Picking up from yesterday’s post, “Not Equal” — another early controversy of feminism was over job requirement exams, such as strength tests for firefighters, that eliminated women. People asked: Should the exams be “dumbed down”? Should women be given separate tests so they could pass?
I believe the majority of feminists argued that if the ability being tested was one that truly might be required to do the job, then the test should be the same for men and women. However, it was argued, strength or height requirements for some jobs were purely arbitrary and had nothing to do with performing the job. On the other hand, a minority of feminists did argue that women should be given separate tests that would be easier for them to pass. Anti-feminists, of course, picked up the latter argument and said allowing women to be firefighters or police officers meant relaxing standards on the tests, which would lead to fire and police departments going to hell.
Lanny Davis’s latest screed against the Obama campaign reminds me of the separate standards argument. In “Four Things the Obama Campaign Couldn’t Resist Doing To Anger Clinton Supporters,” Davis lists these as unforgivable sins committed by Obama:
1. He announced the John Edwards endorsement the day after Clinton’s West Virginia win.
2. The evening of Clinton’s Kentucky win, Obama gave a speech reminding everyone he had a majority of pledged delegates.
3. The Obama campaign has hired someone to vet veep candidates.
4. Obama is considering Bill Richardson as veep.
In other words, the Clinton campaign is furious that Obama executed some smart political maneuvering to prevent Clinton from building momentum (#1 and #2), is not waiting to begin preparation for the general election campaign in deference to the tender sensibilities of Clinton supporters (#3), and is friends with somebody the Clintons don’t like any more (#4).
Basically, Clinton supporters don’t think Senator Clinton should have to take the same tests as the guys to get the job. They want Obama to dumb down his campaign so Senator Clinton can catch up. Otherwise, he’s not being fair.
The irony is that, in some ways, Obama has done just that. Chuck Todd pointed out on Hardball last night that Obama stopped running a campaign against Senator Clinton about three weeks ago. This has allowed some of Clinton’s numbers to improve a bit vis à vis Obama, since she’s still campaigning against Obama. Yet the Clintonistas still think Obama isn’t playing fair.
You can’t please some people.
See also Steve M. and Bang the Drum.
Shorter Lanny Davis: “Whahhhhhhh! How dare Obama interrupt the coronation?”
Great point about the double standard. It takes a lot of nerve to cite Obama’s use of sound campaign techniques as “unforgivable” while one’s own candidate is running around truly poisoning the well with charges of unelectability and illegitimacy.
Ah well, I’m convinced this will effectively be over in a week, whether or not Clinton is foolish enough to mount a quixotic fight at the convention. I’m also convinced that the vast majority of her supporters care more about actual Democratic issues than their hurt fee-fees and will therefore come around in November. A subset or her supporters, the whiney cry-baby contingent, may or may not actually stay home in November or vote for McCain, but there’s no reasoning with them anyway. So screw them.
It takes a lot of nerve to cite Obama’s use of sound campaign techniques as “unforgivable†while one’s own candidate is running around truly poisoning the well with charges of unelectability and illegitimacy.
That, and suggesting that the possibility that the frontrunner might be assassinated as a good reason for the eliminated candidate to soldier on.
By and large, I think the public has figured out that this one is McCain vs. Obama, with Hillary as not-so-comic-not-so-relief. We of the political junkie set are all stilil fascinated by the horse race, of course… but whatever was left of that race ended back in North Carolina.
This article by Lanny Davis is just pathetic.
He announces John Edward’s endorsement the day after West Virginia? He gives a speech pointing out he leads in pledged delegates the day after Kentucky? This is what infuriates Clinton supporters? That’s all they got?
One of the really good things that will happen if Hillary is not the nominee, and I have to add if in there so as not to infuriate Clinton supporters, is that we won’t have to listen to whining, sniveling, spinning Lanny Davis anymore.
Repeatedly, I get the feeling that the essence of what irks the Clintonistas about Obama and his supporters is that we just don’t agree that Clinton naturally deserves the Presidency. They get increasingly agitated when we not only persist in this core thought-crime, but act on it, and worse, behave as if she was NOT the center of the universe, and refuse to apologize for our transgression.
I’m pretty sure Obama did those things Lanny suggests because he was trying to win the White House, not to anger Clinton supporters. Which is, I guess, partly why it made them so angry.
Recently resigned Mark what’s-his-name was or has been blamed for all Clinton campaign foul-ups. So, who’s to blame now? Hillary’s been running it from day one. She’d make a stellar president?
I think your analogy fails because I don’t think you understand how those tests were used to exclude women from physically demanding jobs. All of the “legit” tests exploited the fact that women, because of different musculature, lack the upper body strength most men have. While a very burly woman might be stronger than a puny man, this is a much rarer situation than I think people realize.
I used to live with a 200-lb. woman who routinely physically intimidated my coworkers at a tire factory. But her ferocity didn’t change the fact that she was missing a set of chest muscles that I had, and that let me physically control her (we’re talking mutually agreeable foreplay here, not physical abuse). Women use those muscles to hold up their boobs, men use those same muscles to increase their upper body strength.
These tests were reined in when labor forced companies to show their relevance. If you are not climbing telephone poles or carrying unconscious smoke inhalation victims from a fire, these tests have little relevance, especially in the military where a 5’4″ male has no more ability to drag a 6’6″, 250-lb. buddy to safety than a woman has. Platoons are teams, and not every team member has to be able to carry every other team member.
But I’m not surprised you’d use a questionable analogy. Clinton has everyone so twisted up over her Guinness Book of Records swan song that I think she’s driving us all nuts. Deliberately on purpose, and with forethought towards 2012.
Mark —
I think your analogy fails because I don’t think you understand how those tests were used to exclude women from physically demanding jobs.
I understand that perfectly well, and that’s exactly what I was talking about in the second paragraph.
Put another way: Most of us argued that once the tests were based on what the job actually required, then men and women should take the same tests. The problem was that many of the tests were not based on what the job actually required.
However, there was a small subgroup of feminists who really did push for separate tests in the name of equality, and the anti-feminists ignored the rest of us and zeroed in on that argument to prove how nutty feminists were.
The analogy stands.
Davis forgot to mention that Obama publicly congratulated Hillary for her outstanding victories in West Virginia and Kentucky before she had won them. He preemptively diminished their worth through words of kindness, and in doing so, he unforgivably dissed the hen.
Maha, sorry, my reading skills always go to hell until the spring pollen’s gone.