Academic

Who is the good Democrat? Him? Or me?

By Ann Bartow

In a column entitled “Sarah Palin Naked” Michael Seitzman writes:

I realized three things tonight. For one, if you are a McCain/Palin/Bush voter, you and I do not have a difference of opinion. We have a difference in brain power. Two, she really is as ignorant as I feared. And, three, she really is kinda hot. Basically, I want to have sex with her on my Barack Obama sheets while my wife reads aloud from the Constitution. (My wife is cool with this if I promise to “first wipe off Palin’s tranny makeup.” I married well.)

But this is not at all sexist, says MIchael Seitzman, and in a follow up column entitled “Sexist? Not So Fast” he schools us dumb feminist bitches on what sexism is, since he’s so much smarter and more knowleadgeable than we are, writing:

I wrote something that a few people call offensive in a post of mine today. Granted, it’s pretty offensive. But if you think I’m going to apologize for it, you’re out of your mind. In case you missed it, the offending line is, “I want to have sex with her [Palin] on my Barack Obama sheets while my wife reads aloud from the Constitution.” In my business there’s an old expression, “Never cut funny.” And, excuse me, but that one’s kinda funny. The debate over whether I’m sexist is somewhat more serious.

“Sexism” is discrimination or unfairly diminishing someone based on gender. I haven’t discriminated against Sarah Palin based on her gender and I haven’t diminished her based on it. She’s diminished based on her intellect and experience and hubris and because they’re using her gender in such a crass and cynical manner. I’m discriminating against her based on that fact and that she has as much business on the national political stage as Alice from the Brady Bunch.

I don’t give a damn whether Palin has a penis or a vagina. When I wrote about Hillary Clinton during the primary I didn’t comment on her gender. I don’t care about her gender. Let me point out that I wrote an entire movie about sexual harassment (North Country — click on the link over there on the right side of your screen). Don’t you get it? I’m not insulting Sarah Palin, SHE IS INSULTING ME.

I wondered why I found the movie North Country so terrible, and its portrayals of women so hackneyed, offensive and false, and now I know.  It was written by a man who degrades and diminishes a woman he disagrees with as someone with “tranny make up” who he wants to “have sex with” and he belligerently denies that is sexist. He claims not to care “whether Palin has a penis or a vagina” but I’m thinking that given he has said he wants to have sex with her, he’s lying. To further illustrate how incredibly un-sexist he is, Seitzman follows up with this appalling observation:

Imagine for a moment that McCain had picked the latest winner of The Bachelor as his running mate. Would we be sexist if we commented on her looks? Of course not. Sorry if you don’t like it, but in my mind, there’s not much that separates Sarah Palin from the attractive yet vapid winner of a reality show. As far as I’m concerned, she IS the attractive yet vapid winner of a reality show.

I do not want to share a political affiliation with Michael Seitzman. If writing things like this makes him a good Democrat, I’m so out of the party. And I know I am not alone.

–Ann Bartow

Full post as published by Feminist Law Professors on September 19, 2008 (boomark / email).