Tag Archives: Fundraising

The kerfuffle over President Obama referring to California
Attorney General Kamala Harris as “the best-looking attorney
general in the country” at a San Francisco fundraising event has
ended with the president apologizing to Harris for “creating a
distraction.” Too bad. The apology was due from the self-righteous
zealots who blew up an innocuous comment into an offense against
womanhood—to the detriment of both women and men.
First, the facts. The scene of the “crime” was not a strictly
professional setting—say, a conference of state attorneys
general—but a fundraiser at a private residence. Its ; relaxed
atmosphere is evident from the fact that Obama also quipped about
the short stature of Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.): after initially
failing to spot Honda in the crowd, he commented, “He’s not a real
tall guy, but he’s a great guy.” Obama and Harris are longtime
friends, and she did not seem remotely offended by his compliment.
And, far from implying that her worth came only from her looks, the
president had opened by praising Harris as “brilliant,” “tough,”
and “exactly what you’d want in anybody who is administering the
law.”
This is the remark left-of-center pundits decried as “sexist”
and requiring “gender
sensitivity training.” What makes it so bad, critics say, is
that historically beauty was often seen as woman’s chief asset, and
even today women’s quest for equality can be hampered when they are
judged on looks rather than merit. Salon.com editor Joan
Walsh, who wrote that her “stomach turned” over Obama’s
comment, also cites Harris’s own history: when she ran for San
Francisco District Attorney in 2003, some of her rival’s supporters
insinuated that she had slept her way to the top (earlier, Harris
had been romantically linked to California Assembly Speaker and
then San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown). Walsh acknowledges that
these smears didn’t hurt Harris: she won.
This deplorable history of sexism is very real. Yet to insist
that any mention of a woman’s attractiveness must therefore be
off-limits in any work-related setting is, in effect, to let sexism
win. Such a taboo subtly perpetuates, rather than undercut, the
notion that a beautiful woman is unlikely to be smart or competent
(after all, even to acknowledge her beauty implies it’s the sole
basis of her success!). It also promotes a blatant double standard:
since men do not face the same cultural burden of being “the fair
sex,” a female politician can compliment a man’s good looks with
impunity. (Would eyebrows have been raised if Hillary Clinton had
referred to San Francisco’s mayor Gavin Newsom as the country’s
best-looking mayor?)
Somewhat similar issues of women and sexuality in the workplace
have been raised by another recent brouhaha known as
“donglegate.” ; Computer technology specialist and blogger
Adria Richards was attending a presentation at a tech conference
when she
took offense to an overheard conversation between two men
behind her: they were making jokes that hinted at the sexual
connotations of technical terms such as “forking” and “dongle.”
Without telling them she was upset, she snapped a photo of the
“offenders” and sent it out on Twitter (where she has some 10,000
followers), noting, “Not cool” and asking conference staff to
intervene. The men were ejected; one, a father of three employed by
the conference sponsor, was later fired because the company felt
his conduct was at odds with its commitment to “gender
equality.”
Richards received a lot of hate messages, including at least one
creepy death threat; then she too lost her job over the
controversy. Many
women in tech, while agreeing that sexism is a problem in the
industry, felt that Richards had done them a disservice by making
such a public mountain out of a molehill. Yet feminist ;and
left-wing blogs ;supported her; the website Jezebel.com

ran a headline slamming the two hapless jokesters as “sexist
dudes.” Fordham University communications professor Alice Marwick

wrote that while a “dongle joke” may be trivial, Richards’s
perception of its harm was justified by the tech world’s
“structural sexism.”
This looks like startlingly neo-Victorian paternalism: mild
suggestive remarks, not directed at an individual woman or at women
in general, are presumed so offensive to women as to warrant swift
retribution. Of course, no one who has worked in a mixed-sex
environment seriously believes that women don’t make sexual jokes
or comments in work settings. But that’s where the double standard
comes in: unlike the Victorian lady, the modern feminist who
demands such protections needn’t shun bawdy humor herself. Richards
has
made male anatomy jokes on her Twitter feed, which she uses
professionally. When men make them, though, it’s apparently a
female-excluding assertion of male privilege.
The logic here is similar to that of the outcry over Obama’s
“gaffe”: since our culture has a history of demeaning women by
reducing them to sex objects, the slightest whiff of sexuality or
sexual speech in the workplace disempowers women and creates a
hostile environment. But this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of
female fragility: women cannot be accepted as equals if their
special sensitivities require constant protection—whether those
sensitivities are seen as the product of nature or culture. What’s
more, taboos and double standards inevitably invite backlash.
Both of these much-ados-about-nothing also reinforce the worst
stereotypes of feminists: as humorless, speech-policing puritans
intent on keeping men on a tight leash. Feminists may sneer at men
who think it’s their sacred right to tell penis jokes in a
professional environment; but how many women would be pleased to
find themselves pilloried for “inappropriate” banter within the
earshot of an offended male? When did stripping the workplace of
all personal, friendly, even frivolous interaction—particularly in
an age of increasing work-life overlap—become progressive?
A hundred years ago, anarchist feminist Emma Goldman famously
said that she did not want to be part of any revolution that would
not allow dancing. Likewise, not only men but quite a few women
women want no part of a feminist revolution if it bans innocent
compliments and silly off-color jokes.
A version of this
originally appeared at RealClearPolitics. … Read More