7/27/2019 Wendy Davis, Misogyny Magnet
1/2
Wendy Davis, Misogyny MagnetA Wendy Davis run for Texas governor
may be just what the Democratic party needs as it gears up for the
2014 midterm elections.
And thats not just because the pro-choice state senators June
filibuster 11 hours of talk in which she couldnt lean on her desk,
have a drink of water, cede themicrophone or change the subject
(she was penalized just for putting on a backbrace) was so much
more hardcore than Republican Ted Cruzs recent Green Eggs and Ham
reading gabfest in the U.S. Senate.
Its not just because her own personal story an absent father, a
sixth-grade-educated mother, a teen pregnancy, followed by life as
a single mom in a mobile home, then community college and, at last,
Harvard Law School gives the partythat backs her impeccable real
people credibility.
Its a whole lot more simple than that.
MORE: Wendy Davis Eyes Texas Governor Run
Blonde, strikingly pretty, outspoken and female, Davis is, to
put it bluntly, invaluable as bait. In her short tenure on the
national scene, she has elicited an almost Pavlovian response from
anti-woman blowhards.
First, Fox News commentator Erick Erickson called Davis Abortion
Barbie. Then,a twitter poster, @jefflegal, expressed his support
for a gubernatorial bid by the
Republican Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott by dismissing
Davis as RetardBarbiea rather artless insult that might not have
gotten much attention, hadthe attorney general not tweeted back,
Jeff, thanks for your support. And just last month, Abbotts top
political advisor, Dave Carney, stepped into the Davis-bashing fray
again by tweeting an article from a conservative Texas blog that
promised in its headline to explain why Wendy Davis is too Stupid
to be Governor.
Theres every reason to expect that, as a misogyny magnet, Davis,
whom The New York Times has described as an Austin fashion icon,
will be the gift that keeps on giving all through the upcoming
campaign season. Her hair, her clothes, her pink sneakers; the fact
that shes unmarried; the fact that abortion is the issuethat
brought her to national prominenceall these things sexualize her to
a degree thats unusual for female politicians (as it any accident
that Sarah Palin wasalways dripping with kids?) and they open her
up to a very specific, and very ugly, form of woman-hate.
The more hits Davis takes, the better is will be for the
Democrats. It was, after all, a consistent pattern of gender-based
disrespect that helped land Democrats their 2012 election victories
in the U.S. Senate and the presidency. A long pile-u
7/27/2019 Wendy Davis, Misogyny Magnet
2/2
p of Republican insults to womens dignity, particularly in the
area of reproductive rights, led President Obama to win the womens
vote by a 12-point margin. Women dont always vote as a unified
block; theyre by no means unanimous in their support for abortion
rights, or for any of the pro-family social policies that tend,
unhelpfully, to be classed together as womens issues. But they
have, in re
cent years, tended to come together in a common understanding
when the yuck factor in politics the macho posturing, the
questionable remarks that cut away at womens hard-won public
dignity just gets to be too much.
Abbott, sensitized by outrage that followed his Twitter
thank-you, has tried to backpedal, tweeting his supporters to Stay
positive. The admonition, however@Barbie-worthy, hasnt done much to
mollify his critics. The Republican partyseffort to rebrand itself
to women doesnt seem to be working out too well, either. A new
United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection poll
just this week found that 33 percent of the women surveyed felt
that the party had drifted even further away from them since the
2012 election. Only 14 percent
of womenand just 11 percent of women younger than 50said that
Republicans had moved closer in perspective to them.
Message: we Barbies are no dummies. You cant change a legacy of
policies thatinsult and hurt women through the power of positive
thinking.
