Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal sums it best as she writes, “The war is against women in American public life, in politics and media most obviously, but in other spheres as well. Leaders who are women are publicly demeaned and diminished because they are women. Women are the object of sexual slurs and vulgar sexual terms, meant to tear down and embarrass.”
There are times you just hope you are wrong. Several years ago, I warned about parents needing to get more involved in their children’s lives, but it was not heard by enough people, whose voices just might have been able to prevent the recent murders of students at a school in Ohio.
The rotunda was festooned with pink balloons and red roses. Citizen guests excitedly took seats under the dome and gathered at all the balcony rails. Dignitaries were ushered to their reserved seating at the foot of the grand staircase.
To illustrate, pretend your girlfriend stars in a well-reviewed movie as a superhero. You are proud of her for landing this role and playing the part of a strong woman leader. Then, you read a review about the movie where the critic salaciously refers to your girlfriend as a “fighting fuck toy,” after describing certain of her body parts in glowing detail. Or, pretend your mother has run for office and become Senator. After she’s served for a while, you begin to notice that most news outlets report that Mrs. Anderson (not Senator) “complained,” while her male counterparts merely “stated” their opposition. You will recall that during their campaigns, Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin were often painted as “bitch” or “ditz,” and there was much discussion about their wardrobes.
The subtext of Yee’s move is viewed as an unsaid challenge to Chinatown powerbroker Rose Pak’s grip on the Chinese-American community in an attempt to weaken her base of support and to garner Asian-American votes for his mayoral bid.
Today we see vestiges of eugenics-thinking in post-WWII America in the treatment of African-Americans, Jews, homosexuals, undocumented immigrants and Muslims – as well as traces of racism in the criticism of President Obama. We see a “blame the victim” mentality. Doesn’t it seem like the safety nets for the poor, mentally ill, disabled, elderly, and displaced are among the first programs to be cut at budget crunch time while at the same time we won’t approve taxing the rich more? The “well born” get richer while the havenots fall by the wayside.
What better way to escape today’s realities than by slipping back to a supposedly better time. Which is what Woody Allen’s alter ego did when he got a magical opportunity to do just that. But to his great chagrin, he discovered that those people in his romanticized times also longed for the good old days.
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