This is why it’s helpful to have women at the top
by digby
I don’t know if they would have responded this quickly if Samantha Bee hadn’t tweeted a reaction, but the fact is they did. That nobody knew how offensively sexist it was to begin with is still a sad reality of America life:
It was one woman looking out for another. But Samantha Bee had second thoughts.
The brash, brainy comedian — who broke ground this year by becoming the only female late-night host in a crowded field dominated by men — took to Twitter on Monday night to tell her own network, TBS, to “delete your account” after the network posted a video comparing Hillary Clinton’s laugh to that of wild hyenas.
The network responded on Tuesday morning by issuing an apology. “This post was obviously a poor attempt at humor and has been taken down,” a statement read. “Moving forward we’ll leave political satire to professionals like Samantha Bee.”
Bee’s tweet, which was quickly deleted, was posted just as the first night of the Democratic National Convention concluded with a rousing speech from Bernie Sanders calling on disruptive supporters to rally around the presumptive presidential nominee, the first female major-party nominee in U.S. history.
The network posted the controversial video to Twitter on Sunday. “Move over Donkey! There’s a new mascot in town. … #ImWithHyena,” the caption read.
The video, titled, “Hillary Clinton’s Call of the Wild,” runs 24 seconds and features clips of a laughing Clinton alternating with shots of a pack of wild hyenas making cackling sounds.
I’m sure it was hilarious.
I’ve never understood this particular hit. To me her laugh sounds like a mirthful belly laugh which I think is one of her better personal qualities. But all you have to do is look at the internet to see mountains of evidence that people find her laugh to be a horrifying blight on humanity so what do I know? Hillary Clinton’s voice seems to drive people crazy.
In any case, women leaders’ voices are policed in ways that men’s are not with an expectation that they be more masculine, but also feminine. It’s a tough line to walk.
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