More proof that Toles is the best mainstream political cartoonist…
In contrast, see Pat Oliphant’s very sexist take on the same material.
My friend Kevin Moore, another cartoonist, criticizes Oliphant as well, and discusses my criticism of one of his own cartoons about Clinton, which I had told him was sexist. Kevin seems to have come part of the way to my view on his cartoon: “The image itself – Clinton sobbing in the arms of her husband – resonates far beyond my own intentions and serves to subvert my criticism.” I agree with that; it doesn’t matter how what the cartoonist’s intentions were, when the image used plays so powerfully into sexist stereotyping.
I dunno. I was never into Toles much. I’ll accept that he’s a very popular cartoonist, but he’s a bit overrated, IMO, and not in my list of favorites.
I never followed the original story. What exactly happened in the first place?
Someone asked her something about the campaign and its difficulties and she got very slightly misty (about what Toles shows) while saying that campaigning is hard. It was then blown massively out of proportion by pretty much everybody.
Although, I did see the video of the episode, and, well, her behavior wasn’t presidential. Presidents don’t get to cry because things are hard, and it isn’t sexist to point that out. But on the list of reasons why Hillary Clinton can’t be president, it’s about number seventy-three billion.
Why not?
It’s not sexist to point out sexism, no. It is sexist, however, to support sexism.
Why is “presidents don’t get to cry” sexist? Because “not crying” is a masculine social norm and because there is no evidence linking “does not cry” to “makes good decisions”.
Unless you can show otherwise, of course.
First of all, she didn’t cry.
Second of all, why can’t presidents cry? Bush has cried in office a few times that I recall (for example), and I don’t recall you or anyone else criticizing him based on the “presidents don’t get to cry” rule.
Obviously, there can be too much of anything, including of crying — chronic uncontrollable weeping would impede one’s ability to function in a job that requires frequent interaction with other people. But what Clinton did falls far, far short of that.
Third of all, why wouldn’t “presidents don’t get to cry because things are hard” be a sexist sentiment? That statement isn’t rational, and the particular form of irrational ideology it comes from is gender-laden in a very sexist way. (“crying is weakness” –> “men don’t cry” –> “presidents don’t get to cry”.)
I don’t give a fuck if a president cries, as long as it doesn’t impede their ability to make good decisions and effectively manage.
Ditto for a president who’s unable to cry. But frankly, I’d worry more about a president who isn’t able to cry.
Yeah, both Bush and Mr. Clinton have cried and I don’t think it either raised as much fuss or was used against them.
I remember Patricia Schroedar cried after dropping out of the presidential primaries and you would have thought the world was ending.
Second of all, why can’t presidents cry? Bush has cried in office, and I don’t recall you or anyone else criticizing him based on the “presidents don’t cry” idea.
You’ll also not recall me ever saying that presidents can’t cry.
Third of all, why wouldn’t “presidents don’t get to cry because things are hard” be a sexist sentiment?
Because holding men and women to the same standard isn’t sexist.
So she had a sad reflective moment and people are getting whacked out about it? Figures. This is reason # 56298-A why I don’t pay a lot of attention to stories with headlines like “Hillary cries!”
As far as crying and leadership; if someone shows sorrow in empathy towards someone in a bad situation or a horrible piece of history, that’s one thing. But if someone’s reaction to a horrible situation that they are responsible for solving is to cry instead of doing something effective, that’s a problem. I seem to recall that after the Katrina disaster, either the Governor or the Mayor got on the media and was crying. That’s appropriate in private, perhaps, but for my money (and YMMV) what needs to happen in that kind of situation is inspirational leadership and the projection of a clear vision and a logical course to take to achieve it.
Yeah, I remember the Pat Schroeder thing too, now that you mention it. Again, God forbid that the MSM actually report on something that matters instead of pandering to emotional reactions.
Me:
Ampersand:
That’s anecdotal.
It is, if it’s a standard one gender can more easily meet than another (or which one gender is perceived to be more likely to meet), and it’s irrelevant to the job.
It is, if it’s a standard one gender can more easily meet than another (or which one gender is perceived to be more likely to meet), and it’s irrelevant to the job.
To the first part, nonsense. You have a job, it has a standard of performance, meet it or find a different job. Cry me a river that one arbitrary or organic group will have a differential performance. It’s sexist to presume that one gender’s innate nature is such that they are, as a group, going to be incapable of meeting a reasonable standard for a job. I’ve worked in a lot of industries and I’ve never seen a job standard that most women couldn’t meet, or most men either. Make a standard, treat people fairly within the standard, and damn the distributions.
To the second part, “what the people desire in a leader” is scarcely irrelevant to the job of “leader”. It may be sexist of some people (the majority, I think) not to want the president to publicly cry over personal burdens, but if the people don’t want the president to cry, s/he had better dry up, or find a different line of work. This is a democracy, broadly – demo meaning PEOPLE, not a Daranocracy, meaning you. You get your vote, but so does everybody else – and if any of us think it relevant the President be able to slam-dunk a basketball or rivet an armor plate or host a garden tea, then so be it.
You have now abandoned any part of your first comment that contradicted the post. You have also found yourself required to say that millionaire pundit hatred of Clinton is democracy in action.
If millions of people don’t want a President who’s black, I suppose that would be democracy in action, too.
Sure it can be sexist to hold men and women to the same standard. Specifically, if the standard is sexist. If you expect both men and women not to display characteristics traditionally considered feminine, that sounds pretty sexist to me.
And seriously, what’s wrong with crying? It’s a great stress reliever. Our bodies do it for a reason.
No argument here. Except, again, why is “no crying” a reasonable standard of performance for President?
Whether a product of “innate nature” or of cultural conditioning, women are more prone to crying and to other overt displays of emotion, which tend to connote “weakness” in Anglo-American culture; or, put another way, the culture discourages emotional expression by men with expectations of displaying strength, stoicism.
Is there a chicken-egg thing here? Is crying perceived as “weak” because it is more associated with women? Or are women perceived as “weak” because they are more apt to cry? Either way, it’s damn sexist, because the advantage (a dubious one in some respects; suppressing emotion can be psychologically damaging) falls to men.
Because presidents are human.
I don’t know, but it just seems that part of having a President (as opposed to a king/queen or dictator) is NOT having the expectation that your leader should be all-powerful, superhuman, or Godlike. A President is one of the people, elected by his/her peers.
Along with the acknowledgment that the President is our equal – not a king or a God – comes the acceptance that he/she has human weaknesses like we do. We should expect him/her to carry out the job of President better than any other candidate would (otherwise, why would we vote for him/her?). But I don’t see what it is about crying that would make a President unable to fulfill his/her duties.
Crying is not a sign of weakness or ineptitude. On the contrary, I can think of certain instances where I would think better of a President for crying. A President who would cry over something like 9/11 or Katrina is one who truly cares about this country and the people in it.
I am not someone who believes that emotions are necessarily bad and perversive things that must be separated from official duty. I want a President who governs with his head AND his heart, someone who will truly consider the human impact of his or her decisions, and who will not let millions of people go without health insurance because the mere thought of people dying in ER waiting rooms or getting sent home without treatment simply because they don’t have enough money is enough to make him or her – as it should all of us – teary-eyed.
We need more, not less, human feeling in the White House right now.
The two parts are connected by an “And” operator. You can’t treat them separately.
And if a sufficient number of people want the president to be a white man, should he have to lighten up? Should she have to become male?
In a democracy, the President will be a white man, if that is what a sufficient number of people want, but that doesn’t make it not sexist.
Not in this election.
Nobody is saying “so be it not”. They’re saying it’s sexist.
The edit plugin doesn’t work for me. Could a mod please unbork the preceding comment to close the blockquote after “Demo meaning PEOPLE”.
[Done! –Amp]
Madeleine: I agree with everything you said. But I’m not sure you have answered my question, which for clarity I’ll restate as “Why is crying a sign of poor leadership or weakness in a President?”
Granted, my question is largely rhetorical. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect humans to suppress their emotions just to please narrow definitions of masculinity or “strength”, both of which tend to get conflated. I should also add that there is something WASPish about this “no crying” rule. Cultures outside a Northern European paradigm tend to be much more expressive emotionally, manifested in a variety of ways, from hugging to openly weeping with joy and sorrow.
It may be pointless by now, but I thought I should mention that Clinton did not get emotional about how hard campaigning is. She got emotional over the importance of changing the course of this country. There’s a difference–she wasn’t upset for herself.
Oliphant should be embarrassed that’s he’s become one of the Manchurian Democrats in league with the Obama groupie media, all brainwashed by Rove, Ken Starr and the GOP.