Kathleen Parker is complaining about double standards among both feminsits and conservative women’s groups:
Bill Clinton did have sex with that woman while holding the highest office in the land. He clearly was enjoying one of the perks of power while helping to advance policies that punished lesser mortals for inferior infractions. As a matter of principle, the feminists might have condemned the behavior. (They were mum.)
As for Schwarzenegger, he does have a reputation at least as titillating as Bill Clinton once had, based not on made-up media reports but on the claims of real women from his past. Yet the same crowd that rallied for Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers, Juanita Broaddrick and others can’t find anything believable among the women who claim that Schwarzenegger groped them.
I’ve got several problems with this.
First of all, Parker seems to assume that all feminist groups (and conservative women’s groups) are interchangeable. For instance, one of the feminist groups she criticizes for attacking Schwarzenegger but not Clinton is CodePink. But CodePink didn’t even exist during Clinton’s administration, so blaming them for not leaping on Monicagate seems unwarranted. Similarly, did the California Federation of Republican Women really criticize Clinton for his treatment of women? Parker doesn’t say, but without establishing that, criticizing the CFRW for their double-standard is premature.
Second, even looking at feminist groups that existed during Clinton’s reign, the idea that they didn’t say a word about Clinton is an antifeminist myth. NOW, for instance, criticized Clinton in harsher terms than any other liberal group I know of: “[Clinton] seems to be a man who divides women into two unfortunate traditional categories: women he must treat with respect like Janet Reno, Madeleine Albright and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and those he can use and toss aside like tissue paper. We would like better options for president in the future.”
The real complaint seems to be that NOW and other feminists criticized Clinton but did not call for impeachment. But how is that hypocritical? Plenty of right-wing politicians have committed adultery without NOW calling for their impeachment, after all.
Third, there’s an important difference between a candidate for office and a sitting President. Asking “is this candidate a person of good character or a scumbag?” is reasonable during an election, when such criticism might have the practical effect of keeping a scumbag out of office. Once a scumbag is in office, however, yelling “scumbag” over and over won’t change who is in office. When dealing with a sitting president, it makes more sense to criticize his policies than his character, because the policies are much more susceptible to change.
Good post and conclusion.
“He clearly was enjoying one of the perks of power while helping to advance policies that punished lesser mortals for inferior infractions.”
1. He was, amorally.
2. Which policies? What inferior infractions to consensual adult sex was Clinton punishing with his policies? I’d truly like to know. Because this sounds like routine empty grandstanding.
Well, from my (female, feminist) perspective, Clinton had consensual sex with a woman. She may have been an idiot, as witnessed by her later efforts to cash in on the incident, but no one argued that she wasn’t perfectly willing at the time.
Any question of wrongdoing was personal and was, quite frankly, no one’s business but Clinton’s and his wife’s and never should have been turned into a media circus. He should never have been asked about the incident publicly, nor should the hypocritical press and establishment acted as though illicet sex in the White House was a new and astonishing phenomenon.
(I’m not saying I approve of extramarital sex. I’m saying that it’s none of MY business when it’s someone else’s marriage. It’s their business.)
On the other hand, the women discussing Schwarzenegger have made it clear that they neither invited nor enjoyed his groping. He has committed actual harrassment and shows no remorse. If I lived in California, I’d be active in working against his candidacy.
Even if you believe that the Lewinsky affair was fully consensual (which doesn’t take into account power differentials), you still can’t ignore the Paula Jones case, which was, with no question whatsoever, sexual harrassment.
As for the article, typical Kathleen Parker. The woman purposely twists facts as much as she can, I swear. She’s done several articles about and “supported by” the Ms. boards — where she quotes posters completely out of context so that it looks like the opposite of what they are saying. [And, I suspect, that she has posed as a Ms. board poster in order to troll and get the responses she’s looking for – too many coincidences, otherwise.
bean, if both Clinton and Lewinsky (and Tripp and Goldberg, for that matter) tell us the affair was consensual, why should we be skeptical simply because of the (admittedly huge) disparity in their power? can “consensual” affairs only occur between people of roughly equal standing?
(by the way, i’m not necessarily disagreeing with you; but i hear this idea often — especially concerning Clinton/Lewinsky — and i’m wondering if you could flesh it out a bit.)
Is there more to support Paula Jones’s claim than her statement that it happened? That’s all I’ve heard quoted, but I’ve never studied the case.
Parker’s a piece of work. She described Scwarzenegger shoving one woman into a wall after she tried to fight him off, and pulling a woman’s breast out of her clothes hard enough to leave her visibly buised and terrified as “groping”, as some naughty consensual game instead of a violent crime.
That asshole’s a sexual batterer. He should not only never be governor, he should have been jailed long ago.
And, if Clinton really did rape anyone, throw him in the same cell. However, the Schwarzenegger crimes have far, far more witnesses, many of whom I hope and pray will come forward over the next several months.
Re: Schwarzenegger pulling that woman’s breasts under her blouse. I’ve only heard that one producer talk about it. Is there further evidence of the incident? Because if it’s only the one witness, there’s good reason to be skeptical.
At least five separate incidents of violence against women at various television events are discussed in the Democracy Now report (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/29/1417241&tid=30) The incident where a woman’s breasts were exposed was witnessed by an entire soundstage of people.
John Connoly’s famous March 2001 Premiere Magazine article, “Arnold the Barbarian” is available at http://www.livejournal.com/users/scripty/66604.html or http://www.slumdance.com/blogs/brian_flemming/archives/000300.html
(Information about Schwarzenegger’s Enron connections and other condemning information not necessarily related to violence is available at: http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/081903G.shtml and http://www.utne.com/web_special/web_specials_2003-08/articles/10757-1.html
My feeling for some time now has been that a lot of young women in Hollywood are being quietly reminded of their hopes for a career. But this evening a new thought struck me: perhaps women are calling or visiting media offices and being rebuffed. The story is that Premiere Magazine’s editor was fired after “Arnold the Barbarian”, other media may be avoiding that risk. Since there is film footage of Arnold molesting a female interviewer, this is not all smoke and no fire. He is a pig.
Yeah, and Jamie Lee Curtis, whom I used to have some respect for, has come out defending the Pig’s character. Blecch. :(
I hate Jamie Lee Curtis. She was really mean to my brother when he was working as a PA for Norm, and the one time I saw her in person and avoided her, she kind of gave me this look like, “What, do you not realize that I am Jamie Lee Curtis! Why do you not bow before me and offer me a tenth of your harvest in sacrifice.” That, plus her in all those damn Sprint PCS commercials were really annoying.
Sorry, went on a tyrade. The most important thing there is that she was all mean to my brother. And I hate her.
Oh, and Kell, thanks for clearing that up. Now I know there’s more confirmation about the Sperminator.
Getting back to the original issue in question, don’t you think it’s at least slightly hypocritical to condemn a person for being a sexual predator unless you explicitly also condemn every other person who’s ever been a sexual predator in the entire history of time? That’s my complaint with NOW. They missed a spot.
If we could expell every adulterer, not to mention every sexual predator, from D.C., I have the feeling the House, Senate, and so on would be little ghost towns in very short order. :p
There’s a pretty big difference between an adulterer and a sexual predator. One’s an asshole; the other’s possibly insane, but definitely a violent criminal. Please, please, please can we stop falling for CNN’s trick of making rape and battery equivalent to having an affair. Is women’s safety back to being that unimportant? I’m all for getting all the violent criminals out of Washington. And, if that means D.C. turns into a ghost town, there are plenty of survivors ready to move in and remake the country.
By some acounts, Kell, Clinton was both adulteror and predator. Not trying to be disrespectful to you or anything. But Amp’s written a fair amount about it. You just need to dig a bit.
“By some acounts, Kell, Clinton was both adulteror and predator. Not trying to be disrespectful to you or anything. But Amp’s written a fair amount about it. You just need to dig a bit.”
I’m not disagreeing with that. I’m objecting to the continual linking of “affairs” and “groping” (implying mutual consent) with rape or sexual battery. I’m seeing plenty of arguments that Scwarzenegger’s violence should be ignored because “sex” is nobody else’s business, everybody does it, etc. WE’RE NOT TALKING ABOUT CONSENTUAL SEX. We’re talking about some maniac grabbing the bodies of women he’s known less than 24 hours, and, in some cases, engaging in acts that leave them injured and terrified. That’s not “sex”, or “adultury” or “an affair”. It’s criminal violence.
Another illustration — this sentence also doesn’t make sense.
“If we could expell everybody who yells during debates, not to mention every murderer, from D.C., I have the feeling the House, Senate, and so on would be little ghost towns in very short order.”
“Yelling during debates” is nowhere near murder in terms of the level of social transgression/crime. One is common, if undesireable human behavior; the other is unacceptable and every tool in our society (in theory, anyway) has been and must continue to be used to stop it. Speaking of “adultury” as if it’s equivalent to sexual predation is equally as suspect. We may never be able to keep romantic relationships free of lies, but we must use every tool of law enforcement and social condemnation to stop sexual violence. But, we’re being instructed and fooled on a daily basis by the overall mysogyny and more recently the (non)coverage of Scwarzenegger’s violence to think of them as equivalents.
(Sigh.) I neither said, nor meant, that they were “equivalent.” And your parallel phrase is stupid. Adultery and sexual predation at least both involve sex-related acts. What does yelling have to do with murder ?Perhaps “assault” and “murder” would be valid, because while they’re not exactly the same, they do have some commonalities. Both involve physical violence.
Now kindly get the fuck off my back.
“Adultery and sexual predation at least both involve sex-related acts.”
Again, no they do not. Even if for the criminal sexual predation involves some sort of sexual feeling, for the victim sexual predation is only about the threat and actuality of death or injury. If we’re thinking of adultery and sexual predation as being part of the same continuum, we’re thinking with the criminal’s mind, not the victim’s. And, the more we think with the criminal’s mind, the further and further that criminal behavior gets to being thought of as unimportant, minor, or even socially acceptable.
I can’t blaim Amy S. for falling into this trap, when it’s all over the news and the culture. However, especially in a forum like this where such patterns of discussion and mindset don’t go unexamined, I have to point it out.
Kell, okay, you have a point, but I still think you’re drawing too much significance on Amy’s (alis37’s?) original post. If you notice, it directly follows my post criticizing NOW for “missing a spot”. Now, obviously this was meant as humor by exaggeration of Kathleen Parker’s arguments, and Amy merely continued on that general theme. Hence, her implicit equating of adultery and sexual predation was moreso an exaggerated attack on Washington politicians than anything that is to be taken so seriously.
OK, I can live with that. (A lot of this is coming from Dennis Miller calling Scwarzenegger a “good guy” on Leno, and Oprah’s selling out, and the fact that no one’s interviewed Anne Richardson in the U.S. Equivocation is all over the place.)
I’m mistaken for Dennis Miller allllllll the time. Ask anyone.
forgive me for going off topic, but i need my amp fix. why the lack of posting lately?
(that is, ignoring the fact that he got a new house and is preparing to move and that i expect my blog reads to provide entertainment on demand.)
I completely concur with Ms. Lauren. That’s two votes!
You will have to excuse both Amp and myself — we are in the midst of taking down wallpaper and painting, and there’s a lot of it. After that’s all done (and the new carpet is put in), we will finally get around to actually moving into the new house. After that, we’ll both have a lot more free time to blog.
I think that many o fthe men who are suspected of these wrongful acts, but the women who commit these same acts are not reprimanded for these acts. INstead, they are condoned and they usually do them again on numerous occasions.
Ben, not to put too fine a point on it, you’re full of crap. Maybe you should read Ehrenreich’s column again.
When you’re done, perhaps you’d like to produce the stats on how many prominent Hollywood actresses have publically bragged about how fun it is to shove a man’s head down the toilet. Perhaps you’d like to find all the articles in *Entertainment Weekly* and so forth about men on film sets who’ve had their pecs and/or other body parts forcibly fondled by these actresses while their entourage looks on and snickers.
A hint: “Women Do It, Too,” is not a legitimate argument, especially when you are unwilling or unable to site any proof. Even with proof, however, you wouldn’t prove the Termingroper’s fitness to rule. Only that some women are likewise unfit to rule.
Buzz off.
Pingback: Pacific Views
Pingback: Pacific Views