Feral Beast: Sexism Sells -- But We're Not Buying It

Friday, June 6, 2008

Sexism Sells -- But We're Not Buying It

This montage of clips gathered by the Women's Media Center illustrates the kinds of gender stereotyping that still prevail in the US. It's interesting to view this video just as Hillary Clinton relinquishes her presidential aspirations for the 2008 election. Many younger women believe that the problem was not Hillary's gender and latent sexismm but her own dubious character and overreaching ambition. Sisters from the 1970s are not so sure. Obama's "sweeties" seemed to stick in their collective craw. According to these wrinkled sex warriors, post-millennial Misogyny is Alive and Well.

Judith Warner examines the zeitgeist in which Hillary floundered and “Sex” is now flourishing in her New York Times column, "Domestic Disturbances". Click on http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/woman-in-charge-women-who-charge/

But the question of the hour is--will racism defeat the charismatic Barack Obama in a secret ballot?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: full link is
http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/woman-in-charge-women-who-charge/; June 6, 2008 at 3:48 AM

Feral Beast? Try Lemming

If the press were an animal, what kind of animal would it be? I’ve got my answer. A legion of lemmings, furry and well-intentioned, but ultimately condemned by their nature to follow each other mindlessly off a tall cliff, over the Paris Hilton peak or into the Invade Iraq crevasse. The words “feral beast” certainly wouldn’t come to mind. It’s not particularly accurate or particularly evocative. But that is how the departing British prime minister, Tony Blair, sees journalists: as malicious tormentors who have tried to tear him limb from limb.

--Gal Beckerman of the Columbia Journalism Review

“Journalism is a form of cartography,” write Tom Rosenstiel and Bill Kovach of Pew. “It creates a map for citizens to navigate society. Inflating events for sensation, neglecting others, stereotyping or being disproportionately negative all make a less reliable map.”

"Journalism is good at solving small problems or taking small bites of a big problem. It’s not good at solving big problems." Adapted from David Simon, creator of The Wire.

Retrospective : five decades of journalism as reported by CJR

Fake AP Stylebook reminds us: Unless you're doing a story on the Muppets, you are not a gonzo journalist.

"The once idealized information superhighway has become a parking lot of error, misinformation, rumor and junk." Poynter Institute, advocating a broader definition of who is a journalist.