Eric Boehlert wrote on
Chris Matthews for Media Matters for America. His historic overview validated the feelings many of us have about the man towards whom former admiration has turned to complete dislike and disrespect. When he used to have Mike Barnicle replace him, or as a guest, I thought it was only Barnicle who was misogynistic. However, it is clear that they both are so. Boehlert reminds us that is was Matthews quoted in the Boehlert article: "It's just that the
Times politely chose to ignore them. So readers still probably have no idea that Matthews:
- featured a Photoshopped image of Clinton sporting "She Devil" horns while discussing Republican efforts to demonize her;
- repeatedly likened Clinton to "Nurse Ratched," the scheming, heartless character from the mental hospital drama One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest;
- referred to Clinton as "Madame Defarge" and described male politicians who endorsed Clinton as "castratos in the eunuch chorus";
- compared Clinton to a "strip-teaser," wondered whether she was "a convincing mom," referred to Clinton's "cold eyes" and the "cold look" she supposedly gives people;
- claimed that "some men" say Clinton's voice sounds like "fingernails on a blackboard."
Nothing like that has been said about any of the Republican women. Instead he has done nothing but praise Kay Bailey Hutchinson, whom I hear as an echo to Republican policies for the past eight years. Does that suggest that only Democrat women are frightening because they have original thoughts, because they are not frightened and cow-towing to the men, because they are strong enough to withstand the demeaning and lying comments made by the men?
Long enough ago that most voters today would not remember, Freud used to describe all women as having 'penis envy'. The poor Victorian man was quite mistaken and feminists wrote that it was not 'penis envy' but 'penis pity', a concept that only resulted in pornography growing in sales with video being easy to market, and later through the Internet, of men getting their jollies by watching women being totally subjugated and demeaned in front of their eyes. It obviously served as sublimation to the shaky sense of masculinity in so many men who feared dealing with women gaining ground in voice and actions.
Domestic violence against women is a disturbingly common occurrence in the United States. There are still cultural factors at work as immigrants from less modern countries arrive here with less advanced views on equality of women.Behavior therapy introduced a focus on the difference between assertiveness and aggressiveness. However, success of women blinds many men to that differentiation. Any woman with a strong voice and action is seen as aggressive, while many men continue under the delusion that women are their chattel, though the law changed that status many decades ago. Remnants of the
male struggle to hold onto that position is evident in what the predominantly male law enforcers have ignored for a hundred years here in the United States. The condescension in their notion that women are invited into Heaven by their satisfied husbands is evident in their misogynistic community.
Phyllis Schlafly led an conflicted movement to prevent the Equal Rights Amendment. She wanted women to hold onto their traditional roles and be a stay-at-home-Moms to raise their children. Men seemed to want that as well but the economy became such that many women found it necessary to work outside the home. Men still wanted the status quo and do nothing but go to work, come home to a cooked meal, do no housework, have little responsibility for child care, and the wives, working a full-time job outside the home, do everything else they had always done. For those kind husbands who assisted, it was said they 'helped' their wives with the wife's work. Young couples of today might find that either sad or amusing, since couples have evolved to a much more shared responsibility in their marriage partnership and childrearing.
Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and all the other misogynists who control the airwaves are a dying breed. They will soon find out that the media might still be controlled as the masses don't have the time to spend to search for the truth, but it will reach them through satire, cartoons, comic strips, and comedy. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, the writers of South Park, and others are reaching a larger audience than the major 'news' channels and are far more trustworthy and believable because they usually demonstrate with actual video clips, previously aired by traditional media, the lies politicians are telling and later recounting and waffling about.
Hopefully, in a few years these 'journalists' will stop saying they 'love' women just as they might say they' love' their pets.
