Seconded. When I hear the Clinton campaign's claims about how red states don't count, I can't help but think they're making Obama's point about partisanship vs. unity for him.

Posted at February 13, 2008 2:04 PM in response to Red State Dems Dismiss Hillary Spin On Losses

I think that's right. I avoided saying so outright because it seemed more contentious than just pointing to the necessity of the Voting Rights Act, which was all I needed to make my point about the history of discrimination in the franchise on the grounds of race and/or gender.

But my understanding of what happened in Florida is the same as yours.

Posted at February 9, 2008 6:17 PM in response to Is Misogyny the Last Taboo?

I completely agree with tlees: Homophobia handily beats misogyny for the "Most Socially Acceptable Prejudice" title.

Beyond that, I'm not convinced that the misogynistic remarks aimed at Clinton demonstrate that misogyny is a bigger social and cultural problem than racism. I suspect that racist remarks are less acceptable than misogynistic ones because racist comments are scarier. As you say, Ruth, racism is pandemic. And racist comments threaten to open an extremely painful wound in a way that misogynistic ones do not. (With apologies for mixing my metaphors.)

I don't think it's terribly productive to argue about whether racism or sexism is more prevalent and/or problematic. And anyway, my comments here are meant to suggest that they may be roughly equal. Misogyny is more widespread in our public discourse, but racism has deeper roots.

This has, perhaps, long been the case. For example, African-American men won the franchise before women did. Yet when women finally won it, there was no sustained effort to prevent white women from voting. Many African-American men--and women--encountered just such sustained opposition, and had to wait for nearly a century after the ratification of the 15th Amendment before they secured the right to vote in practice as well as in law. (And that's given the optimistic assumption that, post-Voting Rights Act, there are no longer any disenfranchised voters in this country.) The point being that while Americans paid lip service to the idea of African-American men voting sooner than to the idea of women voting, there was an incredible amount of subterranean opposition to allowing African-American voters to exercise their constitutional rights.

Posted at February 9, 2008 5:48 PM in response to Is Misogyny the Last Taboo?