When asked about his Playboy spread Brown gave a glib response, saying something like, "I had a great body back then." What about Coakley? First, she would have been eviscerated and not have gotten to first base. Second, if her nude photos had been overlooked if she made such a glib statement she would have lost by double digits. Third, she certainly would not have been able to run on her attorney general record because she would not have had one.
What are your thoughts? Is there a double standard here?
20 comments:
That kind of "exposure" definitely would have worked against Coakley. Men are forgiven so much. Women seemed to always be scrutinized and judged. Not fair.
Judith, you woke me up with that image :)
I also think it has something to do with the fact that he is a Republican.
Republicans don't seem to have to abide by thier own set of values as long as they are conservative enough. or example, Newt Gingrich had no problem working to impeach Bill Clinton while Newt was cheating on his wife. And Dick Cheney, who seems to have no problem starting wars did everything in his power to get 9 deferments from the draft during the vietnam war. And I have no idea how a centerfold would affect sarah palin.
I think it is obvious we do have a double standard, but I wonder where the responsibility lies for sustaining it. Consider this: There are far more registered women voters than men, and in every election since 1980, more women than men voted. In the 2000 election 7.8 Million more women voted than men. So, apparently, women voters pretty well ignore the double standard…or do they?
We know the media does a good job of exploiting the double standard, but is it more insidiously a part of our society in general? I suspect that if Sarah Palin were less attractive, more people would have seen her true lack of qualifications for national office much sooner.
What is truly disconcerting is the large numbers of young women who are saying they want to emulate Sarah Palin. I wonder how many of them are seeing beyond looks and stage presence?
Quite a wake up, eh? Sexy dude! Great Senator? This has yet to be seen obvious. I'm not terribly impressed so far. He said something like "this is way beyond the presidency" when asked if the 41 that his campaign was chanting had to do with President Obama being the 44th president. Quackery, eh? It sounds like he's channeling something in the heavens like Palin does "prophetically." Ideologues are quite dangerous when in positions of power.
Right on, Zorro!!! Wholly!
Bob - I think that you are right to point out that nothing exists in a vacuum. What cultures allows occurs. Women, by and large, did not approve of Palin at all. All polls show that she was not a favorite among women voters. Women are a part of the culture and often times they drink the Kool-Aid as does many minority groups. It is not always easy to fight against the barrage of negative images, constructional images and direct and indirect policies and norms.
I would imagine that the young women who largely want to emulate Palin are those whose parents are Right wingers, Tea Party members or religious fanatics. I do not suspect that John McCain's daughter, for example, desires to be like Palin, even though her father made one of the most foolish decisions in electoral history.
I have almost lost all respect for McCain due to this decision. He did not choose Country First and he continues not to do so by having her campaign for him. He is becoming a disgrace to me as Cheney has become. I wish that McCain would retire. He is a mere skeleton of what he used to be. My brother recoils to think that he voted for McCain when he ran against George H. Bush.
Oh, by the way, a large percentage of men do NOT find Palin attractive. I think it's namely white middle age men who go ga-ga over her.
Obama is on TV with Paul Volker in the background. This is a good thing. He is also talking about the Supreme Court's decision to strike down a law limiting campaign money from Big Business. This is also good. Obama might be too cool. He may not want to talk like a populist. But if he does it some, it could help him. When he was campaigning, at first he refused to wear a flag pin because he thought it was stupid. I thought he was right that it was stupid - its just that sometimes stupid works. So being a bit of a populist could do him some good.
YES, Zorro! I LOVE VOLKER!!! I have long advocated for him. I thought that Geithner and Summers needed to go! Both should have had no place whatsoever in either of those positions considering their past reckless records. Bernanke should NOT be confirmed either. Regarding stupidity, there is no doubt that stupid works. The sad thing is what does that say about the electorate?
By the way, does anybody know when Playgirl became a largely gay publication? I don't think women by that magazine.
i think brown posed in cosmopolitan.
Yeah, Zorro, I thought that too, but it appears that Cosmo took the centerfolds from various magazines. Have you confirmed that?
here is a linkhttp://www.cosmopolitan.com/celebrity/news/scott-brown-nude-in-cosmo
Hey, Zorro, thanks! I'll leave the comments but all anyone needs to do is check out your link to confirm my error. Thanks, again.
Well, the Supreme Court decision today trumps the Scott Brown disaster. Like everyone else, I worry that there's never enough corporate spending on elections these days. But from now on business can spend as much money as it wants to get its candidates elected. After all that's what the framers of the US Constitution intended, right?
John - I am so incredibly upset about this decision. The Supreme Court has missed it before it in the Dredd Scott case that unjustly upheld slavery with the decision that slaves and their descendants were not human beings but property. In a stunning vote this Supreme Court said that corporation are individuals. What does it want? Outright anarchy?
Chief Justice Roberts looks very much like the dude with the horns and pitch fork. Oh, I wish it was just that light. The people need to arise and fight like hell against this decision! With this decision, how can we conceivably say that the United States is a democratic nation? That's a BIG JOKE!!!
"The people need to arise and fight like hell against this decision!"
It can't be done. That is the power of the Supreme Court. Bush put in two conservative judges while he was pres ' ident. This is why it is so important that we have a democratic president. The progressives need to understand this and quit picking on Obama so much.
People like Huffington and Ed Shultz need to dig down deep to undrstand thier motivation for saying hyped up things - like when Huffington was called for Biden to resign over Afghanistan. Or the insistance on the public option. Ive said the before -
in 1972, Nixon had a health plan that he was ready to back, but it wasn't progessive enough for Ted Kennedy, and so it died. It was a better plan than anything put forward this year and it was better than Clintons. Progrssives did health care in. Progessives got George Bush elected when they voted for Nader in 2000.
Progessives have the power to tip elections - but I think many of them are more interested in thier power in the media - they want to be on TV. They are essentially greedy.
Zorro - What was that saying about a revolution is good every now and then? I think the case of democracy here demands a revolution of some kind. I do not think we should lie down and take this as we didn't with the Dredd Scott decision that some people were not human. Yesterday, the courts said that corporations are human. At first human beings became property as designated by the highest court in the land and now corporations become human by the same court. This is simply unjust!
I do believe that there are legislative measures to restrict corporation donations. I'm going to look into this further. I think you have a point about the selection of judges and the necessity of governing as opposed to being a television personality. But the media does have an important role. The problem has been that many as you suggest here is after popularity and ratings. I have written of this often.
I also think that Congressman Grayson, for example, is a bit of a showboat but he is most certainly also thoughtful and action-oriented, not to mention compelling. It takes all kinds. But I hear you completely about the sway of elections and hence various presidents to choose Supreme Court justices.
How did I miss this? OMG. I haven't been out of touch THAT long! Thank you for posting this very disturbing information.
Oh, yeah, Cinda! God help us for real!
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