The dumbest article this election cycle is here with Rebecca Bohanan’s “Unpopular Opinion: The Bernie vs. Hillary Battle All Boils Down to Sexism” for xoJane.
“Do you personally know even one straight white man backing Clinton this election?” Bohanan asks.
The answer is yes, plenty.
Bohanan can’t relate, as she writes that “I don’t know any straight white men who are voting for nor vocally supporting Clinton.” Bohanan expects personal experiences to support her overreaching claim that this campaign must be all about sexism.
White straight men do support Hillary. Perhaps the list was too encompassing for Bohanan to notice, but it’s dishonest to deny these men exist.
Bohanan defends comments from Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Albright about young women who do not support Hillary, and then wrote, with original emphasis “they retracted their statements when — in a twist no one saw coming — people actually had the nerve to call Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Albright‘s comments sexist.”
The comments were made before the New Hampshire primaries. Hillary lost terribly to Sanders even among young women. It’s more like cause-and-effect than a twist.
Not only is it all about sexism, but Bohanan is the only one who gets to decide who is a sexist and who makes sexist comments.
Bohanan rushes to cite The New York Times and The Washington Post to assert that “white men have been the only demographic to consistently resist voting for Hillary during the primaries.”
She hasn’t examined the exit polls then. Hillary often wins or just barely loses with men and whites, and she loses terribly with young voters. That she’s lost millennials in all but a handful of states sounds pretty consistent.
Bohanan writes that white men aren’t ready for a woman president. Perhaps they’re waiting for the first woman president who aligns more with their views, one who isn’t considered unlikable or dishonest? But sexism fits more conveniently into Bohanan’s narrative.
It’s not enough for Bohanan to criticize those who had the (mis)fortune of being born white, straight, and male because, in referencing Steinem and Albright, she writes “young democratic women who do not yet appreciate how much straight white males (consciously or subconsciously) resist change that pertains to the advancement of women do not yet fully understand the difference in being a woman who has fought tooth-and-nail her entire life for the presidency…”
Her rant ends on that point as well:
The worst part doesn’t come from Bohanan herself. Somehow, The Huffington Post found this worthwhile to publish.
