The road to the White House: filled with sexist speed bumps

By Nicole Jones

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"Listen Lois, I know you're a feminist and I think that's adorable, but this is grown-up time and I'm the man." - Peter Griffin, Family Guy

Let's all laugh now because in about two sentences you're probably not going to like me very much. You can go ahead and substitute "Lois" for "Hillary" and "Peter" for "America" ... The American media, actually, and its blatant, unchallenged double standard in "reporting" on the Democratic candidates.

Mainstream media outlets may as well have been running commercials for Saint Obama, so biased and overwhelmingly sexist was their coverage of Hillary Clinton. And no matter who your favorite candidate was, that's just not right. But this isn't about one candidate over another, or sour grapes or me being on my period. (Insert Midol joke here.)

There were two great candidates, and one of them had to lose. I'm not bitter about that. (Yeah, I am a woman and can be angry without being a bitter shrew.) I will proudly cast my vote for Barack Obama in November. He is going to be a great president.

But as enlightened and liberal and progressive as the Democrats may be for nominating a black guy for president, we need to take a break from congratulating ourselves and look at the treatment of women by the media.

Let's start with the way the term "likeability" was thrown around on cable television. Decades of public service and experience don't count, because Jack Cafferty doesn't want to wake up next to Clinton or have her bake him cookies.

Chris Matthews can say on the air that the only reason this woman has a career is because her husband can't keep his dick in his pants, and nobody does anything about it. People laugh. I guess having an unhappy marriage is the only reason a woman would want to leave the house, right? Meanwhile, on the same network, MSNBC, Don Imus was forced to quit his job after making racist remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team. Last time I checked, Chris Matthews still had a job. In addition to being the biggest ass hat on the planet. [Imus was later hired by WABC, so racist bigots may also be immune to a proper comeuppance—Ed.]

Male pundits clearly get off on insulting Clinton because of her gender, in the guise of doing real reporting. And we let them. They've been calling her a political failure since last year, before she racked up 17 million votes in the primaries and walked away with the swing states.

And remember when she got a little teary at a campaign event right before the New Hampshire primary? President Bush cries all the time in speeches, and he's never accused of being emotional, manipulative or a pussy. Incompetent, a liar, borderline-retarded, a murderer and a criminal—but never a pussy ... I guess because he doesn't have one.