New York Senator Kristen Gillibrand discussed her harassment at the hands of her Senate colleagues, and explained why she didn’t immediately castigate her peers for being cads.
As a male, and not one to often be hit with remarks about my body (except my mother and my doctor- “You really need to lose some weight”), I think her logic makes a lot of sense, and I’m betting a lot of you out there who have gone through this sort of humiliating experience will agree her description of events is not only plausible, but pretty much mimics your encounters with harassers. This is a prime moment for everyone to reflect on the fact that the Mad Men guide to women in the workplace is not what we are striving for as a nation. Unfortunately (or should I say completely predictably), our media betters have completely missed the damned point:
Sigh, CNN. Take it away, Booman:
A U.S. senator from New York says the f-word on video. Politico, not quite realizing that New York is populated by New Yorkers, clutches pearls in horror.
Here’s a clue, morons. The gentle lady from New York was talking about the inability of her male colleagues in the Senate to decide whether it’s a good thing she’s working out so she won’t get porky or a bad thing because they like their women chubby. Apparently, there’s no shortage of people who badly need to be told to go fuck themselves.
Exactly. This and Anne Laurie’s post this morning remind me of the old days of endless debates about blogger civility and the glorious existence of Shrillblog, when what mattered to our media betters was not the fact that bloggers were right, but that they used four letter words to demonstrate their point and outrage.
geg6
Ah, blogger civility panels! Those were the days!
RSR
sensing the need for another blogger ethics panel
chopper
Oh for fuck’s sake.
Breezeblock
Betweem Sens. Gillibrand and Warren, not sure who I love more! Oh, and Sen. Boxer.
skyweaver
Won’t someone think of the fucking children?
c u n d gulag
Good for fucking Gillibrand!
I’m fucking proud that she’s one of my fucking Senators!
And who gives a fuck what that fucking internet shithole, Politico, thinks.?
At this point, they’re just one fucking step above Tucker’s toilet and two fucking steps above Bretibart’s sewer.
boatboy_srq
All this Norman pearl-clutching over the use of Saxon in Anglish is getting really old.
/snark
Josie
Civility, in cases like this, is highly overrated. I bless both John Cole and Booman for understanding this completely. I also really like Gillibrand.
Punchy
So CNN has an link to an actual article entitled “Should you hit your kid”?
Holy fucking christ.
Patrick
OMG! Can CNN by any more clueless?
I wasn’t the biggest Gillibrand fan, but this whole episode sure has made me appreciate her a lot more. What the f*** is wrong with our media?! It’s like she is being violated twice, first be her fellow senators and now by our clueless media.
Tommy
I can say fuck a hundred different times. I try not to use that word here because I do not want to offend people. Try not to cuss but I cuss like a drunken sailor in my personal life.
Oh the fuck. What the fuck.
Comrade Dread
Were I a woman, I think I would definitely curse more.
raven
Fuckin A Dawg. I learned to talk the way I do in their motherfucking Green Machine and if someone doesn’t like it they can kiss my ass.
ps
I got approved by the VA for a hearing aid!!! Only took 3 months but I’m not complaining!
SFAW
@Patrick:
Can Wingnut ever Peak?
Senyordave
@Punchy: So CNN has an link to an actual article entitled “Should you hit your kid”?
It is sobering that a large number of adults would enthusiastically answer yes to that question.
At least they didn’t title it something like “Should you administer life lessons to your child so they can grow up to be a productive citizen or should you allow them to become a whiny taker”
Tommy
@Punchy: My parents hit me. That was in the 70s. Things have changed. Again things have changed. What was acceptable then isn’t acceptable now.
Scott S.
@Punchy: I’d prefer an article titled “Should you hit your media pundits with wrenches?”
Roger Moore
@Patrick:
If they can’t top this for cluelessness, it won’t be for lack of trying.
SFAW
@raven:
DOES THAT MEAN I CAN NOW TURN OFF CAPS-LOCK WHEN I RESPOND TO YOU?
Congratulations!
Keith G
Maybe Gillibrand can take some lessons in civility from Urban Outfitters.
Or would that be vice versa?
This got moderated?
raven
@SFAW: If you have a split keyboard you just can do the left side!
Patrick
@Roger Moore:
Yup. Talk about missing the point…
Pluky
@Tommy: It has NEVER been okay to leave ones children with lacerations.
Comrade Dread
@Senyordave: I would have answered yes, because I was spanked as a child.
Now I’d have to say no. I have spanked my kids on rare occasions and I’ve found that it’s even less effective than taking away a favorite toy or putting them in time out, so I stopped. And the latter punishments don’t send them the message that violence is okay.
And on a selfish note, the latter two punishments don’t make me feel like a total shithead bastard.
SFAW
@raven:
What are you trying to say?
raven
@SFAW: I only got a left ear aid.
SFAW
Also, in today’s “Even More Annals of Pearl Clutching,” Tom Keane, writing in the Boston Globe, wants Nancy Pelosi to apologize to Republicans for saying that a Republican Senate would harm civilization. Whereupon Maher apparently equated them to ISIS, and Pelosi didn’t scream “NO NO A THOUSAND TIMES NO!” in response.
I am guessing a letter to the Globe saying “Mr. Keane should get his head out of his ass, and grow the fuck up as well, before he pollutes the Globe‘s Op-Ed pages again” would not get published.
Fucking clown.
SFAW
@raven:
OK, thanks. I couldn’t tell which one by looking at you, they make them so small these days.
Betty Cracker
My respect for Senator Gillibrand was already growing as she became less Blue Doggish and showed exceptional leadership on women’s issues, but now that I know she’d respond to harassers in the proper vernacular, I’m ready to start a Draft Gillibrand movement.
Frankensteinbeck
Doesn’t CNN discuss the appearance of woman politicians more often than their political positions or competence or anything else? To them, her entire complaint is shrill. She’s objecting to their way of viewing things.
@Pluky:
Morally, it has never been okay. In terms of the public consensus on right and wrong, it used to be encouraged.
karen marie
Maybe Politico has a low opinion of Americans because they think their commenters are representative? Politico comment threads are cesspools.
Randy Khan
I’m waiting for the deep discussions among the talking heads of whether this was worse than Biden’s comment about the ACA. I suspect it’s a tough call – she’s just a Senator and he’s Vice President, but she’s got lady parts and he doesn’t. Plus he used it as an intensifier and she used it as a verb, and I’m not sure how that plays out.
Meanwhile, she’s firmly demonstrated that she’s a real New Yorker, further solidifying her popularity in the state she represents.
Eric U.
there is no point to hitting your kid anyway, so it’s just cruelty. I have some relatives that would ignore their kids until they couldn’t any more and then spank them pretty soundly. Might have worked once or twice, but by the time I witnessed it, the kids pretty much just ignored it. Maybe I micro-managed my kids, but the worst thing I ever did to the oldest one was leave her in timeout on the steps for longer than she thought was fair. I don’t think I ever punished the younger one, which is scary now that I think of it. If you really did something bad, my mother would smack you with a spatula. We lived in fear of that spatula, it didn’t really hurt and I’m pretty sure we just didn’t want to piss mom off. But she was one of the first people I know that recognized that corporal punishment was pretty much pointless.
Rob in CT
Incivility, as defined by many: saying F-you or somesuch to someone who is being a total asshole but avoided using swear words.
I’m still reeling a bit from finding out that ~70% of US parents spank their kids. I knew it was a common thing. I figured it was maybe a 50/50 thing when I was a kid, less now and trending in that improving direction. But no (well, there is a mild downward trend). Huge majorities spank in 2014. Slicing the demographics just so might get it to 50/50 in my context (New England, White, not Republican, non-religious). Maybe. That’s… kinda horrifying. I know it’s a spectrum and many spankers go about it in a fairly mild way. But holy shit. Nearly 3/4 of parents spank and, given the demographic breakdowns, I bet 3/4 of children or more are spanked. “No hitting, little Timmy, or I’ll smack ya!” Christ.
The one time I was ever spanked (apparently, I have no memory of it) was by a non-family member caregiver. She was told not to do it again, and that was it. Notice I don’t remember it? Too young. No idea what it was about. I sure learned MY lesson!
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Why do you want to be president, Senator Gillibrand?
Fuck you, that’s why.
Rob in CT
@Baud:
Senator Gillibrand, what is your position on the Lilly Ledbetter Act?
Fuck you, pay me.
piratedan
maybe the media can do us all a favor by going out to Urban Outfitters and getting themselves some of those nifty Kent State garments to fashionably portray their outrage at Senator Gillibrand’s incivility at being a modestly attractive female who had to deal with sexual harassment at the highest levels of government…. sheesh it’s a bleeping shame I didn’t invest in fainting couches, I could have been a millionaire.
Violet
@raven:
Congratulations! And in the spirit of this post, that’s a big fucking deal!
Betty Cracker
@Rob in CT: Wow, I’m surprised by that statistic too, and I live among evangelical Christians in the rural South. I had also figured around 50/50. I’ve never hit my kid. I don’t hit pets either. It’s counterproductive, plus I’d feel like a shithead.
Betty Cracker
@Baud:
Do you have anything to say to your media critics, Senator Gillibrand?
Fuck YOU, you fucking fucks!
Randy P
@Rob in CT: Could there be an Onion Kristen to take over the reins when Onion Joe mounts his bike in January 2017 and heads off into the sunset?
Barry
“…when what mattered to our media betters was not the fact that bloggers were right, but that they used four letter words to demonstrate their point and outrage.”
Oh, the media cared that the bloggers were right. That’s why the media was changing the topic.
Botsplainer
I just want to say that I find her incredibly appealing, and have my crush confirmed by her delightful and appropriate expression.
Eric U.
@raven: I have been trying to talk my BIL into going to the VA about his hearing. Retired military, deployed to every conflict the U.S. has been in since Panama in the ’80s, and he’s hesitant to go to the VA for this. I keep telling his female relatives that this is one thing the VA does as well or better than anyone, but I guess he’d rather say, “huh?” fifty times every conversation. His big ambition was to make general I have wondered if the hearing was a contributor to him retiring as a colonel
Tractarian
@Randy P:
I say, if George Fucking Bush can choose Dick Fucking Cheney as his VFP candidate, Hillary Fucking Clinton can choose Kirsten Fucking Gillibrand. Fuck teh Constitution.
Belafon
@Josie: If you no longer have the facts, and people aren’t paying attention to you pounding on the table, you then demand that the other person be civil.
Scott Supak (@ssupak)
Pretty sure that was a little dig on Dick Cheney by my Senator and former Representative.
PIGL
@Betty Cracker:
I know someone who can top that, Betty. (EDIT: NSFW)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb7X8ch04Vs
Bonus, she has the evillest grin ever.
Roger Moore
@Belafon:
If the Democrats tried the same kind of civility bullshit the Republicans do, the media would laugh at them and point out they’re only saying it because they have no other arguments. It only works when the moderator is shamelessly biased and willing to accept the most ridiculous argument at face value.
dmsilev
@Betty Cracker:
Remember when we were informed by Our Progressive Betters that Gillibrand was an absolutely horrible choice for Senator and that her selection as Hillary Clinton’s replacement was purely intended as a fuck-you to the Kennedys? Good times, good times.
catclub
@Punchy:
I assume only to teach them not to hit someone smaller than they are.
Rob in CT
@Betty Cracker:
My surprise is due to: a) I wasn’t spanked; and b) up here, one doesn’t go loudly proclaiming that one spanks. One might do it, but one is quiet about it and generally expects to be on the defensive in a conversation about it (taking pains to explain how very controlled and non-abusive it is).
Oh, forgot a demographic marker that might be relevant: upper-middle class. The people I know are largely: white, not religious fundamentalists, moderate to liberal (particularly on “social issues”), and middle to upper middle class. I’d be surprised if it was 50% in that grouping. But that’s a relatively narrow slice of the population.
catclub
@Randy P: Maybe Onion Joe will give her the Camaro when he rides off.
IROC-Z
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Punchy:
CNN, for those who have not noticed, is merely Fox in drag.
That’s my pithy line. But actually we have a huge, huge problem with the media in this country. It’s pretty much either at the root of, or a willing enabler of all our other problems, and I’m really not sure what can or should be done about that. A lack of factual information leads to poor decision making by both citizens and politicians.
Debbie(aussie)
@raven:
Raven, that is wonderful news. May they be easy to set and simple to use, and may you have years of enjoying being part of the conversation.
Barney
And maybe it was also meant as a reference to Dick Fucking Cheney telling Senator Leahy to Go Fuck Himself in the senate itself, of which he seems inordinately proud. IOKIYAR.
SFAW
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Just the way the Rethugs like it.
You didn’t think it’s just coincidental that they’ve been trying to destroy viable public education for more than 30 years, did you?
@PIGL:
Outstanding song/vid. Thanks.
Villago Delenda Est
@Eric U.: It took me a year, but I got hearing aids for both ears. Has made life much better.
gene108
@Tractarian:
I believe the Clinton’s do not reside in any particular place, as their actual home. Where they live depends on the moment in time and place, where you observe their existence.
Therefore, I am sure Hillary could change her state of residence, to let Sen. Gillibrand be her running mate.
Trollhattan
@catclub:
Nuh-uh, TransAm with the chicken on the hood.
Nothing else would have worked as well. Biden got a kick out of it, especially since he’s a ‘Vette man. Which…of course he is.
utterdregs
Where they live depends on the moment in time and place, where you observe their existence.
Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey….
Soprano2
At my first full-time job the general manager was a real A-hole. More than once he made comments about my appearance in front of the whole group of people I worked with every day, he got off on the power thing that I had to just sit there and take it. I’ve hated that man ever since, I think he’s probably roasting in hell as we speak. I also once had a female co-worker say to me, about my problem with pants being too long because I’m 5’2″ tall, “Your problem isn’t that you’re short, it’s that you weigh too much for your height”. My mouth dropped open, I honestly didn’t know what to say to her. So in my experience women can be just as clueless about things like this as men can. Now I think I would tell her to fuck off, good grief I was a size 8!!
kd bart
CNN is run by the Legion of Aunt Pittypats.
Cervantes
@Punchy:
It was that or “Should you hit a CNN executive?” You can see their difficulty.
Tommy
@Soprano2: I am 5’4 on a good day. I am 44. I;ve never bought a pair of pants that fit.
mr_gravity
My parents beat me and I turned out perfect.
Cervantes
@Rob in CT:
That’s a favorite. Here’s another:
On the other hand, this one is cute:
Not any more, my love, not any more.
catclub
@Trollhattan: Right you are.
Hungry Joe
I can remember being spanked only once — I was nine or ten — as punishment for telling an outrageously transparent lie and sticking to it. From that I learned to prepare my lies more carefully and to deliver them with more conviction.
The Other Chuck
@Tommy: How tall are you on bad days?
bemused
Rightwing media was salivating hoping Gillibrand would identify her harassers so they could make the news all about that and take the focus off the issue. They wanted another circus and thankfully Gillibrand didn’t fall for it.
HR Progressive
Well, given that CNN spent days on end chasing ghosts of the Missing Plane™, leave it to them to miss 100% of the substance of what Gillibrand said, and focus 100% on the word “Fuck”.
The fact that in this country we still have nanny-state-ninnies who think that little Jimmy or Susie are going to be corrupted by four letters and areola and not by their schools getting gutted to shit by Republicans is shameful.
There are a lot of people who need to be told to go fuck off, and if a US Senator wants to tell them as such, more power to her.
The Other Bob
Having worked around legislators I can say there is a whole lot of sexual harassment and it is bipartisan.
Another Holocene Human
@boatboy_srq: It’s Dutch, but who’s counting. The Angles of yore were wont to “swyve”. Dutch sailors called in English ports, hence the phrase “to swear like a sailor.”
Another Holocene Human
@Comrade Dread: You did the right thing. More and more evidence is coming out showing that spanking has some bad consequences for the child psychologically and behavior wise, including inculcating some distinctly anti-social behaviors. And that’s completely absent any hint or question of abuse.
If you want your kids to do well in life, don’t spank them. Even my narcissistic mother got the picture and quit the spanking, although she certainly didn’t stop the verbal and emotional abuse or stop the unhinged rage-fueled beatings, of course all of those were emotionally gratifying for her whereas spanking was a big old bore.
metricpenny
@Baud:
You win!
Matt McIrvin
When I was growing up I was one of the very few kids I knew who was not spanked.
There seemed in general to be a big difference between the way most of my friends were raised and the way I was: they were generally raised religious, had much more complex legalistic systems of prohibition and punishment in place at home, and the boys got a lot of “man up” pushing into things like team sports whereas the girls were feeling some kind of implicit expectation that they would find a man and get married from an early age.
And most parents, not to mention such people as op-ed columnists, seemed to take it for granted that you had to do all of this stuff or your kid wouldn’t grow up right, so, being the kind of kid I was, I constantly wondered if I was already ruined and wouldn’t grow up right. (My sister didn’t seem to have any such qualms.)
JR in WV
@Tommy:
You go Tommy!!!
Really Sailors have to be sober to really curse properly. I was a Bosun’s Mate (Boatswain’s Mate in proper spelling, but pronounced Bosun’s Mate!!) in the USN back in 1970-73 and our Chief never broke a smile the whole hitch.
I learned to curse like a sailor from real salty seadogs, so here goes:
Fuck you fuckin’ Republicans, . . . . . . I better stop now, I’ll piss off everybody on here if I really cuss like a real sailor, they call everybody names and mix the cursing up so you can’t tell who’s fuckin’ who.
Just keep those fuckin’ Republicans and Damned Cops away from me, that’s all I ask!!
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t really hit my dogs, but I will use a ball cap to smack them if they get out of control around my feet. 55 pound labs can knock a person down pretty easy. We also teach the dogs the world’s best dog command:: ShooShoo NOW!!
That doesn’t mean the dog’s been bad, or is being punished in any way, just that they need to move on out from where ever they are. The whapping with a baseball cap helps them to learn the ShooShoo command.
It’s more convenient than a newspaper, which we always have laying around, but never handy when you need one right now to reinforce some command. BallCap punishment, they all get it, they all know what they did wrong, they all learn in a week or two that it never hurts much.
whap, whap! Shooo Shoo! Get away from here! Works like a charm’