Here is a short op-ed from the Washington Post about the double standard that women, specifically Hillary Clinton, are held to in regards to responsibility over their husbands. As an op-ed, it is clearly very biased against Trump, but I think it makes some interesting points as to the different roles that women are expected to fulfill within politics, and how these expectations are often contradictory.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2016/10/07/the-right-says-hillary-clinton-is-responsible-for-her-husband-why-isnt-melania-trump/?utm_term=.edb017f6cb33
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ReplyDeleteKyla, thanks for posting this compelling and insightful article. As noted in the article, which tends to overgeneralize to an extent, its unfortunate that there is a clear "tendency to blame women for failing to restrain their husbands, or failing to give their husbands license to do whatever they want, or both simultaneously". Furthermore, as the author notes, women "shouldn’t be asked to restrain their husbands in the absence of those men having functioning consciences and the ability to control themselves". This article really does a good job highlighting some concerning trends in politics, many of which we have touched upon in class this semester.
ReplyDeleteThis article continues to display a theme that we have identified throughout our entire class: women can never escape public scrutiny. They are either too feminine or too masculine, and whichever side the falter on they will be criticized. I especially like the line, "Misogyny isn’t just about keeping women down. It’s about creating special zones of reality and morality that allow men to do whatever they want, without consequences to them, and without regard for anyone else." No matter how these two women reached to their husbands' behavior, the media and public focus should be on the men who committed these infidelities and have nothing to do with how their wives reacted to what presumably would be a life-altering and extremely personally hurtful event.
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ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of a conversation that I just had with my mom. I was telling her about the list of gender stereotypes that we made at the beginning of the semester and noted how so many of them contradicted each other. We discussed it in terms of Hillary's campaign and how much scrutiny she is under, but I had never considered it when thinking about Trump and Melania. This article really brings up the gender stereotypes that we discusses as a class and questions why it is that Hillary is receiving all of the negative light. Is it because Hillary is the one running for president, and so is receiving more press than Melania is? This article has really gotten me thinking about these stereotypes and why they seem to be hitting Hillary so hard.
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