the disney empire and the alienation of hillary clinton

From the time we were young, boys and girls alike are infused with fairy tales. As we all know, the premise of fairy tales revolves around good vs. evil/victory over persecution, and generally portrayed through a victim/heroine/beautiful girl who usually is saved by a hero/bravado/prince after fighting some sort of battle against a villain/evil doer/often a wicked stepmother/witch/and in one case a weird female sea creature.

And intentional or not, this shit is keeping Hillary down.

At the end of the day our country has proved itself more ready to elect a man of color over a woman and whether you like Hillary or not it poses the question: Is misogyny embedded more deeply in our country's foundation than racism?

The subtle and not so subtle mistrust, anger, sexualization, and underestimation of women in our society is indisputable and mainstream media does little to quell the flames with it's advertising and programming and yes, it's political coverage. Portraying Hillary as manly, as emotional, as a bitch are all ways her gender is subtly and not so subtly brought into the equation. Online forums are no better, one of the popular political groups on Facebook is called Hillary Clinton: Stop Running For President and Make Me a Sandwich. We've found all sorts of ways to work Bitch into a statement about Hillary, both from Tina Fey's positive and brilliantly pointed Bitch is the New Black to all of the derogatory statements about why folks can't vote for her, she's too much of a bitch. Now if Obama was getting equal time for being called a Dick that would be one thing, but have you heard anyone say Dick is the new Black? Bringing Dick Back? I'm a Dick and Proud?

Oh wait. Dick's been in charge all along.

Before you call me a man-hater (which I am not) and a Hillary supporter, (which I am still undecided), or worse, that I am making a big deal out of nothing because this isn't about all women, folks just don't like HER; I ask you simply: If Cinderella's nemesis was a wicked Stepfather and she ended up selling the glass slipper on Ebay to pay for a Round The World trip with a couple of girlfriends would we be in this predicament today? And are we willing to keep showing our children that this way of defining women is acceptable?

And will we ever be able to see a woman as Commander in Chief?

This post is cross posted at MOMocrats and speaking of cross posting, I read this post on Friday was was completely overwhelmed by the author's courage as a woman and as a mother. The rest of the Perfect Posts are here and here.