Since I am on vacation and people have been telling me that I don’t know how to relax, I have now spent quite a bit of time reading blogs online and reacquainting myself with the political climate in America. i have a long way to go to understand the nuances of the situation. There was a quote by Susan B. Anthony that I enjoyed: “No self respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party that ignores he”. In researching this quote, I found a post on democracyforamerican.com (http://www.democracyforamerica.com/blog_posts/25524-the-co-opting-and-misquoting-of-susan-b-anthony) that discusses the origins of the quote. The author goes on to provide the full context of the quote. She was talking about the Republican party and about its refusal to grant her the right to vote. He/she then argues that this quote is being misrepresented because the Democratic party is not denying women the right to vote. Here’s where my annoyance level shoots through the roof. The quote, as excerpted from the bigger passage, is not used to imply that the democratic party denied women the right to vote. It’s used to imply that the democratic party stood by and allowed the rampant sexism that occurred during the primary season. It is used to imply that the democratic party stood by and clamored for Hillary Clinton to quit running before the primaries were done! Oh, and get this: The author uses the fact that he/she called women voters in Pennsylvania while campaigning for Barack Obama and discovered that they were excited that for once their votes in the Pennsylvania primaries counted as proof that the democratic party did in fact stand up for women. Um….HELLO!!!! If Hillary Clinton had not adamantly refused to step out of the race until all primary contests were held, the democratic party (I should really say the powers that be in the democratic party) would have been ecstatic. The excitement these women felt had nothing to do with the democratic party. Rather it was Senator Clinton’s willingness to stand up to the ridicule from members of her OWN political party and continue the contest.
I couldn’t resist posting this. The more I read about this stuff, the more irritated I get. The really sad thing is that even when obvious and rampant sexism was brought to the forefront of the national consciousness, people are still able to hid behind such pathological denial of its existence.