How’s this related to the Obama campaign? If I was part of it, I’d disavow any link. Its a perfect way to piss off more than half your electorate.

There was a similar one of Hague when he was Tory leader at a Countryside Alliance event, IIRC. I think it made the front page of the Guardian at the time.

It’s funny ‘cos it’s true!

I guess people know this is photo shopped – sorry for pointing out the obvious. There’s an identical image of Bush that’s been around for years…

…and sexist to boot IMO. I dont like Clinton much but there’s no need for crap like this.

LOL. This has been around for years. I saw one of G.Bush! I thought it very apt at the time

…and sexist to boot IMO.

How is it sexist? I think it’s a perfect description for some you despise irrelevant of what genitalia they have…

Sorry to be the one to spoil the party, but I think this is disgraceful and you should not have reprinted it: utterly misogynistic and dishonest at the same time. Presumably I’d be expected to laugh if someone had mocked up a picture of Obama with “COON” in the background as well?

Only if Obama was on a platform sponsored by George Clooney.

FFS, it’s a pisstake, lighten up.

If it wasn’t photoshopped I’d agree, Unity, but…

Getting the reference says one thing about each of us, how we responds says another: it’s sexual, not sexist – though society only exists by our level of conformity to the measure of connotation.

There’s nothing like the vulgarity of the lowest common denominator to reinforce instincts, reflect opinions and contextualise our important decisions!

I have to disagree with James Graham, voice of reason, but it isn’t disgraceful, it’s depressingly predictable.

Unity, can you really not see that far from being “subliminal visual humour…” this is just a cheap mysoginist image? It has nothing to do with whether you support Hillary as a candidate and everything to do with how women in public life are viewed.

I expect the daily mail to denigrate women politicians, but when supposedly left liberal bloggers think its funny we really do have problems!

Jeebus, this all puts me in of the last occasion I had some idiot try the ‘is it because I’s black’ routine on me in a meeting because I disagreed with him. As i recall the line he used was along the lines of ‘you don’t like because I’m black, do you?’

He was, to say the least, a little taken aback by my reply.

“No, I don’t like you because you’re a twat and you’d still be a twat if you were white’.

FFS, this isn’t difficult if you put your thinking heads on.

The joke is in the reference to subliminal messages, the Obama campaign and the reference to the ‘anything goes’ style of campaigning in the States, as if the ‘George Clooney’ retort to James doesn’t drive the point home that I’m taking the piss out of the campaign culture in the US – and trust me, if you poke around some of the independently produced material over the pond you’ll find much worst than this.

As for all this ‘misogynist’ image crap, what are trying to suggest here? That’s it wrong to juxtapose and image of any politician with the word ‘cunt’ or just that its wrong to make such a juxtaposition with an image of a female. If you’d be prepared to argue that a similar image would be just as ‘offensive’ if it were Dubya, McCain or even Bill Clinton in the photo then fair enough, you fire away and make your case, but if its just the fact that the image isof Hillary then I’d suggest that that’s your problem not mine.

If and when I do gratuitous abuse, I’m strictly ‘equal opportunities’ in my approach.

If and when I do gratuitous abuse, I’m strictly ‘equal opportunities’ in my approach.

Exactly.

This is a ludicrous argument – it would be equally funny if it was a male candidate, the fact that it’s Hilary Clinton is irrelevant to the joke, unless you are a skewed “I see offence in everything” self-parodying feminist.

For the same reason a similar shot with Obama againt the word C**n wouldn’t be funny because it would clearly be offensive to him and only him.

If anyones to blame it’s her spin doctors for allowing such a faux pas to be photographed and distributed.

Matt,

It’s clearly been photoshopped and no-one is seriously suggesting it isn’t. Are you seriously suggesting it is Clinton’s fault for walking around and being photographed in such a way that someone could fake something like this?

Unity,

The sheer rage of your last comment says it all to me. Calling anyone who disapproves of this an “idiot” suggests you don’t really have much of a leg to stand on. You’ll be complaining of “political correctness gone mad” next.

James:

If there’s anything to complain about in the ‘political correctness gone mad’ stakes its only the sheer gullibility of those who wander blindly into reinforcing that stereotype by ‘crying foul’ is the most absurd and un-nuanced manner.

Perhaps we should debate the question ‘what is political correctness?’ or more accurately ‘what has political correctness become?’ because regardless of the original intent what it has too often degenerated into is a crude and grossly over-simplistic set of ‘rules’ for people who are too stupid and ignorant to talk intelligently about race, culture, gender, disability, sexuality, etc…

I find it neither offensive nor amusing, just a bit obvious and been-done-before.

My view is that we have to look at the context at all times. Sure, having a go at anyone is not necessarily sexist, racist etc. For example, I didn’t find the blacked-up pic of Cameron on your website or Bob Piper’s site racist or anything.

But there have been a surprising amount of attacks on Clinton that relate to her sexuality, and I think many of them have been sexist. That’s why this is in danger of falling into that narrative.

Sunny:

I think you mean gender there, rather than sexuality – that or you’ve managed to confuse Hillary with Condi, who appears to have taken over as America’s number one rumoured closeted lesbian since Jodie Foster came out…

Or you’ve got a hell of a story there, in which case I’d shut up until you’ve sold the syndication rights….

Have there really been many attacks on Clinton predicated on her gender?

I’ve seen a fair few attempts by Clinton to sell that particular angle but little or nothing to justify such an assertion other than as a sign of increasing desperation. The Obama camp has gone out of its way to avoid anything like that and even on the Republican side, most of the emphasis has been on pushing the line that a win for Hillary will put Bill back in the White House as well.

Sunny,

I appreciate your view, there have been some obvious and disturbing attacks on her purely because she is a woman.

However, I’m not sure how far that view goes. Should Unity not post something like that for fear of falling into that narrative? Should BME people not be frank about inter BME racism (for example) for fear of falling into a BNP narrative?

I think it’s good to question our assumptions and prejudices but also to question those prejudices to a perceived prejudice (apologies for straying into Rumfeldian territory there!)…

Unity, would you have thought it humorous if Obama had been photoshopped with a racist epithet as a backdrop? There’s nothing funny about this image, and I find it depressing that you’re trying to present it as such.

The Republicans have already set up a “Citizens United Not Timid” (CUNT) organisation to “educate the public about “what Hillary Clinton really is.”

Do you really want to start playing their games for them?

http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2008/01/24/roger_stone/index.html

Corrected, yes, I meant gender not sexuality.

Have there really been many attacks on Clinton predicated on her gender?

Yeah, though not officially by McCain or Obama’s team, but ordinary partisan people. Jess wrote about it here too on how ‘Clinton go iron my trousers’ and that sort of crap has constantly been used.

Bernard Manning: unacceptable because his jokes were divisive and offensive, or because his jokes weren’t funny?

I personally see the equal-opportunities bigot as a tool of the political debate of his times, with his personal fortunes mirroring the rise and fall of the popularity of his personal craft which sustained him. While there was support for division based upon offensive social practices there would remain groups that found their experiences reflected in his stories and were able to laugh at them. As memories of those experiences dwindled so too did his audience.

Similarly Hillary Clinton has become a tool of the wider debate about the role of gender in society – in some ways she must accept the vitriol of her opponents in order to turn herself into the figurehead for the liberation of her constituency which she is potrayed as being the representative for, and the means to shape an independent political narrative as the price of her fame.

While Obama tackled the issue of ‘race’ head on and therefore is immune from mockery on the subject, Hillary has failed to create widespread acknowledgement of her own identification with her defining personal characteristics and has allowed the initiative to be ceded, which is an implicit chink in the armoury of her leadership skills.

It doesn’t say much about her that this episode has demonstrated how she has tried to avoid the unavoidable.

The whole tenor of the way this blog has covered Hillary Clinton’s campaign is one of the reasons I rarely bother to come here anymore.

There was the rather predictable and puerile debate about how it was not not sexist to call her a bitch, then we had the coughing video, now cunt is added to the post-feminist taxonomy of ‘progressive’ political positioning. (There was the one ‘what’ s wrong with Clinton article’ that was inoffensive but did little to further elucidate policy or process issues for me.)

There is very signficant evidence that sexism – within the media, in the ‘street’ culture, and amongst some (I repeat some) of Obama’s supporters – is pervasive in the attitudes towards her campaign This is widely discussed in the US – on many progressive blogs – and amongst DP supporters, as well as feminists. It is easy to find discussion of this as part of the analyses that academics, feminists and commentatiors have made of the ‘Hillary hatred’ phenomena. Arguments fly back and forth on the more liberal and progressive sites about what is significant and what isn’t.
But here we are not even in the same book, let alone reading the same page.

The claims of the post-feminist, post-racist brigade that none of this matters anymore can get tedious and are -to put it mildly – tendentiious. I agree with Sunny in that this is politically stupid, and gratuitously offensive to progressive women: I know none who finds it amusing, interesting, or routine to be called a cunt. Cunt is not an a-sexual insult, it is not a word disconnected from its misogynist moorings;just because a lot of ‘cool’ people use it doesn’t render it ‘okay.’

And it is not funny. It is not subversive, it is not ironic. It wasn’t funny the first time, and it hasn’t got funnier on the thousandth repetition.

i leave it to Jess and others who have some commitment to this site to make the arguments with the ‘lads.’ I liked Pickled Politics, had great expectations of this blog, found some of the articles very interesting, but have rarely visited in the past few months – and only to read very specific articles. Tonight I thought I would catch up.
Now I remember why I hadn’t bothered.

More po faced bullshit. It’s not about being ‘lads’ or any other sad man/heat style stereotypes.

I think some people need a solid course in Bill Hicksian philosophy!

Well, I am somewhat sympathetic Leon and Unity… But let me put it this way: You say:

Should BME people not be frank about inter BME racism (for example) for fear of falling into a BNP narrative?

And this applies to me because I do it all the time. Similarly, I constantly criticise Muslim orgs at a time they feel constantly under attack from xenophobes etc. So do I get defensive or should I fearlessly carry on with my criticisms?

Now, I choose the latter – going ahead with criticisms despite the BNP and the anti-Muslim bandwagon being on the rise, but I don’t do so gratuitously. Like, there’s no point me just making fun of Inayat Bunglawala or someone like Lee Jasper, who’s politics I disagree with too, by doing the blogging equivalent of putting up their picture on a pub and throwing darts at it.

I’m deeply uncomfortable with this pic of Clinton (and I think you’re unfairly generalising Elaine) because its just stupid pub humour about a woman who’s had to face a whole barrage of quite sexist rubbish. And this feeds into that. And believe me, as a highly dedicated supporter of Obama I still say that! I’d still easily vote for her over McCain.

If we were cussing Clinton for more obvious stuff, like having sly digs about Jeremiah Wright or saying ‘yeah he’s Christian as far as he tells us he is’ etc, then I’d be more sympathetic.

I think some people need to grow up

* shrug *

I’m bang alongside Rowan Atkinson when he says that the right to offend people should be protected, but I also think people have a right to be offended.

I don’t think Unity should have /not posted/, mainly because the kind of debate he has sparked by posting this is very revealing, but the number of people who are saying that nobody has any right to be offended by this is worrying me a lot.

Yeah, keep laughing Leon. When you, Unity and others have managed to piss off and drive away the rest of the very few women posting on this site you can all clap yourselves on the back and have a good laugh about how you’re well rid of the humourless fems.

“I think some people need a solid course in Bill Hicksian philosophy!”

Fcuk off.

Yeah, keep laughing Leon. When you, Unity and others have managed to piss off and drive away the rest of the very few women posting on this site you can all clap yourselves on the back and have a good laugh about how you’re well rid of the humourless fems.

And yet more po faced bullshit. Keep trying to bring it down to your gender all you like but it aint about that…nice piece of us vs them gender coercion you’re trying but sorry I don’t buy it. I’ve learnt people will always try and re-frame the debate to suit their agenda rather than actually engage in this game we call politics…

Fcuk off.

Why should I have to, you said it yourself you’ll be leaving over one single post you don’t like and two people having views you can’t tolerate, I don’t have to go anywhere!

So there’s no sexism in a picture of a woman with the word cunt behind her, and when nearly all the women posting here tell you it’s offensive and misogynist your response is that we must all be po faced humourless fems? And you still maintain that none of this is about gender?

Stand by for my upcoming post then: “Men are wankers”, but hey, don’t worry Leon, it won’t be about gender.

Leon – “you said it yourself you’ll be leaving over one single post you don’t like and two people having views you can’t tolerate”

No, I said ‘the rest of the very few women.”

Stand by for my upcoming post then: “Men are wankers”, but hey, don’t worry Leon, it won’t be about gender.

Virtually all men are at some point, it’s called puberty.

So there’s no sexism in a picture of a woman with the word cunt behind her, and when nearly all the women posting here tell you it’s offensive and misogynist your response is that we must all be po faced humourless fems? And you still maintain that none of this is about gender?

And you think this amazingly small sample is in anyway representative of all women? Staggering presumption…I could show you quite a few women who’d look at that picture and laugh and not find it offensive because they shared the same genitals as the subject…anyway, to refresh my thinking, and take a step back from the absurdly engineered polarisation, I thought I’d have a look at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunt

Makes for some interesting reading…

This seems to be an vibrant crossfire.

Can I just say I didn’t find it funny in the least? I looked at it went ok and my eyes glided to the debate. Its just not that amusing- its offensive and pretty useless at either entertaining me or doing anything else. What point is it trying to get across? That Hillary Clinton isn’t a nice person- to be honest I don’t care, I wouldn’t be electing my her as my best friend: were I American, I would be electing her to make decisions about economic, foreign and various other policy matters.

There is also this whole stuff about political correctness- why can’t we on the left get sensible for once about political correctness. There is the list of things which should be illegal, there is a list of things that are impolite and there is a list of things which are normal good mannered things to say. To me this sits straight in teh second category- it upsets people and it doesn’t upset them to make a point, or even make a good joke, it upsets people just because some clown with the humour of a twelve year old thinks that the word c*** is funny, particularly when its next to a woman who is a politician. I don’t think that’s a good enough excuse for what is really a semi-sexist joke- I don’t think it should be illegal but then neither do I think that kids teasing each other in a playground should be dragged off to jail or that people saying that someone looks fat should be forced at gunpoint to recant- but I don’t think they should do it either.

Some more interesting reading here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/24/welcome-to-the-gutter-ri_n_83062.html

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008/03/30/why-calling-out-misogyny-matters/

Ah, but they were probably written by women, so their opinions don’t count eh Leon?

“So there’s no sexism in a picture of a woman with the word cunt behind her”

As a woman i don’t find it sexist. Wasn’t all that amusing but i wasn’t offended

I quite openly use the word towards/about men and women alike. It is just a body part at the end of the day. And had the word bollocks or dick been plastered in the same way behind Obama or anyone else i don’t think we would have been having the same debate or one at all. The use of racist words is a different debate altogether in my opinion and does not provide a good comparison

obviously everyone has a right to be offended by it but that doesn’t necessarily mean other people should be apologetic towards you on this matter just because they find it amusing or are indifferent towards it

Ah, but they were probably written by women, so their opinions don’t count eh Leon?

Wow! That’s amazing that, did you see that everyone, she just fabricated my entire political outlook in one easy sentence. No need for honest debate/engagement when we have the Karl Rove playbook at hand eh Cath?

Way to go building coalitions, LC!

Even drawing attention to terms which might cause offense falls into the trap of creating divisions, so I think this article has objectively failed to prosecute this site’s stated mission on this occasion.

There’s something ironic about the fact the author’s moniker is Unity…

Way to go building coalitions, LC!

Heh, I know. Though most arguing here are grown up enough not to make it into a Judean Front issue, this kind of arguing does depress me.

On the one hand I think its worth stressing that some people do find it offensive and its not necessarily about the others being humour-less. I know Leon and Unity are not even near being sexist but promoting and distributing such stuff is great fodder for the real mysoginists.

On the other, I accept not all women will find it offensive (Cath!) and I know women who freely use cunt with other women or men and just see it as a term of abuse like prick etc. So I guess there’s little reason to generalise there either.

Either way, as Gracchi said, this kind of stuff doesn’t help.

Sunny – “On the other, I accept not all women will find it offensive (Cath!)”

Pah!

Of course there are women who don’t find the word cunt offensive, and in certain circumstances I probably wouldn’t. But this argument isn’t necessarily about the word cunt, it’s about the context in which it’s being used. It’s also about the reaction from certain folk here when presented with evidence that some people are offended by the picture, as well as by the way other contributors have trivialised people’s legitimate grievances.

As Sunny pointed out in an earlier post, Clinton has been the subject of some pretty vile misogynistic abuse as well as more subtle sexism throughout the campaign. GOP supporters set up Citizens United Not Timid (CUNT) and made t-shirts with CUNT emblazoned across them, so this image certainly isn’t the first time that Clinton has been linked with the word; a main part of their message is that they don’t want a cunt in the white house. So there’s a history behind this image, one that has sexism and misogyny at its heart.

If this picture had been of Obama standing in front of a banner reading ‘nigger’ this entire debate would have been completely different. Instead of all the lads laughing along at it, we’d have been discussing how although some black americans have reclaimed the word for their own use, and how maybe it’s ok for those people to use it, taken out of context it still remains a word freighted with racism.

There’s been a similar bid among feminists like Eve Ensler in the Vagina Monologues for women to reclaim the word cunt. I would argue that that hasn’t really happened yet, or that where it has it’s taken a similar route to ‘nigger’. So while I might at a push accept being called a cunt by another woman, when used by a man against a woman it takes on a different meaning and becomes once more a misogynistic term of abuse, in much the same way as ‘nigger’ is racist coming from a white person.

One of the main issues to come out of the democratic race has been the realisation that while racism is now very much a no no, and any hint of it has been forcefully condemned by all sides, sexism is still very much alive and kicking, and still, it would appear, socially acceptable. Rather than trying to expose it and tackle it, a significant portion of the msm and bloggers have instead joined in. Personally I thought LC was above all that, but I was obviously wrong.

“One of the main issues to come out of the democratic race has been the realisation that while racism is now very much a no no, and any hint of it has been forcefully condemned by all sides, sexism is still very much alive and kicking, and still, it would appear, socially acceptable.”

Yes, exactly (though if Obama is the Dem nominee, I think the Republicans will step up their racist rhetoric, they’re currently spending money on focus groups to find out the best ways of making coded attacks on his race without being called on it).

Hillary’s been the subject of really vicious misogynist attacks for at least 16 years (including John McCain amongst others telling ‘jokes’ about her sexuality), and during this campaign.

“The Republicans have already set up a “Citizens United Not Timid” (CUNT) organisation to “educate the public about “what Hillary Clinton really is.” ”

LOL – Brilliant.

Oh for crying out loud..

I’ve had to skim read most of the posts because they went from acceptable to mediocre to complete and utter PC rubbish.

The last time i checked i am a woman and i did NOT find the above photoshopped image offensive. Its beside the point that i didnt actually react either way – i did find the Bush version amusing though….

Jeez, if this one still running?

Look…

1. The word ‘cunt’ has long since passed into generic usage as a term of non-gender specific abuse – in fact just about the only places you’ll find the word used in a gender specific context are in the Vagina Monologues and in porn films, albeit that the context in each is rather different.

2. You evidence for a misogynistic ‘campaign’ against Clinton is what? A bit of blog chatter from the kind of people who consider NASCAR to be their national sport?

Look, the American right loathes Clinton because she’s a Clinton and not because she’s a woman – gender doesn’t really come into it and I’d be willing to bet that if Bill were running for elected office then some bright spark would still have come up the ‘CUNT’ acronym…

eventually…

after they’d exhausted all the possible blow-job gags.

On the Dems side, most of the chatter is that Hill’s ‘Is it because I’s a woman’ shtick has gotten real old, real fast and is increasingly costing her support because its seen as a combination of making poor excuses and a piss-poor attempt at a bit of emotional blackmail.

So far as the general mood goes, the vibe I’m getting is that she’s doing a fine job of funnelling support to Obama, especially amongst the party’s top brass who’ve already done the numbers and figured that they stand a much better chance of beating McCain with Obama than with Clinton and her claims of sexism in the face of calls from Democrats who want her to stand aside and let the party get on with the job of going for McCain have gone down particularly badly.

Bottom line, what the poll data says is that the number of American’s who wouldn’t vote Clinton because she’s a woman is about a third of number who’ve said they vote Obama because they’re convinced he’s a closet Muslim.

If anyone really does think that sexism is factor in the democrat nomination process then they’re really, seriously misreading the situation over there.

Look, I think Hillary Rodhman Clinton has an ambition that is beyond reason. She, and John McCain and Barak Obamah, wish to become the most powerful person on the planet.

That is hubris.

For all three candidates. But is is also probably true. You get to keep the best ‘illuminated parking lot’ weapons, all to yourself. You get to use your force wherever you want. You get to play God.

Of the three, I’d have thought Barak Obama was least likely to play God.

Still, you never know.

The last time i checked i am a woman and i did NOT find the above photoshopped image offensive.

Careful now, you’ll be accused of selling out the sisterhood named a gender traitor for siding with the evil ‘lads’ who are obviously running amok waving copies of nutz and zoo about the place like the hooligans they are…

Unity – “Bottom line, what the poll data says is that the number of American’s who wouldn’t vote Clinton because she’s a woman is about a third of number who’ve said they vote Obama because they’re convinced he’s a closet Muslim.”

That’s not what Rasmussen found in February:

Seventy-one percent (71%) of the nation’s voters say they would be willing to vote for a woman for President. Seventeen percent (17%) say they would not and 11% are not sure.

Results are similar when asked about voting for an African-American—73% are willing to cast such a vote, 14% are not, and 13% are not sure…

…While the overwhelming majority of voters say they could vote for a woman or an African-American, just 56% believe their family, friends, and co-workers would be willing to do the same. Among senior citizens, just 41% believe their peers would be willing to vote for a woman. Forty percent (40%) believe their peers would be willing to vote for an African-American.

These results are broadly consistent with the findings of earlier surveys.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1971980/posts

Yeah… thanks for the reminder to knock off my subscription to the comments on this thread. There’s a really unpleasant, hectoring, “you’re only allowed an opinion if it’s the same as mine” tone coming from a couple of the people posting in here, and the only amusement I’ve found is, like the person above, at the irony that one of them is called Unity.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Right then, since the discussion has become so enlightening, I’m going to close this thread.