The taming of the shrews
by digby
This piece by Joan Walsh on the phony GOP pearl clutching over Megyn Kelly is worth reading. She’s been on the receiving end of a lot of this crap over the years, including an infamous episode in which Dick Armey said to her face, “I’m so damn glad you can never be my wife, because I surely wouldn’t have to listen to that prattle from you every day.” I saw it in real time and was sadly not entirely shocked that a throwback cretin like Armey would say such a thing on Hardball (which had been a toxic slew of sexist commentary for months by that time.)
But I had never heard this:
A lot of folks on the left were outraged; on the right, they laughed and cheered Armey.
One of those who laughed was Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, a debate moderator along with Kelly Thursday night. On conservative Mike Gallagher’s radio show, Wallace said he found feminist anger over Armey’s insult “pretty funny.” Here’s how it went:
GALLAGHER: Now, now, feminists are very angry that he said, “I’m glad you couldn’t be my wife.” I mean…
WALLACE: It’s pretty funny actually.
GALLAGHER: It’s hysterical. Do you know how many times a week I say, “thank God I don’t have to wake up next to her.” I mean some of these callers, these shrews that call…
Ah, the “shrews.” Gallagher put us in our place, and Wallace laughed.
Let’s remember, some of the shrews are menstruating. Just a few months later, Watergate felon and torture apologist G. Gordon Liddy decided that it had been my “time of the month” when I beat him in a CNN debate on torture. “It upset her greatly,” Liddy told his radio sidekick. “Probably that time of the month.” Later the two men discussed searching my bio page. “There’s no mention of a husband there at all is there?” Liddy asks.
“No sir,” his buddy quips. “But the next time you’re tempted to feel sorry for yourself, just remember–”
“You could be married to her,” Liddy says, laughing.
“Somewhere there is a Mr. Pelosi,” his pal replies.
Despite the sexist slurs directed at me and at then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, conservatives continued to go on Liddy’s radio show until he retired in 2012.
Then there’s John Kasich, who won praise merely for seeming like a decent guy in Thursday night’s debate. He angrily told me to “learn to control yourself” — ah, the ancient idea of woman as hysterical shrew — after I mentioned his work for Lehman Brothers when we were guests on “Hardball” in 2010. At least Kasich is consistent: He refuses to denounce Trump for his attack on Kelly.
We’ve watch Rand Paul do his little “shushing Daddy” thing to two different women this cycle. Megyn Kelly was rudely insulted by Donald Trump the other night and in the aftermath. But she sat next to a man who was just as rude to a different woman in exactly the same way. It’s not ancient history, either.
I won’t go on television so I am spared the worst of the ugly sexism. But I have gotten my share over the years, believe me. It always feel as if you’ve been slapped in the face. And yes, I wish I could say that liberal men never do this. They certainly do and I’ve been on the wrong side of plenty of them over the years I’ve been writing about politics. But they tend not make a fetish of it the way the right-wingers do.
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