Why is this a headline? The racist, misogynist, bigoted electorate that got us to where we are won’t elect a woman? Maybe they’re just unlikeable.
I was pretty pissed off after the last election because it became clear that, as a whole, America hates women.
Suuuuuuure buddy, suuuuuure.
Sure, lady, explain that again when they want to put Ivanka in the Oval Office after her old man croaks.
Anyone suggesting that the US is too sexist to elect a woman president has to explain the election of Claudia Sheinbaum.
By every metric I can find, Mexico is more misogynistic than the US. You can look at crime statistics on domestic violence, rape, murder; or opinion surveys showing men’s negative attitude toward women – all the stats coming out of Mexico are worse.
Yet somehow, Mexico overwhelmingly elected a woman (a Jewish woman in an 85% Christian population, too).
My hypothesis is that policy matters much more than the gender of a candidate. Kamala had absolutely pathetic policy proposals, supporting the status quo of corporate economic domination and a foreign policy soaked in innocent blood. but maybe I’m biased.
I watched a documentary about the last US election where they interviewed people in New York City, there was a black guy who genuinely said that women shouldn’t be presidents because of their periods…
Can you imagine a world where Democrats are going to go all in on competing on policy?
Their donors/handlers would be so angry!
Thats why Run For Something exists. They train young progressive candidates who win
They don’t like all this bullshit happening, don’t take AIPAC and their members don’t either.
Research them/volunteer and let’s get things done. Encourage good people you know who will actually do the job, and actually care for people to apply to be candidates for them.
Many of their candidates have won 1/2 weeks ago and they are gaining more candidates applying/people in office who win. Search up their Substack: RFS Feel Good for their accomplishments from every month nationwide to make country better. Also Amanda Litman is a good leader to look into.
If we want better we gotta keep going together!! Get more people you see active as well!!
Many imagine they already live in that world.
Must be pleasant living in that dream.
Hard to wake up from, to face the horror.
Mexico doesn’t have as bonehead of an election system that favors the more historically sexist party.
Stranger things have happened…
I got banned from a forum (where I had over 5000 posts, and was largely very well liked) in 2007/8 when I would not back down from suggesting in strong terms that there was no way USA was going to elect Obama because of too much racism. Boy was I wrong.
(Still… no reason to ban someone for pointing out racism. Eh? Even if in erroneous perception.)
A token lady puppet may yet still happen.
There was some expectations that she was just AMLO term 2 the way Bush Sr. was Reagan term 3.
I’d love for AOC to prove het wrong
It’s more than likely this is the Dems trying to soft block her early
I’d love for AOC to be as she best tries to present herself.
Would be nice to live in a world where politicians are honest.
Feels like we keep speed-running the same lesson and still failing the quiz. the bar for women in politics is set like three floors higher and folks act confused when they don’t clear it.
She is unfortunately not wrong.
No it’s not America isn’t ready for a woman president. It’s not ready to have the DNC keep nominating candidates that lack any appeal or enthusiasm.
Let me preface this rant with I voted for both Hillary and Kamala.
Hillary was a terrible candidate because she is neither conservative or liberal/progressive. The DNC railroaded Bernie because it was Hillary’s “turn”.
And with Kamala instead of have an actual primary and getting the best candidate, they just shoe horned her in at the last possible minute and expected everyone to just be ok with it. Not to mention she falls into the same category as Hillary who is neither conservative or progressive so equally disliked on both sides.
I think the problem ultimately lies within the democrats themselves unwilling to listen to the younger voters who are in dire need of hope and change not the status quo that really isn’t working for them or anybody really. It also doesn’t help that neither party really gives two shits about pissing off the liberal base and it shows.
To be fair to Harris, it really wasn’t her fault. At the time Biden stepped down it was far too late to have a proper primary.
Probably by the design of the donor class.
No doubt.
Yep, 41 years old and the Democratic party has nothing for me. I switched from my long standing independent status to democratic just to vote for Bernie in the primaries. I then voted for Hillary, Biden, and Kamala in the general even though I hated all three, why not vote 3rd party? Trump was clearly too much of a danger to our country the day he came down that escalator.
I’ve recently taken to explaining my recent switch to voting for Democrats like this. Democrats are a cancer, Republicans are a fast moving flesh eating disease. I’d rather have something slow moving that has the potential to be stopped with less damage.
Doesn’t help that the “women candidate” the DNC spit out are neoliberal status quo protectors, their “female candidates” is at best performative from them.
Funny how this logic never seems to apply to their male running candidates, who clear elections left and right running on the exact same politics. Or was the status quo perfectly fine 4 years ago, then everyone suddenly changed their minds?
But, that logic does apply to their male running candidates too.
Doesn’t help
neoliberal status quo protectors
performative
All still applies.
Albeit a mite differently, given the status quo being protected.
Oh, like their men candidates.
Well, so far the women we’ve run are 1) one of the most hated politicians of all time, and 2) a cop who repeatedly stated her support for genocide.
So… idk if ‘women’ is the issue here. Maybe we should try running one that doesn’t come with decades of baggage / isn’t an overtly horrible person?
I mean, sexism is definitely a factor, but one that has thus far only become insurmountable in combination with a mountain other barriers.
And yet everyone voted for a rich, racist, rapist, pedophile who can barely speak and also supports genocide anyway.
everyone voted for a
~30% of the adult population voted for said rapist
You need to add the people who couldn’t be arsed opposing him.
Or the people who had to work, or couldn’t wait for 3h at their neighborhood polling place, or have disengaged from politics for any number of reasons, or were educated here and earnestly didnt know how important this last election was.
Low voter turnout is an inevitable symptom of a corrupt system.
Or maybe whose vote didn’t get counted. I think the jury is still out on that right now.
Black people’s mail in ballots were rejected at a rate nine times greater than white people’s. You can’t tell me there wasn’t a ton of ratfuckery in play.
That part is not because of the white rapist, but because of the bad candidate that were forced on them as an alternative.
Yeah no shit - for half of our voters, those things are all selling points. If we run a man who’s an absolute piece of shit against a woman who’s less so, but still very much a piece of shit, the man will win every time. As I said, sexism is definitely a factor.
If we run a man who’s an absolute piece of shit against a woman who isn’t a piece of shit… who fuckin knows: we haven’t tried that. But Harris’s odds seemed pretty solid until she started publicly supporting Israel’s genocide on Gaza: so she lost a hefty chunk of support from the half of voters who are turned off by evil behavior; meanwhile the bigot’s popularity with bigoted voters remained unsurprisingly steady.
My point is that the people who try to justify not voting for Harris due to her support of genocide achieved nothing.
Do you seriously think Trump gave less weapons to Israel? Do you think he did a better job of keeping a muzzle on Bibi?
They might think they didn’t sully their soul, but they did. Refusing to choose the lesser of two evils isn’t a moral win. It’s just allowing the worse evil to win.
That’s not the point I’m making - the people who chose not to vote over Harris’s comments are fucking morons. They share responsibility for Trump’s victory and everything he’s done since.
But the time to look past Harris’s comments, shut our mouths, and vote strategically for her was during the general. The election is over, and there is no longer reason to defend her, or contrast her against Trump. She isn’t a lesser evil anymore.
And there’s the core of my point: looking at her objectively, she is evil. She stands right alongside the voters who opted out in culpability for Trump’s victory and enabling the current dismal state of our country.
That’s why I think the whole “America isn’t ready for a women” spiel is BS. Both of the women we’ve run recently were fucking horrible candidates: but even so they lost by a narrow enough margin that blaming the outcome on the contents of their pants is a failure to consider the other variables at play.
If we ran a woman who was actually likeable, doesn’t have a history full of scandals, and doesn’t come out in the 11th hour of the general to say something detrimental like support for genocide… then that woman will win.
My point is that the people who try to justify not voting for Harris due to her support of genocide achieved nothing.
Well… K? You can keep getting mad about an overwhelming and likely irrelevant minority, but can you keep it for when it’s actually relevant?
I think you nailed it here. Give the people a choice to vote for AOC and I think it will happen.
I’d rather she stay in Congress a while, either side, and gain a leadership role. Lot more power there.
She needs to take Chuck’s Senate seat when he (hopefully) retires.
Also a majority of Americans are fucking straight up dumb and not engaged in politics or news at all. Last study I saw Americans average a 6th grade reading level. What this looks like in practice though is:
- Can read: Straightforward, informational text like food labels, bills, and basic news articles.
- Can understand: Stories with plots, character changes, and a clear point of view.
- Likely needs help with: Texts that use a high degree of academic vocabulary, complex sentence structures, or highly abstract concepts, as found in high school or college-level material.
So until the Dems can also narrow and dumb down their messaging they won’t gain ground. It’s why when Walz called them weird it worked so well because everyone understands that.
So until the Dems can also narrow and dumb down their messaging they won’t gain ground
That would require them to have a concrete program that can be stated plainly. Democrats don’t do what you said not because they don’t know how, but because it’d be pretty clear that their program offers nothing of substance to the working class.
I kinda want to see Trump go on a Twitter rant explaining why the Weak Force is part of a Democrat plot to destroy the entire universe:
Particles all support the radical left, or me, you know? And then there’s that weak force. You know, they call it weak because only the radical left will give it the time of day. Only the radical left. All particles that vote for Trump wouldn’t bother. That’s why those particle collider people can’t find neutrinos that vote for Trump. They always try to use the weak force to find neutrinos, but good people know that only radical left neutrinos would let themselves be seen, because they like weak things.
They both lost to an obese rapist who can’t form cohetebt sentences.
And both of them were so close that changing any one variable - such as having an actually likeable candidate - would’ve changed the outcome.
Ah, so the problem is the women weren’t “likeable” enough, got it. I heard they were too bossy, too. And too aggressive. Yeah.
Holy mother of all strawmen what the heck are you talking about? Are you intentionally being disingenuous or do you not understand the meaning of the word “likeable” in this context?
Are you trying to suggest that Hillary was the best possible candidate we could’ve chosen?
“bossy” is one of those words people use pretty much solely to describe women.
“Aggressive” and “likeable” are not. I don’t even understand why you’re trying to spin this
I get what that poster is doing.
I agree with the general premise, that this country is not ready to elect a woman President. Lots of people in it are, but not enough in the right zip codes to make it in our system.
But, if you ask these people why they are not voting for a candidate, they will not say “it’s because she has a vagina”. They are too self aware to know that they can’t say it out loud. So, they say things like “I just don’t like her enough” or “she’s too shrill and bossy”.
My actual favorite excuse from the last election was the guy who said “she reminds me of my ex-wife”. At least he’s being honest.
Yes, I agree with you, using words like “shrill” or “bossy” is a great example of a sort of masked misogyny, which is why you used them in your example.
Those two words, among others, are words that are used almost exclusively about women. It can be helpful to point their usage out and call out latent misogyny.
“Aggressive” and “likeable” are not words that this works for. The commenter we’re talking about is tone policing words that aren’t even debatably used the same way, and it’s the kind of weird, fussy, oversensitive nonsense that is aggravating and distracting.
It’s also massively rude to imply somebody is a misogynist without any grounding at all, simply because they did not like a candidate who - incidentally - is a woman.
Women, because they’re humans just like men, have the capacity to be disliked for their actions and words.
Oh, hard disagree there. There is a certain class of misogynist who likes their women docile. They “dislike” anyone woman who they dont find “agreeable”, and view women who express their own opinions as “aggressive”.
Is it an overly broad generalization? Maybe. But it tracks!
I think I’d take it a step further and say all misogynists like their women docile. That’s why “bossy” is such a loaded word.
But “dislike”? “Agreeable”? “Aggressive”? I can’t agree that those three are misogynistic terms, or even signifiers of misogyny.
I guess we just disagree on terms though. 🤷♂️ No ill will towards you or anything! It seems like we’re on board with misogyny being bad 😂
Oh, they definitely are.
Must be a culture difference thing. They’re certainly not, in the UK, at least in my experience.
I’ve just searched it up and you’re right, I was wrong; if I search ‘“likeable” misogynist term’ or ‘“aggressive” misogynist term’, I do find a study that references “aggressive” being used more for women, which is honestly surprising to me, I apologise!
I didn’t quite find the same for “likeable”, the results seemed more about how women report having to be more amenable in the workplace to avoid being seen as “difficult”, which I totally agree is a problem but isn’t really what we’re talking about re the terms.
@hotdogcharmer @leadore I absolutely assure you likeability is an issue for women in the workplace in the UK. Signed, a British woman.
Look up “likeability trap”, though - it’s the name of a campaign tactic used against women in politics. It’s an ongoing problem.You’re right, I am aware of that as an issue, but I wasn’t aware that the actual terms “likeable” or “unlikeable” were loaded like that
Thanks. Did you try searching for “unlikeable” instead of “likeable”? Here’s one about that. I suspect the UK isn’t much different.
(edit to add a quote from AOC in that article:)
When you call Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris ‘unlikeable’, that’s an unsubstantial, unsubstantive, fluff, bulls**t, misogynistic word to use. Unlikeable? What is that? It’s not a policy critique.” --AOC
I didn’t, I focused on “likeable”. Thanks for the link, I do clearly have a lot to learn and would like to. There’s just so much I don’t see, whether that’s that I just don’t pay attention, or don’t experience it as a man, or that I don’t want to recognise what I do see.
I appreciate your time, and I’ll work to educate myself 👍
I’m so fucking sick of this argument. It’s nothing more than centrist cope; a way of willfully misunderstanding the reason for Hillary Clinton’s and Kamala Harris’ campaign failures.
Perhaps it’s because the Democrat party keeps trying to force a woman candidate instead of letting it happen naturally. Voters wanted Bernie Sanders, instead the party made Hilary Clinton the nominee. Then they didn’t even have a proper primary in 2024. Biden won the primary because he was the incumbent and nobody really tried to run against him. Then he dropped out, it was too late for a primary, and Harris was just appointed as his replacement.
She’s right.
I thought we were ready for a Black president, and maybe some of the country was. Where I was living at the time, a white man was okay working side by side with a Black man. He’d call him brother, they’d eat at each other’s places, their wives would hang out, their kids would play together… I thought racism was mostly a memory. People were even fine with a Black boss. But when it came to a Black president, they just couldn’t cope.
If these people can’t see past skin colour, they definitely won’t see past gender. For these people, the First Gentleman would be the “real” president. They would not respect her and, at most, would say she’s just the spokesman for the real president. A lot of people liked Michelle Obama, but not because she’s Michelle Obama, but because she’s Mrs Barack Obama. They don’t care what she thinks or knows, they just expect that she’s speaking for him. And, I think, in 8 years, we saw that she was her own person, but a lot of people couldn’t see it.
I wonder if she’s interested in running. I think Michelle Obama would poll better than Kamala Harris. I have a feeling she’s done with politics, though, if she were ever really interested.
When polled, 12% of men believed they could beat Serena Williams in tennis.
Because, you know. She’s a girl. Like, how good could she be?
😐
Then again, IIRC, when polled, a sizable percent of men though they could beat up a gorilla, so…
Regression.
I feel like 10+ years ago the USA would have been more ready (maybe still not fully, idk).
Disclaimer: My comment which follows does not apply to fans and supporters of a candidate. It applies to a difference in how male and female candidates are referred to in the media.
When our society reaches the stage where TV pundits, political blog writers, etc. stop referring to women candidates by just their first name (almost every time) in the same context that they continue referring to men candidates using their last name, or title + last name, then maybe I’ll believe the US is ready to elect a woman president.
(edit: I should add to that list, also when even the opposing side will use her last name same as they do with male candidates that they are against, meaning that they may hate her but still have at least that much respect for her as a candidate)
Well the woman who made this statement is the wife of a former president. We cannot call her Obama, there already is an “Obama”. The other candidate of relevance was Clinton, another wife of a former president. Current woman politicians of note for some reason get referred to as acronyms, AOC and MTG for example.
You’re point doesn’t really hold up because news agencies are going to try to avoid obvious confusion.
Kamala was also reffered to as Harris, but that may have been a result of her regularly pronouncing her first name differently throughout her campaign.
