There are nuanced, thorny, emotionally complex conversations to be had about what it means to have a woman running again. But this story didn’t elicit that type of engagement, writes bridgetgillard
Photo: Getty Images Yesterday, CNN ran a story claiming that Bernie Sanders had once told Elizabeth Warren, in her own apartment, that a woman could not win the presidency. The account came from several anonymous sources; Sanders adamantly denied it in a statement to the outlet, calling it “ludicrous.
So everyone got something out of it — except that no one actually gained anything, as the very real subject that the controversy was purportedly about, sexism in politics, got swallowed up by back-and-forths, denials and confirmations, and infighting between the supporters of the two candidates who would actually do the most good for the most women.
It is not necessarily sexist to bring up the issue of sexism in presidential races, in a country in which the man who won the last contest openly discussed groping women on tape and has referred to them as “nasty” animals. Hillary Clinton herself has called attention to the bias she experienced as a female candidate in 2016.
But CNN’s story didn’t elicit this type of engagement. Instead, the topic was wielded as a cudgel, hijacked for maximum provocation. Never mind that Warren worked genially with Sanders for nearly two years after this conversation supposedly occurred, and there was clearly more to the encounter than the headline about it.
Nothing has made me more frustrated in this election so far than reading the words, “a woman can’t win,” over and over again as this story traveled in the last 24 hours, blared across websites, in retweets, scrolling on the bottom of the TV at the gym. One of the most pernicious things about sexism is that in marking it we risk being hemmed in by our own jadedness.
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