Playing the Woman Card

There’s a battle that’s been brewing for quite a while now… every now and then it comes to the fore, then things settle down again. With the ramping up of the presidential elections in the USA, the battle is well and truly front and centre.

What battle, you ask? The battle of the sexes! In this case, Trump accusing Clinton of… playing the woman card! Didn’t you read the title?

 

So what is ‘playing the woman card’? And how does one ‘play the woman card’?

Well… I guess, to begin, you need to be a woman. Then you need to have hairy armpits, hate men, and blame every ill you experience in the world on your poor, downtrodden luck of being a woman. Or blame it on a man. You are probably also fat, ugly and stupid and will be referred to as a ‘femnazi’. 

That’s according to one vocal segment of Twitter, anyway. Just one look at feminist writer-broadcaster Clementine Ford’s Twitter feed and you’ll find some of these types telling her how it is. I must add, she often tells them how it is back, as well.

Then, if you’re say, an ultra-conservative right wing columnist, those that ‘play the woman card’ are simply an irrelevant part of the population subject to revulsion and ripe for derision. This group use the word feminist as though it were the most distasteful and despicable thing in the world. 

News Limited columnist Miranda Divine, for example, has taken up the cause as though it were her one mission in life to destroy the word and everything it stands for, taking up the case of the poor ‘menz’ that have been forced by the modern world to tame their sexist ways and be politically correct in a world gone mad thanks to lefty SJWs (SJW = Social Justice Warriors - the new ‘bleeding heart’). 

Nearly every second opinion piece from this champion-of-men woman is full of scathing disdain for anyone that wishes to advance the cause of equality for women. In her latest tirade just days before the US presidential election, for example - the latest in a long list of columns supporting Trump and condemning Hillary - Divine opens by stating… “Hillary Clinton’s last desperate stand is reminiscent of Julia Gillard’s phony feminist protection racket”, referencing her ongoing targeted hate for the first female PM of Australia. 

“…being a woman does not automatically confer sainthood”, Divine goes on to say. WHO SAID IT DOES?!?!? Statements like this, which are a familiar tone with Divine, are used to create a supposition of facts that do not exist in order to invoke a sense of extremism on a topic.

You can see this full article here for a taste of how low-brow and blindly partisan Divine will go. 

After the first presidential debate, Divine opined… “The mainstream media for the most part mistook Hillary Clinton’s smug, catty needling of him [Trump] as poise and command…”

Unless you’re a subscriber you probably won’t be able to get the full lilt of Ms Divine’s diatribes as her News Limited employer puts her words behind a premium content firewall. Now, I won’t dare to make any “smug, catty needling” remarks about the value of such ‘premium’ content, but to me, this is just dog whistling at play. But that’s a subject for another blog another day…

So when Hillary gets accused of ‘playing the woman card’, what does that mean, anyway? The likes of Miranda Divine would have us pretend that if Hillary wins, it’s no big deal that she will be the first female POTUS. But it is a big deal! Just as Barack Obama being the first black POTUS was a big deal. And when the first Hispanic becomes POTUS, that will also be a big deal. 

But we’re not supposed to talk about it. Shhhhh... That’s playing the woman card. 

And including issues such as the gender pay gap on your policy platform… definitely playing the woman card. And bringing up examples of her running mate’s sexism (and let’s face it, that’s being gentle)? Also playing the woman card.

Supposedly! 

I get irritated by all this… at the misguided spreading of the message that if you define yourself as a feminist, or otherwise comment in any way about gender equality in any form, then you are a soft, hideous and fringe-dwelling hobgoblin. Or some variation along those lines… Clementine Ford tells readers herself what some of those variations are here.

 

Our first female PM brought the issue to the heart of the country – and beyond – with her now famous ‘misogyny speech’ in 2012, which was, of course, followed by an ugly backlash of commentary and derision in response for ‘playing the gender card’, by the likes of Miranda Divine and her ilk.  

The fact that ‘playing the woman card’ is interchangeable with ‘playing the gender card’, and that ‘playing the gender card’ is never used in context with men… well that speaks volumes, too.  

However I am not going to commend the existence of gender inequality here. The stats speak for themselves (see below), and if you don’t believe it exists in Australia, you can Google it yourself. Here’s a start… 

 

But I do take exception to the rephrasing of the definition of ‘feminist’ and all the negative connotations that go with it. I’m not saying there aren’t hardcore feminist types that possibly do hate men, or do have hairy armpits, or run around cutting off men’s penises and shredding their egos with their lambasting ways. I’m not talking about political movements or hardcore ideologies. For every opinion or lean there is always an opposite and an extreme view. Just like in religions. But that’s also another blog for another day… 

What I’m talking about is the mainstream, clinical definition of feminism; the belief in equal political, economic, personal, and social rights for women. And a person who supports feminism, by definition, is a feminist. 

Not so hardcore, is it? Nothing about hairy armpits or hating men. I expect every man in my life to be a feminist. And frankly, I would expect any father of a daughter, brother to a sister, son to a mother… you get the picture – to also be a feminist. 

While I’m at it, I also expect every woman to call themselves a feminist as well! Even you, Miranda Divine. Unless you truly believe women shouldn’t have the same opportunities and standing as men? 

Idealistic perhaps, but I prefer to strive for an unobtainable world of harmony and cohesion than be filled with judgmental hate for all those distasteful idealists while I puff on my cigar and dance in contempt.

In the words of Hillary Clinton, “if that’s playing the woman card, then DEAL ME IN.”

* * * *

Here’s some sobering stats from the Australian Human Rights Commission about gender equality in Australia:-

• Women and girls make up just over half (50.2%) of the Australian population.
• While women comprise roughly 46% of all employees in Australia, they take home on average $283.20 less than men each week (FTOE)
• The national gender “pay gap” is 18.2% and it has remained stuck between 15 – 18% for the past two decades.
• Australian women account for 92% of primary carers for children with disabilities, 70% of primary carers for parents and 52% of primary carers for partners.
• In 2013, Australia was ranked 24th on a global index measuring gender equality, slipping from a high point of 15th in 2006.