The Sexism this Cycle just about killed my Brain

[bravenak]

I know I am not alone but... Can we talk about the muthafucking sexism? My fucking gawd! I just about tore my hair out trying to understand just how people got so fucked up in the head when it comes to giving women power.

This was one of the main issues I had this cycle. Lock her up! Vagina voters (this came from the LEFT of all places, self described 'progressives')! Calling Hillary 'Herself'. Crying about Queens and Coronations. The fucking double standards about how fucking perfect she needed to be while this rapist says all kinds of nutty shit; our media and quite a few others decided to ignore that to obsess about the emails. Even the FBI did the old double standard trick.

So when folks say, "Obama did it!! Why not her?" I get irratated as hell. I decided to not respond. It's no use anymore. Sexism broke my brain.

[stopbush]

1. Agree 100%. The sexism was SO obvious,

yet when you point it out, the response seems to be, "sure, sexism played a big part of it...but you're beating a dead horse. What other reasons are there for the loss?"

You know, maybe that is the ONLY reason. Maybe all the other "reasons" stem directly from the sexism. Why is there this need to imagine new/different reasons for the loss?

[bravenak]

2. That thing too

Why do we need another reason? That is the real reason to me. The isms

[stopbush]

8. In retrospect, Trump was brilliant in being overtly misogynistic

during the campaign.

The whole feud with Megan Kelley ("she had blood coming out from...wherever&quot , the "grab em by the pussy" revelation and all the other disgusting things he said and did caused barely a rustle in the media. Trump's supporters didn't care, even the women didn't care.

This not only insulated Trump from an obvious failing. It removed sexism from consideration as the reason Hillary was being attacked. Sexism became not only normalized but ignored.

[bravenak]

13. It worked like a damn charm

At the same time as that he was whining about deplorables, one comments by a democrat was made to seem just evil. What. The. Fuck.

Time for us to start being mean as fuck so we insulate ourselves from needing a filter. It seems to work and we have PLENTY of mean shit to say right now.

[yallerdawg]

10. The facts regarding what the pig did and said...

and how that absolutely made no difference in how 62,000,000 voted for HIM anyway says it all!

[bravenak]

14. You are so right

[EffieBlack]

3. You're dead on, as usual

[bravenak]

4. You feel me. This shit was outrageous. I still have not processed it all

[NCTraveler]

5. My friend.

It was fucking disgusting. It's acceptance and many of the justifications were sick.

[bravenak]

7. I know. It was KILLING ME.

I had to stop watching TV and filter my internet. I'm mad

[Starry Messenger]

6. It's made me take stock and consider who the real allies were this cycle.

There are quite a few less men on the left I trust with some issues anymore. The ones who proved their mettle were great, I let them know their actions were noticed.

[bravenak]

9. Oh yes. Some women too are put right in the untrustworthy box right along with the men

who proved how horrible they are on sexism. Honestly. I think many of the women acted worse just to prove themselves. Disgusting shit

[Starry Messenger]

11. I agree, that was eye-opening too.

Unbelievable.

[bravenak]

16. Some are gone, thank gawd

[bettyellen]

52. Most of them believe we are in a post sexist post racist America....

If they were capable of introspection, they'd feel like morons. Instead they are cheering on our Russian overlords. Anything to make their Wiki-Broa feel like real men.

[bravenak]

53. The worse shit gets the more they want to fuck shit up even more

I am tired of trying to reason with them. They do it deliberately

[JHan]

15. Internalised misogyny is definitely a real thing.

[bravenak]

17. Self hate sux

[sheshe2]

30. The women hurt me the most.

The misogamy, that was bad enough. That they voted that children be denied health care breaks my heart. Women voted against the health of our sisters and our children.

WTF!

[bravenak]

36. Me too

I could not believe that shit

[JenniferJuniper]

12. And time and again from the left "Racism is why she lost"

Hillary Clinton is freakin' white.

But with a grab-able pussy.

[bravenak]

18. I heard her called a nword lover all the way up here

Sad

[JHan]

19. the fk????

[bravenak]

20. It's like, worse than BEING black, apparently

[guillaumeb]

21. But................

Ninety-four percent of black women voted for Hillary Clinton. Sixty-eight percent of Latina women did so. But 53 percent of the white female voters in this country voted for Donald Trump.
As a young white woman, I realize that white women did not do the work needed to keep Mr. Trump, and his boasts about sexual harassment, from the White House. They did not rise to the uncomfortable challenge of convincing other white women to support not just their own interests, but those of women and men of color, L.G.B.T. Americans, immigrants and people in poverty.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/opinion/white-women-voted-trump-now-what.html?_r=0

There were a lot of bad reasons that people voted for Trump.

[bravenak]

22. We know better than to believe his bullshit because we face racism

We have been played and played and played and taken advantage of and played and played and taken for granted and played for so long we saw through Trump.Some white women really did think it was just 'locker room talk' and vote the way they are told. I feel sad for them.

[guillaumeb]

25. Agreed.

Far too many white people agreed with his racist nastiness. And his he promise to make it 1951 in America again.

[bravenak]

27. They will hate that too

They hate everything. Even when they get their way they are pissed off

[BeyondGeography]

26. Non-college educated white women were the problem

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/time/4566748/hillary-clinton-firewall-women/%3Fsource%3Ddam?client=safari

She was +6 with college educated white women (Obama was -6 in 2012), but -28 with non-college educated (eight points worse than Obama). She cratered with them after Comey.

[JHan]

31. Thanks Comey! *SMDH*

[BeyondGeography]

34. Here's another example why you can't trust polls

WaPo had her up 20 points among college educated white women in their last poll:

The largest shift in vote support from 2012 is among white college graduates, a group Democrats have not won at the presidential election in any contest since at least 1980. Clinton leads Trump by 49 to 40 percent among this group, fueled by a 56-36 percent margin among white women with college degrees. Trump nearly balances out those losses with a large, 34-point lead among all white voters without college degrees (63 to 29 percent), a group Romney won by a 25-point margin four years ago.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/07/post-abc-tracking-poll-clinton-47-trump-43-on-election-eve/?utm_term=.350de04e9e96

When the campaign said college-educated voters didn't come through as expected this is what they were talking about. I wonder how many of these voters were no-shows.

[mtnsnake]

23. Unfortunately, with the way the election ended up, it will probably get even worse.

The sad thing is that she never got a chance to show that a woman could run the country as well as any man, and in her case, perhaps better than many of the men who held the office before her. We'll never know.

[bravenak]

24. Think it just means we have to fight back harder

We will win.

[mtnsnake]

42. Yes we must, and yes we will. We have some very good possible candidates for 2020

Elizabeth Warren would top my list, but I'm not sure how she'd do in a general election. Someone else I like a lot is Kirsten Gillibrand, and I think she would do very well in a general election. Kamala Harris is very exciting as well.

[dionysus]

58. I know who knows...

Brewer and Shipley!

One toke over the line, sweet mtnsnake, one toke over the line. Standing downtown at the DNC station, one toke over the line..

[JHan]

28. The sickest display of sexism was the obsession with her appearance and what she was "Hiding"

-whether she was wearing a wire, a life support system underneath her clothes- an obsession with her hair and clothes..
and whether she and Huma are lovers, whether she wore an earpiece to a debate which is so laughable ( thanks for contributing to fuckery wikileaks) whether she could satisfy bill.

Some of the hate also sounds like an odd sort of sex obsession: sexism in the age of idiocracy - If we combine all the bullshit, according to moronic netizens, Hillary is a sadistic dominatrix yet weak, voracious bisexual and a lesbian and also frigid, a control freak who is taken advantage of by Bill but who murders people, but not all that great a Criminal mastermind since she lets her most annoying enemies live.

And then there's the stupid of pizzagate

I feel dirty typing all this crap.

Meanwhile Trump calls his daughter a nice piece of A, is unapologetic about his sick brand of "locker room talk" and idiots see nothing wrong with it.

[bravenak]

29. Oh fuck yeah

The photoshops of her having an 'accident'. The fucking CT that she nedded a full body brace to walk. All that shit about her attacking women by saying shit like 'thanks for everything you've done for Bill.' Outrageous. It really upsets me to this day. I wish I could tell her in person how much I still support her after all this shit.

I almost want her to run again just to show people she can do whatever THE FUCK SHE WANTS TO DO. Seriously.

[dionysus]

60. Agree on a lot.. but the earpiece?! Whats sexist about that? DU, if you recall, was hell

bent on insisting * was wearing an earpiece during one infamous debate...

[JHan]

71. Oh I wasn't around much then, only joined September..

Wait, there were democrats believing that crap?




The same light fell on Donald's ear, there were no claims of an "earpiece". It reeked of sexism for me because why would Clinton, with her years of experience, need an earpiece. The woman not stupid.

Hard to believe that even for Democrats it was a thing though.

[dionysus]

73. I didnt see the hillary thing, but DUers were scouring debate pics and footage,

Certain that shrub had an earpiece during one of his debates, and this wrinkle in his suit was the cord/power pack for it...

[otohara]

75. I Wouldn't Fuck Her

one of my son's friends on FB posted some nasty shit about her appearance and one of his other friends typed "I wouldn't fuck her" and it got all sorts of likes and yucks.

This is a group who has been described as the most tolerant generation (the hippies of this generation) outed themselves as being quite the opposite during this election.

That's when I left FB until after the primary hoping it would subside afterwards - didn't happen.

After the loss I signed off again and don't ever plan on going back.

[JHan]

78. The same type that told me I only supported her because I have a vagina..

When you cuss them out for their rudeness, they get all up in their feels and blame the world for "political correctness".

[whathehell]

86. You should have asked if they would've preferred to fuck Trump

or maybe just be fucked BY him.

The combination of "stupid" & adolescent Male Enitlement is overwhelming...Idiots with Mommy Issues..

[handmade34]

32. yup

[grossproffit]

33. Yep. How about those who wouldn't vote for HRC but would for Biden (re IWR)

How in the puck is that not sexism?

[bravenak]

38. Insanity. They still say shit like that

[JTFrog]

69. Just like the Edwards and Kerry supporters.

So many who were die hard Edwards, Biden, Kerry supporters said some of the most vile things about Hillary and her IWR vote.

It was so fucking obvious.

[mcar]

83. Oh yeah

I pointed that out several times here. Same people who supported Kerry but claimed they wouldn't support HRC because her IWR Vote was unforgivable. Hypocrites.

[TheFrenchRazor]

35. sexism is the oldest human hierarchy; it is very resistant to change, and like fish don't see the

water, women themselves are often willfully ignorant of it.

[bravenak]

40. It kills me from women

[pnwmom]

37. Thank you, bravenak,

for another brilliant post.

[bravenak]

39. Hey!

[brer cat]

41. Sing it!

I can understand when the trumpers deny their isms, but it's galling when the left gives them aid and comfort, and downright maddening when it is women doing the worst of the slicing and dicing. At least now I have a nice long list of people whose opinion I don't wish to hear and will never respect.

[bravenak]

46. I put a bunch of folks on ignore and most of them are banned now

But I do not miss them and have kept them on my ignore list just in case something crazy happens and they show back up on a technicality. I do not miss them

[mopinko]

43. the whole damned "trust" bullshit.

if that wasnt a case of misplaced mommie issues, i dont know what is.

ya know, as a painter, i painted my life. myself as a wife and a mom, mostly.
i did abstract figures, w/o faces, because i was trying to reach for the universal.
people's reactions were always interesting. guys w mommy issues would pretty obvious shrink in front of them. i always said that the paintings were universal, because all of us had a mom, and for some of us that was just a mom-shaped hole in their lives. everyone saw something. most saw the obvious tenderness and love. but the ones who got uncomfortable always made me want to laugh out loud.
(wont even go into what my own kids see. lol)

that sexism is obvious to some, and invisible to others shows how far we have to go. and damn if i aint sick and tired of this road.

[bravenak]

44. I almost feel like we are starting all over again

But I know it was just a set back, and we have to figure out how to get our message across, but I am irritated.

It's interesting that you bring up the art aspect of this whole thing. I think that killing off art and music left a hole in our schools that we cannot fill with standardized testing. Kids do not learn how to analyze and interpret, we need a new renaissance. Culture is missing from our culture, education is scorned, and everything is all fucked up as a result.

[betsuni]

64. I think the cultural poverty is a big thing.

In some countries people live simple lives, not a lot of stuff or money or fancy educations, but they can recite poetry from their nationally beloved poets, are familiar with the famous art and music of their culture. (I feel terribly embarrassed that I can easily recite commercial slogans and jungles from my youth but can't recite a single whole poem.) They have a sense of history, national dishes they're proud of, sit in cafes or pubs or coffeehouses and talk, read newspapers. They know how to have conservations. They walk, aren't sealed up in personal cars all the time.

I notice that when I don't read books for awhile and only read things on the computer machine, I get impatient and can't read long articles, can't pay attention. Then I pick up a book and my brain has to shift, I'm going into the world of the author and I forget about myself, it's a different consciousness. You can get into the heads of people who have been dead hundreds of years! Who live in a different country, experience. You learn how to understand what being human is. Don't need money to read books, but of course Republicans hate libraries and Americans have been brainwashed to hate the taxes that would pay for them, and reading is apparently elitist, so ... the damage is done.

America wastes so much human potential. It's a big country, I guess it can't be helped. Everyone I know in the U.S. is on anti-depressants. What's that about?

Oh, Bruce Springsteen is on TV talking about his love of reading, how it teaches you how to write. This is a good point. The only reason I can write half-way decently is because of reading -- I imitate.

[bravenak]

65. Your writing is great, actually

Funny but smart, sometimes I have to read it a few times before I get it, then I laugh till I cry. Sneaks up. We don't read like we should and yes we are getting dumb and mean as a nation. It really makes me sad. I make my kids read, they are really nice kids as a result. Their illiterate cousins will be Trump voters.

[betsuni]

66. Thanks.

My mother taught me to read early and had lots of books around, also lots of crayons and paper, kept us kids quiet and busy! Children are naturally so creative, such a shame when that wears off and we become adults and our heads get hard.

[Squinch]

45. The sexism from the other side is truly brain breaking, but worse is the Democrats who keep saying,

"No, no. Sexism had nothing to do with it. But now let's sell our souls so that we appeal to those rust belt white guys."

Sexism was the number one reason why she lost, and it is what is driving the moron wing of the Democratic party to insist that she ran a terrible campaign. It is the reason why Twitler can appoint a cabinet of criminals and half-wits and no one makes a peep, but her every move was excoriated. It is the reason why a conspiracy of men was able to be formed to include an FBI director, a judge issuing a bogus warrant, and a full press that never told the truth about any of it.

America hates the vagina. Don't let anyone tell you different.

[bravenak]

47. Yes, that too

No matter whether she won or lost we were going to be told she was terrible and we need to suck up to white dudes. It always happens when we lose white dudes, which is always, and they always want us to stfu about black, or lgbt, or women, or this or that or the other so white men wont feel left out. I just cannot participate in that shit.

[niyad]

48. sadly, you are absolutely correct. and the denial of that sexism hurts the brain as well.

[bravenak]

49. The denial is what makes me bang my head on the wall

[niyad]

50. that is bad for your head. it doesn't hurt nearly so much if you use other people's heads.

"I have a little list". . . .

[bravenak]

51. I need a list like Arya

I know a bunch of Trumpers I want to bang heads with

[IronLionZion]

54. Most everyone here supported a woman for president

worry about the women who supported that unqualified orange troll who walks in on teenage girls in the locker room and proudly grabs women. There aren't any voter suppression or modern day jim crow laws to stop women from voting.

that is what kills my brain and makes my heart hurt

[bravenak]

55. Thats the sickest part

The women upset me more.

[Maven]

56. Don't forget the F word

By which I mean 'flawed'. As in, even those who claimed to support Hillary had to qualify their support by acknowledging she was 'flawed'. As if every male candidate who had run before her wasn't flawed. As if the male candidate running against her, the most vulgar lowlife ever to sully the presidential election stage, wasn't so vile that pointing out Hillary's 'flaws' wasn't entirely beside the point.

Yes the sexism was toxic and it came from both the right, and I'm sorry to say, the left too. We saw what women have to tolerate daily in the workplace writ large on the national stage. And in the end, the smart compassionate prepared woman got passed over in favor of the unprepared vulgar loudmouth male for the job. It was absolutely depressing to witness.

[bravenak]

62. Yep. You had to say she was bad or else

I am so irritated I wrote myself a few short stories. It's like therapy and it's all I have left right now. Now this guy acts lik the fucking winner with millions fewer votes. The fuckers that helped him are fuckers

[tonedevil]

57. Come for the sexism...

stay for the racism. What hurts my head is people saying Trump voters were voting for economic reasons. The only economic reasons they had was to be able hobble women and minorities economically and socially.

[bravenak]

63. It was straight up bullshit

A lie to assuage their souls to make them feel cleaner.

[JI7]

59. she was booed at her own Convention during her acceptance speech

has that ever happened before to any other candidate ?

i thought that was fucked up and showed what assholes the people who hate her are. and id on't think they give a shit about issues or other people. fuck them.

[bravenak]

61. It was fucked and and it shows exactly what type of people we should never let get any power

Never.

[JCanete]

67. King's also have coronations, They're just called Kings. That had nothing to do with Clinton being

a woman, in most cases, or at least I'd be surprised. As somebody who is not fond of the way our candidate(s) were presented to us, I find it apropos enough.

There was absolutely sexism. There was even sexism on the left, almost certainly. We have a sexist nation. And the media's double-standard when it comes to women versus men, and what it likes to focus on about them, and what it is brazen enough to say about their appearance or their voice or their tone, or their outfits, does not go missed by me, but frighteningly is not picked up on by a huge swath of our population that is just so used to thinking of women this way that it doesn't strike them as unusual or problematic, and they may even agree with the criticisms.

But the media would have done that about the emails no matter who it was from the Democratic party, and the FBI would have still preferred Trump for whatever scary crazy reasons, to whatever sane Democrat was running against, so I don't think those are necessarily the best examples to use when pointing to the rampant sexism, but that said, I'm sure you did see a lot of it out there.

[Uponthegears]

68. You know there is much upon which we do not agree

but when I first read this last night, I was filled with sorrow.

I will tell you up front that many of your specific examples mean little to me. I do not say this to say that they are wrong. I say it because the use of terms like "vagina voter," or referring to Hillary as "herself," are not particularly moving to me. BUT I at least can recognize that the reason they seem insignificant is for a reason which I know all too well, albeit in a different context. I am a man. I do not carry with me either the historical context of the experiences of the millions of women who came, and suffered, before me, or the personal experiences of a female living in a male-defined world. I cannot feel the same way you, or for that matter any woman, can feel when exposed to such comments. I simply lack the requisite knowledge. For this reason I beg your understanding for the first sentence in this paragraph.

My ignorance, however, does not keep me from completely agreeing with what you have said.

As a black man, as a black person, I can empathize with you. As I ventured out from the AA group, where I originally came to seek some solace after the reaffirmation of slavery that was the events in Ferguson and their aftermath, I was struck by the seeming nonchalance with which (often) white posters "educated" me about how much this candidate or that, or this official or that, "cared about black people." It wasn't simply that I disagreed (I have made my living out of disagreement), it was the crushing message that white folks still think they know what was best for me, for us, and that they have the standing to tell me so. In my youth, that message was answered with force, but now it just tears at my liver. I may not know your, and other women's, pain, but I can understand it.

In addition, and I have spoke of this before, there was another form sexism that one can understand without the female life-experience. Poster after poster has pointed out Hillary's various "flaws." I even agree that some of them at least were indeed flaws. Here, however, is what enrages me and should enrage every sentient being. Each of these were flaws she shared with every male presidential candidate who went before her. "Secretive and mistrusting? Can we even count the number of male candidates who fit that description? Beholding to Big Money? Again, is their a male candidate in history of whom we cannot say the same? Were these "flaws" held against her male counterparts? And yet, it isn't merely that they were held against her. It is that they were considered so "disqualifying" that people cued up and voted for someone who basically announced himself as a beast. That, to me, is the most discouraging example of just blatant sexism to come out of this election. Not that Hillary was held to a higher standard, but that even the most reprehensible male to ever run for the presidency was deemed preferable to so many. We, as a country, are where the rest of the world was a hundred years ago. We are overrun by beasts.

Take care my friend.

[bravenak]

79. Thank you so much for this post

I appreciate it, and I get it. I was so sick of white folks trying to educate me on race and racism that I was driving myself crazy trying to talk to them. No more will I expect any understanding, empathy or concern for us as a group. I know better now.
But even with all the racism, which hurts, it really does. The sexism is the thing that is the biggest obstacle. If I got to choose, I would never choose to be white. But I think I would choose to be male if I could.

[JTFrog]

70. Yep. I have to admit that I am really disgusted and disappointed.

I will not forgive or forget those that engaged in such activity on "our side". And they know who they are. They will continue to bloviate and squirm and wiggle around in it though. It fucking sucks.

[bravenak]

74. It was cruel what they did

For them to want kudos and praise now just makes my blood boil

[mcar]

72. Yes, yes, yes!

[Fresh_Start]

76. My response to Obama did it....

Of my two handicaps, being female put many more obstacles in my path than being black.
Shirley Chisholm

Many men and some women both could not accept a female in the white house: because a woman can't do that job.

[bravenak]

77. Shirley Chisholm was dead on

It is my biggest handicap too

[Useless in FL]

80. Mine too!

You are definitely not alone!

[ismnotwasm]

81. Yup

Last edited Wed Dec 21, 2016, 04:22 PM - Edit history (1)

It wasn't some abstract argument about porn this time, it was real, in your face and coming from all sides sexism. A lot of Women bought into sexist male narratives. What the fuck is a "vagina voter" anyway?

The worst part is feminism, and feminist have been talking about this shit for decades. The information--good information-- was there. People made a choice not to listen.

[bravenak]

82. It was so bizarre I just gave up

What can you do when people think grabbing pussies is just locker room talk? Fuck

[StevieM]

84. People need to understand that sexism is often more complicated than saying:

"You're a woman so you don't get the job."

[bravenak]

85. They really do. It is way way more complex than that

It's everywhere and most dont even notice most of it

[ehrnst]

87. Same old same old, especially from the left. (nt)

[bravenak]

88. And they were so obvious

[lovemydog]

89. What saddens me most is how many women voted against a liberal woman.

How many, including those of the self-described left, believed the nonsense about Hillary not being 'liberal enough' or untrustworthy. Corporate media made such a big deal out of the Comey / FBI thing which was a stupid non-story. They should have played it as a blatantly political attack that meant zero. But they made it seem like some big news when in fact it wasn't. Other than that in hindsight it shifted a lot of votes among the weak-minded. Yeesh. I could go on and on. I'm kind of blabbering now but I'm sure you know what I mean!

[ehrnst]

91. The majority of women voted for Hillary. Just not all white women. Women who

equate their power with the man they are with, or support did not vote for Hillary. Unfortunately, many young women fall into that category.

[NastyRiffraff]

90. Oh, bravenak, you are so, unfortunately, right!

The sexism on this board, by supposed liberals (sorry, I'm supposed to say "progressives" I guess) sickened me. And it's still going on. It's funny the misogynists never talked about her outstanding qualifications, except to follow them with a "but.." she has "baggage," she doesn't hold big enough rallies, she holds too many rallies and should do more town halls, emails! Benghazi! and all the RW talking points they can bring up.

Then they are shocked, shocked! when their sexism is called on them. It's often subtle, but it's definitely there. Sometimes it's blatant ("shrill" remarks about how she looks, dresses, does her hair, etc). But it's always, always, there.

[ehrnst]

92. When they said things like "it's not enough to vote for her JUST because she's a woman"

which implied that was a huge thing going on among Hillary supporters, and you tried to point out to them how sexist that was, they would respond with "Well, I would totally vote for Liz Warren, so that means I am in no way being sexist."

Then when Liz endorsed Hillary, the knives came out so fast....

And all of the "Well, Hillary said that she was A PROUD GOLDWATER GIRL,so what kind of progressive could she be?" Then when you pointed out that their Canadian girlfriend, and the woman blessed by Bernie's approval Liz Warren was a registered Republican until 1996, you heard crickets. Then, "Well Hillary is FLAWED! You think she's PERFECT!!"

No cognitive dissonance there. No lack of logic there.