Here is an excerpt:
On the Dec. 19 edition of MSNBC’s “Hardball,” Chris Matthews used language that reveals a troubling bias against women — one that is all too common in the media and is conveyed by the subtle weapon of word choice.
It occurred during a segment about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, which he led off by saying she “may be the frontrunner for the Democrats in 2008 … but she is still playing it coy.”
Webster defines coy as “reluctance to make a definite commitment,” but the first definition, and certainly the connotation, is “cute, coquettish.” Coy is a diminutive, rarely applied to men.
However, this was but a prelude to Matthews’ linguistic disparagement. He then replayed Meredith Vieira’s “Today Show” interview where the Senator called the decision to run an “intensely personal” one she’d make in the new year. When Vieira pressed Clinton, she added, “I’m very honored that people are urging me to run and saying they want to sign up. Yet at the end of the day, I want to be sure that my decision is right for me, for my family, for my party, for my country.”
Cut back to Matthews, who asked, “When is a politician like Hillary Clinton or anyone else going to admit they have the ‘A’ word, ambition, and stop with this coy thing … and just like a striptease … saying she’s flattered by all the attention?”
Striptease?
This is how people talk about women. With lightning speed, Matthews had sexualized the conversation via an out-of-context image. Why? It doesn’t take an analyst to figure it out: a woman in the world’s most powerful position — now that’s scary; but a stripper, well, we can handle that. …
Read the entire essay via Women’s Voices for Change.
Matthews is just really awful regarding women in general, and absolutely insane when it comes to HRC. Of course, that Matthews gets paid for his bigotry just adds insult to injury.
Bleh!