Sexism in Politics

Woman-as-Cat in Anti-Suffrage Propaganda. Cats and dogs are gendered in contemporary American culture, such that dogs are thought to be the proper pet for men and cats for women (especially lesbians).

This, it turns out, is an old stereotype. In fact, cats were a common symbol in suffragette imagery. Cats represented the domestic sphere, and anti-suffrage postcards often used them to reference female activists. The intent was to portray suffragettes as silly, infantile, incompetent, and ill-suited to political engagement. Cats were also used in anti-suffrage cartoons and postcards that featured the bumbling, emasculated father cruelly left behind to cover his wife’s shirked duties as she so ungracefully abandons the home for the political sphere. While opposition to the female vote was strong, public sentiment warmed to the suffragettes as police brutality began to push women into a more favorable, if victimized, light.

De l'indignation sélective des mecs anars... en général. Why French women have so little equality, a story in charts. Members of the French Green Party protest for gender equality measures.

(FRED DUFOUR/AFP/Getty Images) A new report that scores and ranks the countries of the world by gender equality also highlights a surprising trend. Though Western Europe tends to be by far the best place in the world for women, according to the report's data, one of Europe's most progressive societies lags surprisingly far behind: France. The French Republic ranks 57th in the world for women's equality, behind much of Eastern Europe, as well as Mongolia, Uganda and others. The story of why and how is a complicated and contested one, but here's what the data portrays.

Updates: Before women were granted the right to vote in... Before women were granted the right to vote in 1918 and 1920 in the UK and US, respectively, there was a very, very long discussion about whether giving women the vote was a good idea in the first place.

In fact, people were so adamantly against giving women the vote that the more artistically inclined of the anti-suffragette set were fond of creating tacky anti-ladyvoting postcards, that presumably they could swap with other anti-suffragettes and then laugh and laugh. Here’s Collectors’ Weekly’s Lisa Hix explaining the history of the postcards as an old timey meme. Think of them like the turn of the 20th century equivalent of the poorly photoshopped Obama with a bone through his nose email forward. Gillard grills Abbott on his misogyny. Je n’ai pas ri. Ces deux campagnes politiques auront été le théâtre d'une immense violence verbale, sans doute inévitable en politique mais également d'un sexisme effarant.

Ainsi Patrick Besson qualifia le nouveau gouvernement paritaire de "partouze straight" alors qu'il n'avait jamais, ne serait que noté, que tous les assemblées nationales, sénats et autres compositions ministérielles étaient quasi exclusivement masculines et ressemblaient, si l'on suit sa comparaison, à un gigantesque backroom. “In the good old days, men knew that women are crazy and they knew how to deal with them.” File under: we can’t make this shit up.

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson believes that the worst thing to happen in modern society is that women were given the right to vote. [French] Sexisme du Premier ministre marocain envers une diplomate belge. [French] La Barbe Groupe d’Action Féministe-Mozilla Firefox. State-Sanctioned Rape: Trans-Vaginal Ultrasound Laws in Virginia, Texas, and Iowa. Virginia is poised to send two of the most abhorrent anti-choice bills to Governor Bob McDonnell to sign.

The governor, eyes trained on a vice presidential bid, has indicated he will sign at least one if not both of the bills. The first is a bill requiring the use of trans-vaginal ultrasound prior to a woman obtaining an abortion, the other is an egg-as-person bill. Like other failed “personhood” bills, the Virginia provision would outlaw not only abortion but also forms of hormonal birth control. Although the Governor has said he will consider the personhood bill he has been clear he would sign the forced ultrasound bill. But let’s start calling this what it really is: state sanctioned rape. In Virginia, rape is defined as the following: § 18.2-61. I called and emailed McDonnell’s press secretary Jeff Caldwell asking if the forced vaginal ultrasound bill would in-fact overturn the rape statute.

During the debate Republican State Del. [French] Viol légal : lois sur l’échographie transvaginale en Virginie, au Texas, et dans l’Iowa. [French] Comment Internet maltraite les femmes politiques - le Plus- Les femmes en politique sont sans cesse ramenées à leur situation conjugale, comme si l’image d’une femme publique cachait nécessairement une autre image privée autrement plus intéressante que celle des hommes.

Rachida Dati, Martine Aubry et Ségolène Royal (montage Le Plus Nouvel Obs / SIPA). Les recherches des internautes traduisent un sentiment d’étonnement devant une situation qui n’est pas "naturelle". La femme ne peut exister comme individu politiquement autonome car elle a du mal à subsister comme individu socialement affranchi. Inlassablement, on ramène la femme publique au domestique en cherchant à savoir qui est l’homme qui se cache derrière. En associant avant tout Martine Aubry à Jean-Louis Brochen, Ségolène Royal à François Hollande, Aurélie Filippetti à Thomas Piketty ou encore Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet à Jean-Pierre Philippe, ou en cherchant systématiquement le nom du mari supposé.

Soupçon d'incompétence ou de népotisme Nuage de tags Martine Aubry (DR). [1] C. [French] Yvelines : le dirigeant du FN piégé - 28/02/2012 - leParisien.fr-Mozilla Firefox.