Guest Post by dnA
Some of Obama’s recent comments about Hillary Clinton have raised eyebrows, particularly these two, as reported by Jake Tapper of ABC:
“You challenge the status quo and suddenly the claws come out,” Obama said.
The CLAWS come out? Really?
Then yesterday Obama told reporters who had asked about Clinton’s latest attack ad, “I understand that Senator Clinton, periodically when she’s feeling down, launches attacks as a way of trying to boost her appeal.”
The problem is that the second quote is being taken way out of context, while the first one is borderline. I’ve heard people use “the claws come out” not in relation to women, but given the way the press has treated Clinton, Obama should have chosen his words more carefully.
But the YouTube video shows that there was more to Obama’s second statement than Tapper reported. (Can’t seem to embed, so you’ll have to watch at the link.)
For those of you who can’t watch video at work, the transcript is below:
I understand that, you know, Senator Clinton, periodically when she’s feeling down, launches attacks as a way to boost her appeal. But I understand that these kinds of gamesmanship is not what the American people are looking for. What they’re looking for is ways to send their kids to college of find a job and get health care.
On the one hand, he seems to be suggesting that Clinton is engaging in what Obama refers to as “the same old Washington Politics”.
But on the other hand, it’s hard for me not to read the subtext of this statement as “if you elect this woman, she’s going to act crazy every time she’s on the rag. You know how chicks are.” What does “feeling down” have to do with it? The two of them are competing for votes, so she’s launching attack ads. Why the psychotherapy?
Following Steve’s lead, I’d like to rate each incident for sexism on a scale of 1-5. But instead of “Hortons,” which Steve used to measure the level of racial subtext in the Clinton campaign’s references to Obama a few weeks ago, I’ll use “Coulters,” in honor of a person who actually suggested women shouldn’t have the right to vote.
- Obama says, “You challenge the status quo and then the claws come out”— 2 Coulters
Obama’s ascribing the “claws” to an ungendered status quo seems to suggest he may not have meant it as a gendered comment. But it’s hard not to see a reference to “claws” coming out as not evoking the image of a “catfight”.
- Obama says, “I understand that, you know, Senator Clinton, periodically when she’s feeling down, launches attacks as a way to boost her appeal”— 3 Coulters.
Once again, in the larger context, the statement is more defensible, but Obama should have been more careful with what he was saying. I think it’s likely he meant to dismiss the attacks as desperate, but he ended up making them sound like they were a result of Clinton having some kind of emotional problem.
I doubt that the above comments were made with the intent of being sexist, especially since Obama needs women to vote for him a lot more than Clinton needs black voters to vote for her. It would strike me as uncharacteristically stupid for the Obama campaign to be deliberately attacking Hillary on the basis that she is a woman, and I don’t think a case for that can be made yet.
That said, Obama should be more careful about his language.
UPDATE: Ann at Feministing makes an important observation.
Clearly this isn’t Chris Matthews-level shit or anything. All sexist comments are not created equal, and pointing out that Obama’s comment comes from a place of male privilege does not mean I’m saying it’s as bad as him holding up an “Iron My Shirt” sign or something. But it’s pretty obvious to me that “when she’s feeling down” was a sexist way of characterizing the situation. As Lauren says, “If you’ve never been told you are “ruled by your emotions” in a professional capacity, you probably wouldn’t get it either.”
Word.