We must be on the dawn of another primary election. The Clinton supporters are screaming "MISOGYNY" and with it, another chapter in the The Opression Olympics [1] is ready to unfold. And lest one of the big newspapers takes their thunder away, The Huffington Post [2] is there to unleash the "un-bitter" straw(o)man :

Sexism is alive and well in America.

One exit poll I saw had almost twice as many voters having trouble voting for a woman for president than voting for a black man.

Oh kaaaay. Where do I begin? Let's start with the truthiness here : One exit poll I saw had almost twice as many voters having trouble voting for a woman for president than voting for a black man.

Ok, I'll bite : Which exit poll was that? Which company did the exit poll? Which were the questions? Where was the poll conducted? Was it in New York City's Harlem or was it in the heart of Appalachia?

In other words, enquiring minds want to know where is the data and how did you interpret it. Because I am going to bet there has been no poll asking the hard questions like : "Would you vote for a black before you vote for a white woman?"

On the contrary, as people like Matt Yglesias [3] have pointed out, a pattern has emerged in the places where Hillary Clinton has won. The exit polls suggest Barack Obama's race [4] has been a deciding factor on the person's vote.

Let's go on to the sexism part.

Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare Sister [5] has been covering and counting all the ways people throw their mysogyny Clinton's way. The list proves the point that yes, indeed, there's tons of woman hate thrown Hillary's way.

And yet ...

And yet ...

This comment, by the way, is not to single out Melissa. Hers is an unfortunate pattern found in certain parts of the feminist blogosphere : In covering misogyny as something that victimizes only Hillary Clinton, a lot of feminists who happen to be white are saying that "Misogyny" happens outside of race, ethnicity and especially class. Meaning, that misogyny only happens to white women, regardless of how much power, influence and money they have.

As if Hillary Clinton, former First Lady of the United States and present Senator of New York who's personal wealth went from $500kish a year to $134 million in 8 year, were just another struggling white woman.

The perfect example? See this post of mine [6]. Compare it to Melissa's comment about the same article I reference here [7]. Now look at how Ampersand deals with my comment about the same article Melissa and I wrote about here [8].

Melissa's blind spot is so typical that the Clinton campaign and their surrogates have been extraordinarily good at exploiting the so-called white woman woman rage. This rage is being quite Machiavellianly converted into a kind of liberal-sanctioned "white is #1" that has found a way to easily align the most disparate voting blocs, like conservative working class catholics in Appalachia with the WASPy pro-abortion Washington elites.

Yet what about the other women in this race? What about the "Stepford wifing" of Cindy McCain or the "angry ungratefulness" of Michelle Obama?

The other night, while dining with some fellow Black and Asian bloggers we were talking about this. We all agreed misogyny was half of the story because we all were too aware of the racist misogyny thrown Michelle Obama's way.

Where is the outrage whenever there's someone turning Michelle Obama into an ungrateful bitch [9]who is nothing but another antipatriotic negro [10] like Jeremiah Wright [11]?

Oops, no time for that.

If we talk about Michelle's misogyny woes, we'd have to "go there" and address the racism as well. If we address racism, then we'd have to address all the attacks on Obama as well; and that would kind of put a harsh on all that "post racial" psycho-babble the punditocracy has been spewing from the left and right.

Ultimately though, Clinton supporters who claim impartiality about their analysis of sexism need to stop and take a moment at what not only their doing but claiming :

1. Does Hillary Clinton really have it bad because she is a woman?
2. Does Hillary Clinton really have no power or influence because she is a woman?
3. Is misogyny to blame for the failure of Hillary Clinton's campaign?
4. Are political attacks at Hillary Clinton really only about misogyny?

Answer those questions and you will understand why it is dishonest and a disservice to Hillary Clinton to say her shortcomings and present failure are only due to her being a woman. It makes her look weak [12] and it obfuscates the reasons why only Hillary Clinton the politician, not women writ large, can't win.

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