Funny, my mother (children’s book author) is writing a book about all the women who have run for president for a middle school audience. I was talking about it with her today and she told me about an interview she did with Shirley Chisholm years ago where Chisholm talked about how being a woman was much more electorally disadvantageous than being black. Almost forty years later, and it’s not much, if at all, easier now than it was then.

These women — Jan, Meg, Carly, Sharron, Linda, Michele, Queen Bee Sarah and sweet wannabe Christine — have co-opted and ratcheted up the disgust with the status quo that originally buoyed Barack Obama. Whether they’re mistreating the help or belittling the president’s manhood, making snide comments about a rival’s hair or ripping an opponent for spending money on a men’s fashion show, the Mean Girls have replaced Hope with Spite and Cool with Cold. They are the ideal nihilistic cheerleaders for an angry electorate.

She’s on a first-name basis, as a fellow Mean Girl, I guess.

KC–it seems to me like the Palladino story is covered as a political news story. I’ve seen and heard reporting on his crazzy out here in Colorado. The difference between the coverage of the male v. female tea party candidates is that it’s only the women whose bios and words are held up for constant ridicule in opinion columns, on blogs, and on late night comedy shows. The men are just as ridiculous–but I guess the men who write and perform in late night comedy shows are more titillated by imaginine O’Donnell in her jammies than Palladino, Maes, or any of the middle-aged male tea partiers.

What’s weird about O’Donnell is that, like Paladino, she has no chance of winning, yet people keep focusing on her anyway all around the country.

Anyway, good post.

I agree with the author of the article you linked to, who writes that the success of dingbats demeans us all–but there have always been plenty of dingbat d00ds in American politics. It’s only the women who get called out for being dingbats.

and GayProf: I think cookie symbology is so powerful precisely because they (cookies) are so useless. They symbolize the application of feminine leisure time to preparing a nutritionally inessential food with mostly decorative value. What better use of women’s time, since they sure as heck shouldn’t be in the workforce or paid for their labor? That’s how women should be judged.

When d00dz prepare and offer food to the press corps–as John McCain does, regularly inviting reporters to his house for a BBQ, and as Bush II did while President–it’s always something substantial: ribs, chicken, etc. Protein-rich food that is worthy of a man’s time and energy!

Joe Klein is not “about 30 years too late”; he’s just plain sexist and misogynous. And not alone among the pundits.