The Women of the GOP & Warped Gender Identity
http://feministing.com/2010/10/22/the-women-of-the-gop-warped-gender-identity/ (http://feministing.com/2010/10/22/the-women-of-the-gop-warped-gender-identity/)
By goddessjaz | Published: October 22, 2010
There is a heavy focus by the mainstream news media on the large(r) number of women candidates running in this year's midterm elections. Many of the women running are Republican, conservatives and/or Tea Party fools nominees. One of the main newsmakers and agitators is Sharon Angle, the Republican nominee for Senate who recently told her opponent, Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, to "man up." At first, it made me laugh because I associate that as a hip-hop term. But besides that, it's the latest in this "Mama Grizzly" movement to promote themselves as tough, no-nonsense badass women fit to rule.
Instead it comes off as pathetic...to me, at least. But some voters are buying it, as Angle is slightly ahead of Reid in the polls. It's a clear ploy to attack the "manhood" of their competitors by playing on ideas of gender. It actually makes no sense because on one hand they are equating being tough with masculinity, even though their "Mama Grizzly" message is about women being tough in the same way. Sarah Palin used the same rhetoric telling Karl Rove to "buck up" after he made disparaging comments about Christine O'Donnell. Sounds like typical Palinesque (non)logic.