If verbal sleights (or microaggressions) are equal to violence against women — and if you’ve been paying attention to the current state of college campuses, they are — then President Obama is one of the worst offenders in modern history, if not ever.
Exhibit A: Yesterday, Senate Democrats blocked a trade bill supported by Obama and Republicans (yes, you read that correctly). Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., led the revolt by Democrats. On Saturday, Obama said the following of Warren:
“The truth of the matter is that Elizabeth is, you know, a politician like everybody else. And you know, she’s got a voice that she wants to get out there. And I understand that.”
Did you see the sexism? Did you see it? Those three sentences are teeming with sexism so wrong, so disrespectful, I’m surprised the outrage brigade isn’t calling for his head.
Of course, if you didn’t see the sexism, you’re not alone. Apparently, when Obama called Warren “a politician like everybody else,” he was somehow singling her out because of her gender and not, you know, treating her just like every other male and female politician.
The first suggestion that this was sexism came from Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio. He called Obama’s above description “disrespectful” toward Warren, especially that part about her being a politician.
“I think by just calling her ‘another politician,'” Brown said when asked how Obama had been disrespectful. “I’m not going to get into more details. I think referring to her as first name, when he might not have done that for a male senator, perhaps? I’ve said enough.”
So now calling a woman by her first name is sexist. (You must all call me Schow from now on, if you can pronounce it correctly.) And I guess when Obama said “Harry” – referring to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid – he was being…what exactly? Anti-Mormon?
Are we supposed to use AP style in our conversations now?
For good measure, the president of the National Organization for Women, Terry O’Neill, agreed with Brown.
“Yes, I think it is sexist,” O’Neill said. “I think the president was trying to build up his own trustworthiness on this issue by convincing us that Sen. Warren’s concerns are not to be taken seriously. But he did it in a sexist way.”
Remember, that “sexist way” is the three sentences from Obama quoted earlier.
O’Neill added that Obama’s “clear subtext is that the little lady just doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” Or he could just disagree with her politically, but that’s a ludicrous suggestion, right? In the Obama era, a large segment of the media has dedicated itself to proving that such disagreements are always cover for some kind of bigoted attitude.
This is just Obama’s most recent brush with sexism. After all, this is a man who has been waging his own “war on women” for years. In 2013, he was considering replacing Debbie Wasserman Schultz as head of the Democratic National Committee, which is about as sexist a thing as anyone could do. Wasserman Schultz was prepared to call him out on it in such terms. Luckily for Obama, she was mollified by the patriarchy and allowed to keep her job.
And let’s not forget May 2008, when then-Sen. Obama called a female reporter “sweetie” during a visit to a Chrysler plant in Sterling Heights, Pa. A month earlier, he had called a female factory worker in Allentown, Pa., “sweetie” as well. And don’t forget his famous sexist response to Hillary Clinton: “You’re likable enough, Hillary.”
That’s a seven-year history of sexism for Obama.
