These Terribly Sexist Attacks On Hillary Clinton Cannot Be Justified As Politics!

By Cake Staff:

Peruse, if you will, this ‘observation’ from the twittersphere:

There’s a glaring problem with it. We’re not saying there aren’t rabid Hillary Clinton fans on the internet abusing buzzwords like “sexism” – because there are. But it’s also true that [envoke_twitter_link]there is immense sexist backlash being targeted at Hillary, as there is with so many women in her field[/envoke_twitter_link].

Sure it’s okay to call out Hillary supporters when they make no sense, but that doesn’t mean that sexist attitudes don’t exist. Take, for example, the recent Republican National Convention held in Cleveland, Ohio. Some of the most brazen attacks on Clinton were on grand display:

And here’s some casual witchcraft jokes.

Honestly, we think it’s kind of funny how people still equate powerful women with witches. Especially when witches are a widely accepted symbol of anti-patriarchal empowerment! Oh and here’s something from the Republicans’ new #LockHerUp campaign, that also casually trivializes the #BlackLivesMatter movement:

But wait, there’s more!

[envoke_twitter_link]This sort of focus on a female candidate’s appearance is not new[/envoke_twitter_link]. The appearance of German stateswoman Angela Merkel and Britain’s newly elected Prime Minister Theresa May been under the media’s close scrutiny, and in India, female politicians like Mayawati and Mamata Banerjee are constantly made fun of for being dark-skinned or looking ‘frumpy,’ as if how they look has anything to do with their work.

In all of these cases, these women are downright objectified, and [envoke_twitter_link]making their ‘looks’ the focus of their careers is simply furthering sexist attitudes[/envoke_twitter_link].

Some of the responses to Clinton as a person – and more specifically as a woman – are almost too horrible to say. Only last week, ‘Happy Days‘ actor Scott Baio tweeted an image of Clinton standing in front of the word “count” with her head blocking the “o.” In his (now-deleted) tweet, he said “This may be the best meme out there,” because that’s the kind of humour doing the rounds.

The hatred is so intense that an Ohio county official felt confident enough to say that Clinton should be “hanging from a tree.” So yes, alerts about sexism being levelled at female politicians are actually a valid concern, because they’re feeding into something much more sinister.

Here’s the tweet to sum up what we’ve been trying to say so far: