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Sit Down and Shut Up
Karen Bleier, AFP / Newscom
With the silencing of Hillary Clinton and Kirsten Gillibrand, is it any surprise that a brave woman from Alaska might decide to take a road less traveled?
Read more analysis on Hillary's speech from other Daily Beast writers.
Women should be seen and not heard. Or perhaps neither seen nor heard. That would be the message that our political leaders are sending us. Time and time again, our few rising stars are seeing their words dissipate as they ascend.
Is it any surprise then that the only way for women to be heard is to do things differently? On their own terms. To take it to the streets. To move forward in a non-traditional way. So as not to be silenced, discredited or simply disappear.
When President Obama picked Hillary Clinton for secretary of State, there were cheers throughout our country and abroad. What excitement for our new international spokesperson. And true to form, right away, Hillary exceeded even her biggest admirers' expectations. And of course, shortly thereafter, came the quiet mea culpa's of "you were right" whispered by those who weren't believers in 2008 to those who were.
If a woman gets too much power, she becomes a threat and she must either be silenced, discredited or simply disappear.
But as Hillary's poll numbers continued to rise, something rather strange started to unfold: Hillary went missing. She gradually became less and less of the spokesperson that our country so surely needed on international issues. There was barely an utterance of her name in the media as President Obama and Vice President Biden trekked around the globe working on international affairs. Until finally last week the blogosphere started to ask: Where's Hillary?
Hillary got the memo. She wisely decided to give a high-profile speech to reassert herself. So as Hillary's fans sat glued to their television sets eagerly awaiting her words, they were in for a surprise. Hillary wasn't on. President Obama's staff had scheduled an event in the Rose Garden, at, you guessed it, the same time. After all the build up for Hillary's breakout party, well, you can catch the speech on YouTube.
Also on YouTube, you can catch the speech by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand as she introduces Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Well part of it. The part before Senator Leahy rudely interrupts her and basically tells her “shut up.”
In a Senate body known for its collegial atmosphere, especially amongst those of the same political party, the senator from Vermont just could not contain himself. Sure women compose just 17 percent of the Senate, and only 2 of the 19 members of the Judiciary Committee (Al Franken is on it; but not Kirsten Gillibrand). Don't you get it, Kirsten? Women in politics, if you are seen, should not be heard. And certainly not beyond five minutes.
Silencing women as they rise up the ranks of public life is hardly confined to U.S. senators from New York—former and current. This is par for the course in our fraternity of leadership. If a woman gets too much power, she becomes a threat and she must either be silenced, discredited or simply disappear. We even reward men like Larry Summers with the keys to our economy as a prize for silencing Brooksley Born. And give Timothy Geithner the other key for trying, as one of his first acts as Treasury secretary, to rid himself of FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair.
So is it any surprise that a brave woman from Alaska might decide to take a road less traveled? Why not? The fraternity of leadership couldn't quite get her to be silent or disappear, so it tried the next best thing: discredit her. Better yet, while discrediting her, let's go after her children—that will work like a charm.
But Sarah Palin, perhaps unwittingly, found a way to short circuit this whole diminution and demolition process. She decided that she didn't want to be in the fraternity after all. She would rather charter her own sorority and set up her own rules.
And whether this will all work, only time will tell. But in the mean time, take note. Here's something we can all agree on: we want to make this country better for the next generation. And in order to do so, we need our women leaders front and center and we need them now. We all lose when national treasures like Hillary Clinton are stowed away from our public eyes. We all lose when our daughters watch Kirsten being disparaged on national television for daring to speak. What lessons are we teaching the next generation? Our daughters and granddaughters. For certainly, they deserve better than this.
Amy Siskind is president and co-founder of The New Agenda, a nonpartisan organization devoted to advancing women’s rights.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Why America Must Learn to Bow
Martin Jacques is the cofounder of the UK think tank Demos, writes a regular column for The Guardian, and is a visiting research fellow at the London School of Economics Asia Research Centre. His new book, When China Rules the World, is available now.
Going Rogue: The Index
Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
"Women should be seen and not heard. Or perhaps neither seen nor heard. That would be the message that our political leaders are sending us. Time and time again, our few rising stars are seeing their words dissipate as they ascend."
A foregone conclusion begins the article. Do I even need to continue reading past this point? But I did.
" So as Hillary's fans sat glued to their television sets eagerly awaiting her appearance, something strange happened. Hillary wasn't on."
Are public representatives Hollywoodstars or public servants? Being a "fan" carries with it a certain element of bias with it. Should we hold one person up to such a plateau? Can your "super star" ever do wrong in your own eyes, or will they always be a victim?
"So is it any surprise that a brave woman from Alaska might decide to take a road less traveled? Why not? The fraternity of leadership couldn't quite get her to be silent or disappear..."
I'm sorry but Sara Palin might be strong or even "brave" in the eyes of her own family, but she does not lead by any good example. Doing something "new" and "taking the road less traveled" are just another way to say that she quit before her term was over with. Quitting is nothing revolutionary.
"And in order to do so, we need our women leaders front and center and we need them now. We all lose when national treasures like Hillary Clinton are stowed away from our public eyes."
When you set one group up to be a "national treasure," it makes me wonder if you look at the individual or the person's gender. Do you wish to be defined by your own gender? Or would you rather stand on your own two feet and really be unique?
"Do you wish to be defined by your own gender?"
Yes, absolutely! I'm a man, and you're d*mn skippy I want to be defined as a man, and then some! What's wrong with a woman being proud of being a woman?
You missed Amy's point here and showed your partisan bias. Quite frankly this is exactly what keeps all of us from getting anywhere and what allows the patriarchy one sterp ahead.
Great job Amy- you hit the nail right on the head!
Clinton's speech was an important foreign policy address and it should have had some broadcast coverage. Accidental or not, the White press office erred in not doing a better job coordinating the President and his Secretary of State.
And totally agree about the big headed, raspy voiced Leahy's rudeness to a junior ranking colleague. Gillibrand is the future of the Democratic party and a rising FEMALE political star. She deserves the same respect that older, MALE Senators routinely receive as their due. And while I don't agree with Palin's politics, I do recognize another woman's power that threatens the media misogynists who want to damage, distort and diminish her.
"Accidental or not, the White press office erred in not doing a better job coordinating the President and his Secretary of State."
It maybe wasn't deliberate, but it was certainly an off note by the President's staff. They should have waited until after Hillary was done. Period.
Spare me the phony outrage.
Sarah Palin is a coward and a greed addled thug.
Whatever sorority she's establishing is one that most women would be too ashamed to join, and most men would be too embarassed to visit.
It's nauseating to read the trash her pompom waving supporters of either gender trot out. This woman is no Madame Curie, Rosa Parks, Golda Meir, or for that matter even Carly Fiorina who despite her penchant for shameless self-promotion did indeed show her mettle in the business world. She's the Heidi Montag of politics, desperate for the attention people like the writer of this fluff piece bestow upon her.
"Sarah Palin is a coward and a greed addled thug."
Are we projecting President Obama's qualities onto others? Still waiting for The Man from the Chicago Thuggery Cesspool to stand up to Wall Street/Pelosi/Congress for anything actually progressive.
I think you're spot-on in this article. The iconic image from the G 8 summit was that photo of Obama and Sarkozy loking at that young lady's rear end. The whole thing seemed so immature and boyish. I kept thinking, "Where's Hillary?" Condi was much more visible.
I was at work, so I didn't see that Gillibramd/Leahy encounter, but I can see it in my mind's eye all too well. I like Leahy's politics, but I think he's a bit of a blowhard. As far as Sarah Palin--I really don't understand all the outrage directed at her. The attitude of pundits and posteers alike seems to be, how dare she take herself seriously! I don't agree with 90% of her ideas, but I don't think she's any sillier that a lot of her male Republican colleagues (Gov. Mark Sanford, Senator John Ensign, Senator Larry Craig, to name just a few). I know that John McCain was considering Mark Sanford as his running mate last summer, right when Governor Sanford was in the thick of his affair with Maria. Sanford knew this, and emailed Maria about the possibility that he would be chosen, but I haven't read much resentment from Repubs (or anyone) over the fact that Sanford took himself seriously as a running mate while in the midst of a (in South Carolina, it's illegal, for God's sake)affair.
I just think that women in politics are held to an almost impossible standard, while the mostly male politicians are allowed a certain amount of craziness-the media's attitude towards the male politicians who screw up seems to be a sort of wink, wink, nod, boys will be boys sort of thing.
The video disproved what the photo said... And I truly believe Obama doesn't want to do all the public relations for his administration, but nobody else is on his communication level. Hillary's been laid up with the surgery for a bit, but she's back now. I would love to see more of her, but the article saying that Obama has purposefully shut her up seems pretty stupid.
" I didn't see that Gillibramd/Leahy encounter, but I can see it in my mind's eye all too well."
There's your trouble right there. You've allowed people with their own agendas to guide you, rather than seeing for yourself, as your credulity about the pink-dress photo demonstrates. If Obama has never before, in all his campaigning and career, been caught ogling a woman, why assume the worse of two explanations, one without precedent, unless that's what you've already decided you want to do?
I don't even disagree with you about women in politics being held to a higher standard, but accuracy is one standard everyone should observe.
Sarah Palin, based on her demonstrated lack of understanding of the simplest civics, wasn't fit for national office.Though there was sexism aimed at her, the outrage came from her obvious unsuitability, not as a woman, but as a horrifically ignorant person. She was never curious about how the world worked outside of her narrow Alaskan focus, and now, by her resignation, proves she wasn't fit for state office.
Being less silly than Mark Sanford is certainly a low bar.
Amy Siskind's article shows her preoccupation is not with women's rights, but with worshipping Hillary Clinton, even when it's to Clinton's detriment. She is simply a pawprintless PUMA, who doesn't even see that she insults and weakens the Secretary of State by insisting she's a victim.
Siskind's view is always a simplistic counting-up of photo-ops, as if getting on television were the Secretary of State's job instead of diplomacy, which sometimes demands a low profile.
No wonder she's such a fan of Sarah Palin.
Hillary has said she is "amused and baffled" by people like Amy who ask where she's been. Aside from grueling physical therapy six times a week, and being in constant pain, she's been going about her business, which includes promoting the real new agenda: her boss's foreign policy.
Amy, your whole world is out to get Hillary and Sarah rant would be far better if your own New Agenda did not actively promote the hate site NoQuarter. I would love to know what parts you think are the best? The race hate, the sexism or the homophobia.
You happily promote a site that happily calls women sasquatch. How does that help women and girls?
There are so many ways you could have twisted your story, but it seems all you want to sell is Palin Pac Lite. Given what you imagine is a dearth of journalists, unable to cover more than two Government related events at once surely that means Hillary Clinton upstaged the President?
Both false spins - but at least that spin does not try and sell the Secretary of State as a put upon woman. It also does not fit in with your agenda of trying to paint whatever decision about what happens on tv news coverage as the fault of the President.
NOW President Terry O'Neill said sexist and racist attacks on Clinton, Palin, Obama and Sotomayor are sexual harassment:
"Sexist and racist attacks on women or mothers who dare enter the public sphere, including Governor Palin, Secretary if State Clinton, First Lady Obama and Judge Sotomayor are a form of sexual harassment.
Sexual harassment operates in the workplace by making it clear that women just aren't welcome. Comedians, pundits and all those men dominating the airwaves think it's open season on women public figures - and feminists won't allow this sexual harassment to continue any longer."
http://feministleadershipnow.com/2009/06/16/press-release-following-let termans-late-apology-feminists-vow-to-wipe-sexual-harassment-from-the-airwa ves/
After reading this article, I went back and watched Gillibrand's introduction, and Leahy only interrupted her because she had gone over her allotted time of five minutes in the introduction, and he requested that she submit the remainder of her statement (which DID sound like it was going to go on and on) for the record. Gillibrand handled the interruption gracefully, jumped forward to the last line of her statement in which she expressed her support of Judge Sotomayor, and handed it back to Chairman Leahy.
I'm all in favor of pointing out those instances where women are treated with disrespect because of their gender, but I don't think that this was one of them.
I support Sarah Palin 100% and if she asked Hillary Clinton to be VP well... I will support that. How Obama treated Hillary is shameful.
This is actually insulting to Hillary!
The cluster of Hillary Clinton deadenders are really some of the most politically unsophisticated people in the Dem party (if they haven't left yet). If you think for *one second* that Hillary would ever agree to be Palin's VP, you really need to stop eating the crayons you used to compose that comment.
Got a chip on your shoulder much? Here I thought that Hillary Clinton was being Hillary, keeping her head down to attain her departmental restructuring goals which have to be huge given the mess she inherited from the previous tenants. She kept a similar hard working, low profile in the Senate. To assume that her status is being diminished or usurped by her teammates is perhaps an error. I'd have to hear complaints from HRC. And putting Sarah Palin in the same league? Wishful thinking.
No one put anyone in the same league as Hillary - The writer simply pointed out the same thing, albeit more eloquently, that most of us are observing and reporting in hopes of put a stop to silencing women in politics.
What's with all the partisan hatred of women? You are playing right into the hands of the patriarchy - and they are loving it. You act like battered wives no matter how much they abuse and mistreat you - you never leave and you turn on your own family to goinhg run home to them. SHAME
If anyone is under the impression that Ms. Siskind and The New Agenda (TNA) organization she represents are "nonpartisan" and devoted solely to "advancing women's rights," please explore her past links to the absurd and utterly ineffectual PUMA movement that sprang up during the 2008 primaries.
Although Siskind had the media savvy to scrub the PUMA cooties off TNA when it became clear PUMA was heading into Lyndon LaRouche territory, their cruddy little paw-prints are all over the joint. One of the original TNA members was Harriet "Inadequate Black Male" Christian, the woman whose paranoid, bigoted rant at the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee meeting became a YouTube sensation. (Search her name on YouTube if you haven't seen it.)
Siskind associates with another infamous PUMA, TNA "friend" Larry Johnson, cross-posting at one another's blogs. Johnson's blog, No Quarter, hosts a vile collection of racists and "birther" nutbags. Johnson gained notoriety during the primaries by claiming that the GOP had a tape of Michelle Obama and Louis Farrakhan jointly railing against "whitey," a bogus assertion that made its way to Fox News before the tape ultimately failed to materialize as the "October surprise" Johnson claimed it would be. (Google "Larry Johnson whitey tape")
Another founding TNA member was Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, jet-set international financier and peer of the realm who made a fool of herself by calling Obama an elitist. (Again, check YouTube to watch CNN's Campbell Brown laugh at the absurdity of this billionaire with Lovey Howell speech patterns accusing someone else of being an elitist.)
In light of this, Siskind's baseless assumption that Secretary Clinton was spirited away to Obama's Dungeon of Misogyny makes sense. Never mind Clinton's well-documented fractured elbow and daily physical therapy regime. Forget that in yesterday's New York Times, Clinton herself dismissed the "Hillary has been disappeared!" meme.
Clinton is an adult and appears to have put the bruising primary fight behind her. Siskind and her PUMA pals never will. It's the same old agenda.
I'm sorry. This seems like a well-reasoned column, but it goes off the deep end in searching for a conclusion.
Hillary Clinton is getting just as much airtime as Colin Powell during his tenure as Secretary of State. And do you even remember Warren Christopher? Now compare that to Condoleeza Rice or Madeleine Albright.
And you've got a fascinating view of Clinton's time during the campaign. She was treated unfairly? She went negative in the first five minutes: she compared Obama to a terrorist - he took the high road on that one. Despite the fact that her focus on fighting other Democrats gave the GOP ammunition every day.
Kirsten Gillibrand was way over time, and wouldn't stop talking. Leahy even offered to take the rest of her comments as read, and place them in the record. But you don't mention that.
And Palin? Really? A shining example of womanhood? The woman is a clueless idiot who believes defamation and hate-mongering is the highest form of civil discourse. And to prove that she's suitable material for President, she quits halfway through her first term, citing the terrible mean bloggers.
And incidentally, Palin was the first one to use her children as political tools and props - don't blame the media for taking their picture when Sarah's pushing them in front of the camera.
I do find it interesting that you mention Gillibrand's "silencing" but not the days of racist and sexist garbage that this was a tiny, unnoticed part of. If you want an example for your own side, Sotomayor is a much better example than Gillibrand. But you ignore her. Why is that?
Why is that, namelesscynic? Why, if one didn't know better, one might even surmise from the racist blatherings of Siskind allies like Harriet Christian and Larry Johnson that Sotomayor isn't exactly the...kind of woman PUMAs care to defend.
What we all need are real women and not embarrassments like Palin or Gillibrand...and Suskind. All you have to do is not be an idiot. Don't talk longer than you are alloted. That's simple courtesy. Don't go out there in public without knowledge of that which you are talking. Don't whine.Don't believe everything you are told. Think for yourself and don't believe a freeper like Amy Suskind.
Thank you.
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