Don’t Care; Didn’t Read
If she’s the Democratic candidate, I’ll vote for her. I’ll vote for every Democrat down the ballot all the way to dog catcher until the Republicans are no longer a threat to our nation and humanity in general.
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that’ll come to bite you during the primaries. you’re reaaaly only supposed to vote for one. otherwise they call it election fraud.
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If Hillary Clinton managed to avoid this criticism, I somehow doubt this is being made up or overblown. Even if the focus is on the wrong things because the media is of course focusing on her “being a bitch” over policy, it’s still something matters - especially considering what being cool with this kind of abuse gets us.
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Policy making staff. High level officials in charge of the directions agencies take. Was that really not clear, or did you think you could slide in and score a semantic point since “actually, not letting Amy abuse her staff is sexist” wasn’t working as well as hoped?
No, it was not clear. You said “public service” and as far as I am concerned a forest ranger, or an OSHA inspector, or a mechanic fixing Corps of Engineers bulldozers is as much in public service as any given GS-15 and up sitting in a corner office.
As a matter of fact, probably more so.
The “high level officials in charge of the directions agencies take” are often constructing nice future nests for themselves in consulting firms or corporations regulated by those same agencies. When referring to their careers I would use the term “public service” in more of a theoretical sense.
Could you please reference this quote back to the poster who actually said it? Thanks!
I’m sorry it wasn’t. I feel like you’re twisting my words, and don’t wish to engage with you further. I’m glad I’ve clarified my meaning, have a nice day.
b-b-b-but men also did these things, how dare we single Amy out 
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It’s entirely possible that both things are true. That she is a bad boss, and that the attacks on her over it are sexist. After all, she’s not the only bad boss reported in this round of candidates, but she is who we’re zeroing in on.
If this kind of behaviour is not acceptable coming from a woman, why do we give it a pass when it comes from a man?
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Yup, absolutely.
Who is getting a pass? Is this in reference to Bernie?
Some comments on that:
There is a very large difference between Bernie’s habitual brusqueness and Klobuchar’s systematic attempts to damage the livelihoods of her own staffers.
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If a woman, any woman behaved like Bernie has on camera, she would be taken apart. What you refer to as “brusqueness” would be called brash and abrasive at best.
Like I said, both things can be true, but until men get held to the same standards women are, it will always be sexist and that sexism will be needing to be taken to account.
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I agree entirely.
But I also maintain that there is a large difference between Bernie’s personality (which would not be tolerated if he was a woman, due to patriarchal double standards) and Klobuchar’s abuse and exploitation of her workers.
Both are important issues, but they are not the same issue.
Here’s the problem: his behaviour would have to be a magnitude worse before we even heard the first complaint.
We, as a society, accept things from men we don’t from women. We don’t know how the two compare because the data collection system itself is biased.
I also find it interesting that I didn’t name any names, but you immediately leaped to defend him.
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…because I have already seen others deploying “what about Bernie?” as an attempted defence of Klobuchar, and I am not aware of any current stories regarding the behaviour of Booker/Beto/etc.
Once again: I agree with your argument around sexist double standards. I also believe that Klobuchar’s abuse of her staff is a genuine issue, and I also believe that Klobuchar’s policies alone are sufficient to render her candidacy unworthy of support.
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Calling out sexism, isn’t the same as saying I support the candidate.
Requiring women to be likeable, is an old gimmick. Harris “had a rich boyfriend”, Warren is “shrill”
LBJ pulled all sorts of crap and got away with it.
Mean people suck, no doubt, but can we talk more about why we need a more progressive candidate and less about who might be the best June Cleaver?
I totally agree her policy decisions disqualify her.
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At least Xeni could have framed it differently, since the real story is, as you point out, that the NYT is falling into a lazy pattern. Though they will never admit it, I am pretty sure the editors there enjoy the feeling of power that comes from “uncovering scandals” and make a notch on their belt for every time they hurt a candidate.
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This.
This.
A thousand times,
This.
EDIT: This is the lede, in my opinion:
Their point is that women can be bad bosses. They should be held accountable for their actions, even if men have gotten a pass for too long.
At an individual level, this makes sense. When you’re at the receiving end of an inappropriate, angry email or face a rant about a fork, your irritation or anger certainly doesn’t feel like a subconscious reaction to an ingrained system. It feels perfectly justified — and could very well be.
In aggregate, though, there’s a red flag waving above the Klobuchar narrative. The breadth of complaints extend beyond egregious behavior. The handful of truly bad boss moments from the last decade-and-a-half are dwarfed by more modest complaints that are taken to an extreme. Klobuchar once quipped that she was so thirsty she’d trade three of the staffers next to her for a bottle of water. Is it the nicest thing to say? No. Is it probably a joke? Yes. Is it proof a decade later that she shouldn’t be president? Come on.
Philosopher Kate Manne offers a way to consider this dynamic in her book Down Girl, the Logic of Misogyny. Manne argues that when a woman steps out of her expected role of “caretaker,” she’s attacked. In Klobuchar’s case, her critics describe a boss who expects them to put her work and her ambitions first. She is not concerned with their feelings, clearly. She is not going to hold their hand through writing a policy brief or a press release. She expects them to do excellent work — for her .
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What you’re saying comes off as, “It’s wrong to criticize Klobuchar, because there are thousands of men doing the same thing, but we’ll never know about them or even who they are.” This may be 100% true, but Klobuchar’s staff would not get much consolation from that fact.
A non sexist way to approach this story is to note that people who have made a career of seeking power (senator, CEO, it makes no difference) generally are ruthless and borderline sociopaths. Klobuchar is one among many.
