Feminist writer Ann Friedman, editor of the leading feminist blog www.feministing.com, has a point in her recent blog post "'Your Women Are Ugly!' is not a political argument." Friedman's blog post is a little overwrought, but she's right that comparisons such as that pictured are sexist.

I would also add that they're usually rigged, as in the poster (pictured) which she cites. Obviously anybody could find a group of attractive pictures of conservative women and unattractive pictures of liberal women--you could do the opposite just as easily.

It's also rigged because some of the pictures of the liberal women were chosen specifically because they make the person look bad. Susan Estrich is an attractive woman, but they picture her here at her absolute worst, as they do with Hillary Clinton.

But it's not the sexism of such arguments that bothers me as much as that they remind me of the way some kids taunt and humiliate each other on the schoolyard. I never wanted to participate in that cruelty as a child, and I've got no interest in participating in it as an adult.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 3rd, 2007 at 3:08 pm and is filed under Feminism/NOW. You can trackback from your own site.