The Loud Silence Of Feminists (Angry that feminists don't defend Michelle Obama)

Washington Post ^ | June 21, 2008 | Mary C. Curtis

[tlb]

Michelle Obama has become an issue in the presidential campaign even though she isn't running for anything.

And this black woman is wondering: Where are Obama's feminist defenders?

But just as you didn't have to be for Clinton to decry the sexism in the coverage of her campaign, you don't have to be an Obama supporter to defend Michelle Obama against similar treatment.

So I want to know: What does Gloria Steinem think? She was out front with her support of Clinton, promoting the importance of a female president.

How about Geraldine Ferraro, the former vice presidential nominee whose racially tinged denunciations of Barack Obama sparked a media firestorm?

The campaign against Michelle Obama -- who went on "The View" this week to prove her everywoman bona fides -- has not caused a rift between black and white women so much as it has exposed it.

I've long been frustrated, as a black woman and a feminist, with our national conversation. I didn't hear the cause speaking up for women of color or for women who have always worked in blue-collar or service jobs. Choice was not their issue.

The woman who employed my educated mother to clean her house never quite saw her as a sister in the struggle for equality.

Just as the Rutgers women's basketball team was miscast by Don Imus, Obama is being labeled something she clearly is not. Her achievements are being dismissed.

But in America, there's seldom a cost for disrespecting black women.

I'm waiting for feminists who speak of second-class citizenship and being pushed to the back of the bus to remember the civil rights movement that gave birth to those words.

Okay, I get it: Your candidate lost. You're angry.

But frankly, I'm getting a little peeved myself.

[tlb]

Placing this and similar complaints back and forth in context, it's difficult to buy a 15 point lead over McCain.

[Parley Baer]

Defend her against making racist statements and bonehed commnents. I don’t think so.

[AliVeritas]

She’s kidding... right?

[yongin]

Feminists will glady defend Michelle once she says how proud she is of the Supreme Court for legalizing abortion.

[hsalaw]

The feminist agenda isn’t about supporting women - if it were, they’d be supporting the war on terror because it is bringing freedom and basic human rights to the women of Iraq and Afghanistan for the first time ever. No, the feminst agenda is about attacking and denigrating men.

[Jagman]

When one’s husband pretty effectively b!tchslaps the head b!tch, one should not expect the other b!itches to get on said husband’s bus!

[Lancey Howard]

"Oooo.... My inner black panther is about to erupt, yo."

[hinckley buzzard]

The woman who employed my educated mother to clean her house never quite saw her as a sister in the struggle for equality.

Whining a-hole. I wonder what her "educated mother" would have done for a living if the nice lady hadn't employed her. This ignorant fleamale has a serious case of the terminal pms.

[Lancey Howard]

"Word."

[socialismisinsidious]

But in America, there's seldom a cost for disrespecting black women.

Huh? Not fawning all over Michelle b/c she went to college and b/c she's half way intelligent is disrespecting? Not being able to defend stupid-ass comments that she has made is disrespecting? I would think making a big deal every time an educated black person comes along would be disrespectful....I would think defending someone, not b/c they are right but b/c of the color of their skin or their sex would be disrespectful.

Liberalism is a mental disorder.

I didn't hear the cause speaking up for women of color or for women who have always worked in blue-collar or service jobs. Choice was not their issue.

Yes honey (don't get your shorts in a sexism bunch. I'm a woman) choice was their issue. They choose not to work hard, they choose not to do well in school, they choose not to change their life. Don't want to work in a blue-collar job? Then educate yourself, start your own business, get yourself up off the couch and change your life!

Why would being on The View cause a rift or expose a rift between...never mind, I don't really care

[Earthdweller]

Politics is a street brawl and it looks like in the Obama camp, the men control the street and the woman control the house. Someone needed to tell her to “keep quiet”, “take her place” and get a “makeover” on the “view”./s Looks like it worked.

[Salvation]

Sorry, but you could not PAY me to defend Michelle Obama.

Not First Lady quality at all.

[okie01]

No, the feminst agenda is about attacking and denigrating men.

Make that 'conservative men'.

Feminists have no objections to the liberal castrati.

[HIDEK6]

Does this woman actually think that feminists care about black people?

[Ronin]

Put some ice on it, Mary.

[razorback-bert]

The woman who employed my educated mother to clean her house never quite saw her as a sister in the struggle for equality.

I don't know what to say about that statement, I have heard the "I am educated" quickly followed by the stupidest statements.

[SweetCaroline]

But frankly, I'm getting a little peeved myself.

That is the problem with most of you black women, your always PI$$ED!

Thats why your black men don't stay with you, nothing but whining comes out of your mouth.

....and I know, because I went to high school with many of you in Detroit.

[antiunion person]

Let's not open mouth and insert foot. Let's open mouth and insert shotgun, there Michelle.

[snakedriver]

It’s typical behavior of African American women. I don’t see it so much in non-American black women. Blame the welfare state for this one too. And Oprah.

[Earthdweller]

Feminists will glady defend Michelle once she says how proud she is of the Supreme Court for legalizing abortion.

No they won't, she looks like a fifties 'happy days' version of a politician's wife..."Sit down, shut up and look pretty". An African American stepford wife. (Sanford, "Get back in yo cave you ol' bat!").

Hillary was their hope.