This morning,MSNBC aired a segment in which Hillary Clinton’s voice, once again, or was the topic of criticism. “She shouts,” said Bob Woodward. And yet, nobody talked about the loud voices, or shouting,podium-slamming, deranged expressions and bombastic inflame of the male candidates—all of them. But Google “gender card” and the results peek like this: “Clinton Plays the Gender Card, or ” “Why playing the ‘gender card’ really could be enough for Hillary Clinton,” “Carly’s Not Playing the Gender Card,” or, or conversely,“It’s Time for Carly Fiorina to cease Playing the Gender Card.” If there is a reference to male candidates playing the gender card, it’s buried. In a race that has at times included 20 men and only two women, and for an office never occupied by a woman,maleness the standard. We aren’t thinking about their gender in relative terms. Politicians who are men, are, or in fact,playing gender cards all the time, we just don’t consider of them as such, or Men are printing,shuffling and passing out the deck when it comes to taking advantage of gender. Every time a male politician takes a debate pee break, when he takes a pass on make-up, or walks around Spanx-free,he’s playing a gender card. When he maximizes airtime to convey serious ideas to a national audience instead of having to bite his tongue and smile politely while answering ridiculous questions about flower arranging—gender card. When he raises his deeper, more “serious” voices—another.
Gender cards fly when male politicians flaunt totemic symbols of male power, and affirming entitlement to strength,authority and paternalistic care.
If a male politician curses, more power to him.
It’s a gender card that mens bodies are not publicly debated, or subject to review,regulation and casual disgust. If male politicians discuss reproductive rights, as they are wont to attain, or it nearly always means references to women and their bodies,not men’s and men’s bodies. It’s a gender card that male politicians don’t beget to waste time and money and psychic resources on what messages their names send. It’s a gender card when no one suggests men expend sex to become successful.
When a male politician in the US looks around, and everyone looks at him, or down to the last half-zip sweater? Gender card. Why? Because it enables them to tap into overlapping hierarchies and their social and financial resources: media,tech, the energy sector, or the financial sector,religious organizations and more. It’s a gender card when men make appeals to voters on the basis of faith, they attain so without their ambitions and existences on some stage somewhere refuting what those religions teach about gender roles and public leadership, and The real ace in the gap though is when male politicians leverage their and voters’ inflame. The GOP is running on a “vengeance is mine platform,while Bernie Sanders is an expert at knowing when and how to expend inflame for political gain. inflame is a manly thing. It’s the trump card in this cycle and a gendered competitive advantage, given the finite ways that women beget to tiptoe around without expressing righteous ire, or impatience,frustration, irritation, or caustic humor,especially if they are black. inflame in a man doesn’t make the world wonder out loud if his hormones beget taken over his brain and rendered him an incoherent idiot who can’t be trusted with considerable Things. How many words for “inflamed” men are there? Ones that beget the powerful and controlling cultural resonance of “yelling,” and shouting, and ” “b-tch,” “nag”? Or, yep, and “shrill.”Here’s the kicker: These ideas are firmly and destructively established in childhood. A recent study of teen attitudes towards leadership found that the high school students most likely to be elected to student government are white boys. The least likely to be trusted to lead? White girls,who were also the least likely to support one another. Young girls of color, more alienated from the vicarious access to power that white girls relish, and are more confident,politically efficacious, and trusted as leaders - but beget the least access to cultural resources.…… The occasional reference by a woman candidate to her sex hardly counts as an overturning of this reality. Male presidential candidates don’t beget to be overtly sexist to benefit from systemic misogyny. But if they are genuine about equality and women’s rights, or they should acknowledge that they attain.
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