Sexism: Not A Harmless Mistake

What Amanda said:

President Obama, despite having a mostly feminist policy record, occasionally screws it up on a personal level. Yesterday, this side of him peeked out when he called California’s attorney general Kamala Harris “by far, the best looking attorney general,” though at least he bothered to praise the quality of her work first. The forces of Twitter feminism, many male (woot), rebuked Obama.

Unsurprisingly, the defensive whining started immediately. Dylan Byers of Politico tweeted, “How did it become so difficult to call a woman good looking in public?” Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post demanded that people “lighten up,” adding, “you’d swear the president was guilty of luridly cat-calling a woman he doesn’t know.” (Note: Being acquainted with someone does not necessarily make it better to make boorish comments about them in front of an audience.)

[…]

Obama has done so much good work in leaving a better world for his daughters and all other young women: He’s passed equal pay legislation, put two great women on the Supreme Court and made contraception access easier for women with health insurance. It’s a shame to see him undermine his enlightened policies with comments that highlight women’s ever-present decorative duties—especially when we know for a fact that such remarks erode women’s opportunities and even their own sense of deserving equality.

In fairness, Amanda is clearly being mean to Byers just because she’s a coffee-drinking, indoor plumbing-using urban elitist.

…see also Franke-Ruta and Carmon.