards to kerry? is there ANY substance to it, aside his iraq votes? if it weren't for iraq, wouldn't they still level this charge? is there a democrat who has NOT faced this?)

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Thursday, 2 September 2004 17:42 (twenty-one years ago)

I swear that while walking into the grocery store yesterday, I heard a man on a cell phone loudly say, "Don't be such an economic girly-man!"

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 2 September 2004 17:44 (twenty-one years ago)

oh man that needs to go on a tshirt

― g--ff (gcannon), Thursday, 2 September 2004 17:47 (twenty-one years ago)

oh it will.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 2 September 2004 17:48 (twenty-one years ago)

the thing is, this goes back to at least 1950, if not earlier.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 2 September 2004 17:50 (twenty-one years ago)

haha now i'm daydreaming abt some supercool queer economist making the news. "well, tim, as an economic girly-man, i have to say that the policies of this administration have led to some disastrous problems that may become systemic if not corrected soon"

― g--ff (gcannon), Thursday, 2 September 2004 17:50 (twenty-one years ago)

it goes back to pope joan!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 2 September 2004 17:50 (twenty-one years ago)

hahaha I meant in 'MERICAN politics! And Pope Joan really was a girly-man, or maybe a manly-girl?

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 2 September 2004 17:52 (twenty-one years ago)

What interests me is partly that I don't think the gender-baiting aspect has ever been quite so explicit or pronounced; the same sort of thing got leveled at Dukakis, after all, but without such jocky, specific pussy/sissy/girl overtones. Speaking of Dukakis (and Gore!), maybe I'm just biased by recent memory, but I don't think trying to look manly has ever ever worked very well: during a campaign people know very well that you're "trying," and the effect, if not Dukakis-in-tank problematic, tends not to convince a soul.

How well do you think the macho gendering actually plays with people? After all, in its non-sneery non-wartime forms it's been touted by even those on the left as the difference between the parties (see George Lakoff, Moral Politics, "nurturing" mother-liberals versus "authoritarian" father-conservatives); is this underlying metanarrative why people almost instinctively assume Republicans are the party of strength and safety? (And if that's true, then good lord how much people must hate Bush's domestic performance for him to be polling where he is right now!)

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 2 September 2004 17:54 (twenty-one years ago)

(the "Communist League of Negro Women" in Stencil's link just killed another half-strawberry)

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 2 September 2004 17:55 (twenty-one years ago)

it will help them win working class votes and votes from culturally conservative groups.

edwards (journal of child language 6(1979): 121-7) found that middle class boys were more likely to be mistaken for girls and working class girls for boys based upon their speech. there is a difference, it is learned, and it probably has nothing to do with leadership but may have lots to do with the perception of the ability to lead.

How well do you think the macho gendering actually plays with people?

Lots of people are probably uncomfortable with Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, etc.

― youn, Thursday, 2 September 2004 18:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Promise Keepers love this shit. I'd love to see a woman kick a Promise Keeper's ass.

― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 2 September 2004 18:11 (twenty-one years ago)

I would love that too

― gainfully employed (ex machina), Thursday, 2 September 2004 18:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Are the PKs even a force anymore? I mean, too much religion is kind of sissy, too - unless it's Mel Gibson 'macho Christ' style.

Oh, and nabisco - it's too bad, just a couple of days ago I cleaned out my inbox and deleted this sickening article from some conservative site or other about how great it is to see masculinity back in politics, etc.

― Kerry (dymaxia), Thursday, 2 September 2004 19:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I almost shit my pants watching the daily show last night. Jon was talking about Arnold's comments and said something along the lines of:

'So Arnolds advice to all of the 1.3 million people who slipped into poverty this year: suck it up you faggots'

― bill stevens (bscrubbins), Thursday, 2 September 2004 19:24 (twenty-one years ago)

We're having this exact problem here at the moment ... there's a mayoral competition for Auckland with the incumbent, John Banks, a right wing macho man and his competitor, Dick Hubbard, who pretty much seems like an average business man, painted as a wimp. Dick Hubbard entered the race, according to himself, because he said it irritated him so much that John Banks called another mayor 'pathetic'. Now we keep getting letters to the editor saying that this shows that Dick Hubbard wouldn't be 'man enough' to 'make the big decisions'. It's interesting that John Banks is consistently associated with 'America' and there have been several editorials pointing out that if a major terrorist incident happens, John Banks chances of re-election will probably rise.

We have similar problems with our female prime minister. She's bizarrely simultaneously characterised as 'too manly' and frigid because she's a leader, and as 'nannying' and weak because she's a woman and left wing. Letters to the editor re her often refer to the 'nanny state' (that term comes up in the newspaper about every second day) while the main daily published a picture of her on a snowmobile with her husband behind her, on the front page, with the headline 'Ice Queen' and underneath, bothered to literally type out the caption 'As usual, Helen's husband takes the back seat'.

― maryann (maryann), Thursday, 2 September 2004 19:59 (twenty-one years ago)

we did these classroom exercises in my classification class for cars, gender, and ethnicity. it was pretty neat, even though in the end i realized that the discovery was only what environmentalists, feminists, and civil rights advocates have been saying all along. e.g., for gender, you might have the categories masculine and feminine. but the point of classification is for categories to be mutually exclusive. e.g., skill in leadership may not correlate with any set of characteristics identifiable as masculine or feminine, or it may be impoossible to identify such sets of characteristics in the first place.

― youn, Thursday, 2 September 2004 20:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Sort of tangential, but -- was Foucault the theorist who basically said that "gender" exists on a continuum?

― rasheed wallace (rasheed wallace), Thursday, 2 September 2004 20:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm so pissed off in general about the selling of the war and the implications from republicans and one retarded democrat that Kerry is borderline traitorous. People like war because it's macho bullshit, they see it as an action movie, and you don't want your heroes in an action movie to step back and assess the situation carefully because dammit, that's just not thrilling enough. War isn't regarded as a great tragedy anymore, it's regarded as a rite of passage/exciting video game/the American way. As a result, a candidate who says he's a pacifist would never win, because he'd be an easy target for mouth-breathers like those in charge right now.

― Gear! (Gear!), Thursday, 2 September 2004 20:25 (twenty-one years ago)

hell we had a pacifist candidate, and even the other Dems laughed at him (but then some of his ideas were silly).

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 2 September 2004 20:28 (twenty-one years ago)

It's a shame to hear that about New Zealand, but at least yours was the first country in the world to have both a female PM and a female majority cabinet a few years ago, wasn't it? I may have got that wrong.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 2 September 2004 20:33 (twenty-one years ago)

War isn't regarded as a great tragedy anymore, it's regarded as a rite of passage/exciting video game/the American way.

because god knows war has neve been viewed as a rite of passage at any other time in human history (or american history)!

― amateur!!st, Thursday, 2 September 2004 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I think it's viewed as more of a "kick-ass!" rite of passage now as opposed to a regrettable but necessary step.

― Gear! (Gear!), Thursday, 2 September 2004 20:41 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.cs.amedd.army.mil/rlbc/roughriders3.gif

― amateur!!st, Thursday, 2 September 2004 20:43 (twenty-one years ago)

People like war because it's macho bullshit, they see it as an action movie, and you don't want your heroes in an action movie to step back and assess the situation carefully because dammit, that's just not thrilling enough.

This is true in some or many cases, but it's not the only reason people on the right and in the middle like action heroes at this moment - they are as afraid of careful assessment as they are of terrorists and therefore are unwilling to trust anyone who deems it important to keep them safe.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 2 September 2004 20:45 (twenty-one years ago)

i've played that video game. the final boss is a total bitch.

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Thursday, 2 September 2004 20:45 (twenty-one years ago)

see I'm on a combination of no sleep and lots of coffee so I won't even bother to clarify mysself now.

― Gear! (Gear!), Thursday, 2 September 2004 20:52 (twenty-one years ago)

rasheed xpost: a 'gendered continuum' sounds like it could be any number of pomo folx, either foucault or judith butler.

i'm surprised that no one has yet mentioned the homophobic innuendo tossed at the announcement of edwards as v.p.

i think that, and therepublican party line on gay marriage, has a lot of this has to do with a lacanian process of 'othering,' as asserting that whole bush campaign teleology of

masculine : feminine :: strength : weakness :: 'decisive leadership' :: 'oportunistic flip-flopping'...

― andrew l. r. (allocryptic), Thursday, 2 September 2004 23:13 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22breck+girl%22+edwards&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Just to be really annoying I'm going to say that a continuum is just as binary as anything else, unless I've got the topography wrong. Maybe it's like a donut?

Anyway, my kind of action hero clips the wire to the bomb in extreme close-up and is maybe a little sweaty

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 2 September 2004 23:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Schwarzenegger isn't a girlie-man, he's Chevron's bitch.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 2 September 2004 23:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Something that seems vaguely interesting re this: I am I right in thinking that the rightist vote in the States is skewed towards men, whereas in Britain it's over-half female? Something to do with the (at least pre-Blair) associations of 'angry young men' vs the US's 'weak womanly compassion'? Is it that there's some pseudo-fixed "centre" that's always gendered feminine, with the different political landscapes pushing one or another party in?

― Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Friday, 3 September 2004 09:48 (twenty-one years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.