It's Baaack
by digby
Last week-end Blue America candidate Roxanne Conlin (running against Chuck "pull the plug on grandma" Grassley)appeared on a Netroots Nation panel about the unique issues female candidates face and she brought up the fact that a local right wing blogger had done a post recently about her breasts. She didn't go into details, but I assumed it was one of those prissy "is she inappropriately wearing V-neck blouses in court" sort of thing. But it turns out that it was much more disgusting than that:
Question Two: I knew that Roxanne Conlin was a big D, but is she naturally that big of a D?
Answer: Talk about awkward. I think the only way we will ever know for sure is if we break into Dr. G’s office and see if she has been enhanced. That said seeing the picture of her in the parade is like gawking at a traffic accident. You know what I mean, it grosses you out, makes you sick, but you can’t help but notice. It’s probably a good thing she doesn’t walk the parade route…
I don't think I need to elaborate on how many ways that is revolting.
But get a load of the update:
Colin shocked the audience when she said, “Last week, as you know I’m a candidate for the U.S. Senate. Last week, a Republican blogger, a very influential blogger in the state of Iowa, wrote a whole blog about my breasts. Complete with pictures, with pictures. (The audience gasped, some even cried out ‘oh nos’) This actually happened, I know, I was there.” Later she went on to say, “Women progressives have to be really tough, really tough, especially if people are looking at your pictures.”
Beep, Beep, Beep, back the truck up Roxanne.
First, the blog post that you are referring to was 689 words long. Of that, I devoted 96 words to the picture of you in the West Des Moines parade. The article also mentioned Governor Chet Culver’s appearance in the same parade, but the bulk of the story dealt with the Des Moines Register’s obsession about people who live in dilapidated trailers.
Second, Roxanne’s comments make it seem like I posed a picture of just her breasts, not a picture of her waving to people in a parade. There is a big difference. Heck, she makes it sound like it was some dirty magazine shoot or something. Gross.
I actually think that Roxanne is glad that I wrote what I did a few weeks back. Her entire campaign is based around either her or women in general being victims. Whether you like it or not, perception and appearance matters in the political arena. Voters and members of the media will always scrutinize candidates of any gender, weight, ethnicity or dialect. If you wear an ugly a$$ tie in a debate, you are probably going to hear about it the next day. Show a little too much skin, like Governor Culver did when he walks a triathlon, you will probably see and hear about it.
What a disingenuous person this fellow "Krusty" is. Conlin did not imply in any way that she had posed topless for this piece of work, so that obnoxious "rationalization" is absurd (and repulsive.) And the fact that he wrote about items other than her breasts in his Q and A does not mitigate the fact that that his only item in the post about her was about her breasts. And that item was insulting, crude and sexist.
Yes, politics is a nasty business and I'm sure that having his tie criticized is very painful for many male candidates. But I hardly think it compares to nasty sexual comments about a woman's body and immature nasty catcalls about personal appearance in general. Comments like these are meant to injure in a very specific, highly personal way and the perpetrators know that. It's a primitive method of pigeon-holing powerful, mature women in a highly restrictive traditional sexual role. And sadly, it seems to be something that macho right wing males need to do for reasons about which we can only speculate.
This episode does once again illustrate just how pervasive and common sexism remains, particularly for women in politics. These men just throw the stuff out there without any conscience or decency. And, as always, they profess the same childish wide-eyed innocence when they are caught at it as they did when mommy caught them with their hands in the cookie jar. But it's just not cute anymore.
Conlin was absolutely right when she said that women have to be very tough. I don't know how they take this sort of thing without resorting to verbal violence.
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