Last month, Politico asked how Elizabeth Warren could avoid a Clinton reduxwritten off as too unlikable before her campaign gets off the ground. The piece (written by a woman, sigh) ran the day the Massachusetts senator announced she was exploring a run for the White House. No time to lose, apparently, when it comes to setting the narrative. A supersmart ambitious Democratic woman? Aroint thee, witch!
Because what is likability if not a deference to menwith a self-deprecating smile? A likable woman doesnt talk too loud or too much. She doesnt take up too much space, isnt too sexy or too dowdy, and gracefully eludes confrontation. In short, she doesnt demand anything that men would rather keep for themselves, be it political power or sexual autonomy or the right to be safe after having a couple of drinks. A likable woman doesnt challenge women, either, by reminding them of the compromises theyve made and the edges theyve trimmed off their personalities.
Recently, though, there have been encouraging signs that women have stopped looking over their shoulders every five minutes for male approvaland its driving conservative men berserk.
Take Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Everything about her sends them up a wall. Shes young, female, brown, and left-wingthe polar opposite of Congresss white, male, right-wing oldsters. She says shes working-class but somehow has nice clothes. Shes made a couple of slips in interviews, so obviously shes an ignorant ditz. Grover Norquist even compares her proposal to raise taxes on the top income brackets to slavery.
Most recently, conservatives leaked a video of Ocasio-Cortez dancing on a rooftop during college. Maybe they thought a young woman looking carefree and adorable was the equivalent of appearing in soft-core pornsomething former Republican senator Scott Brown actually did, by the way, without suffering any harm to his reputation as a solid all-around good guy with a pickup truck. On Lou Dobbss show, Republican strategist Ed Rollins called her a little girl.
The new congresswomans response to all this was to tweet a video of herself dancing into her office. Then, when Republicans booed her for voting for Nancy Pelosi to chair the House, Ocasio-Cortez tweeted merrily: Dont hate me cause you aint me, fellas. The old ways of chastising uppity women, evidently, are backfiring.
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