In a column entitled “Sarah Palin Naked” Michael Seitzman writes:
I realized three things tonight. For one, if you are a McCain/Palin/Bush voter, you and I do not have a difference of opinion. We have a difference in brain power. Two, she really is as ignorant as I feared. And, three, she really is kinda hot. Basically, I want to have sex with her on my Barack Obama sheets while my wife reads aloud from the Constitution. (My wife is cool with this if I promise to “first wipe off Palin’s tranny makeup.” I married well.)
But this is not at all sexist, says Michael Seitzman, and in a follow up column entitled “Sexist? Not So Fast” he schools us dumb feminist bitches on what sexism is, since he’s so much smarter and more knowledgeable about sexism than we are, writing:
I wrote something that a few people call offensive in a post of mine today. Granted, it’s pretty offensive. But if you think I’m going to apologize for it, you’re out of your mind. In case you missed it, the offending line is, “I want to have sex with her [Palin] on my Barack Obama sheets while my wife reads aloud from the Constitution.” In my business there’s an old expression, “Never cut funny.” And, excuse me, but that one’s kinda funny. The debate over whether I’m sexist is somewhat more serious.
“Sexism” is discrimination or unfairly diminishing someone based on gender. I haven’t discriminated against Sarah Palin based on her gender and I haven’t diminished her based on it. She’s diminished based on her intellect and experience and hubris and because they’re using her gender in such a crass and cynical manner. I’m discriminating against her based on that fact and that she has as much business on the national political stage as Alice from the Brady Bunch.
I don’t give a damn whether Palin has a penis or a vagina. When I wrote about Hillary Clinton during the primary I didn’t comment on her gender. I don’t care about her gender. Let me point out that I wrote an entire movie about sexual harassment (North Country — click on the link over there on the right side of your screen). Don’t you get it? I’m not insulting Sarah Palin, SHE IS INSULTING ME.
I wondered why I found the movie North Country so terrible, and its portrayals of women so hackneyed, offensive and false, and now I know. It was written by a man who degrades and diminishes a woman he disagrees with as someone with “tranny make up” who he wants to “have sex with” and he belligerently denies that is sexist. He claims not to care “whether Palin has a penis or a vagina” but I’m thinking that given he has said he wants to have sex with her, he’s lying. To further illustrate how incredibly un-sexist he is, Seitzman follows up with this appalling observation:
Imagine for a moment that McCain had picked the latest winner of The Bachelor as his running mate. Would we be sexist if we commented on her looks? Of course not. Sorry if you don’t like it, but in my mind, there’s not much that separates Sarah Palin from the attractive yet vapid winner of a reality show. As far as I’m concerned, she IS the attractive yet vapid winner of a reality show.
I do not want to share a political affiliation with Michael Seitzman. If writing things like this makes him a good Democrat, I’m so out of the party. And I know I am not alone.
–Ann Bartow
And people are surprised that women would leave the Democratic party?
If anything, the selection of Palin is bringing to light what many of us already knew- that sexism is not limited to the radical right.
Indeed, Ann and Fannie. There is nothing more annoying than a so-called “leftist” man who doesn’t get feminism or sexism, and gets angry when his offensiveness and ignorance is called out. There is such a thing as acknowledging that you’ve crossed a line in your writing, and apologizing. But, I guess that’s just not a Hollywood Alpha-male way to be.
“he or I” and to answer the question, “democrat” is an ugly shade of lipstick on this chauvanist pig. His desire to rape Palin is typical pig response to a woman who has a brain and speaks. That he expresses and fails to apologize for this desire is disgusting. That he is able to coin a definition of sexism that doesn’t include rape removes all credibility he’s trying to claim on the subject.
UGH! I gave up identifying as a Democrat long ago (even though I still hold my nose and pull the lever when necessary). But it really pisses me off that I have to share a gender with creeps like this.
Margaret Cho gets taken to task for saying the same thing as Seitzman:
http://www.womanist-musings.com/2008/09/margaret-cho-colluder-of-week-tap-that.html
This guy’s defining label isn’t “Democrat” its “pig.” People who label themselves as Democrats are just as capable of being sexist or racist as those who label themselves as Republicans. This election season has outed a lot people. We’ve discovered a lot of “progressives” who are racist, sexist, or both. We’ve also seen how important critiques such as calling out sexism against Palin can be deployed by cynical Republicans who have worked their entire political careers on an anti-woman agenda and are claiming to be offended by sexism.
Seitzman’s comments evince a very frightening societal shift to shock and awe irrational thinking (often couched with humor.) Not only are his comments sexist, but they are somewhat obviously internally inconsistent. He says he does not care about gender, but his desire to have sex with Palin is inextricably linked to her gender and genitalia (which he says he does not care about, but he genitalia is the focus of his plainly stated desire to have sex with her). His comments are sexist and irrational. Yet his attack dog approach ignores rational thought process. It is reminiscent of Rush and other shock jocks and now more main stream alleged experts that scream irrational comments loudly and often enough that the people on the street somehow are convinced to believe them even though they are nonsense. This thought pattern has become pervasive and is terribly dangerous. I see frightening evidence of this in our current financial crisis and anti-immigrant, anti-elitist sentiment. This type of thinking is also reminiscent of pre-Holocaust Europe where irrational positions were forced onto a vulnerable population who accepted topic propaganda and atrocities resulted . . .
Seitzman’s comments evince a very frightening societal shift to shock and awe irrational thinking (often couched with humor.) Not only are his comments sexist, but they are somewhat obviously internally inconsistent. He says he does not care about gender, but his desire to have sex with Palin is inextricably linked to her gender and genitalia (which he states with precision that he does not care about, but her genitalia is the focus of his plainly stated desire to have sex with her). His comments are sexist and irrational. Yet his attack dog approach ignores rational thought process. It is reminiscent of Rush and other shock jocks and now more main stream alleged experts that scream irrational comments loudly and often enough that the people on the street somehow are convinced to believe them even though they are nonsense. This thought pattern has become pervasive and is terribly dangerous. I see frightening evidence of this in our current financial crisis and anti-immigrant, anti-elitist sentiment. This type of thinking is also reminiscent of pre-Holocaust Europe where irrational positions were forced onto a vulnerable population who accepted toxic propaganda and atrocities resulted . . .
Thanks, Ann, for highlighting this schmuck’s commentary because it is, unfortunately, typical of others. I was so angry after I read it that I wrote my own blog post in response (see http://hunterforjustice.typepad.com/hunter_of_justice/2008/09/arrogant-obnoxious-and-profoundly-stupid-arguments-for-obama.html). Frankly, I think Huf Post also deserves some criticism – if it is going to function as a mouthpiece of advocacy for the Obama campaign, the editors ought to set higher standards for content.
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