Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has released a book revealing some of The Old Boys Club peccadillos, and they are legion. Near-legendary, as sexism goes.
"Please don't lose too much weight now, I like my girls chubby,' was supposed to be a Senate collee compliment … and the kicker was, he had his hand on the Lady Senator's stomach while he gave her the 'compliment', then proceeded to clearly want to take her measurements.
The Washington Post minced no words to publicly reprimand the behavior, or cycle of behavior as I like to think of it because this is a situation that needs to be temporary, reformed and shaken down for corruption as well as a conscience and a few residual morals.
New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) has a new book coming out, "Off the Sidelines," and has been making the media rounds to promote it. The New York Post highlighted parts of the book today, in an article titled, "Gillibrand: Male colleagues called me ‘porky’ after baby."
As awful as that headline is, things get worse in the book, according to the story. One quote in particular stands out. Gillibrand reveals that one male Senator, after she lost about 50 pounds, came up behind her and gave her waist a squeeze. “Don’t lose too much weight now," he told her. "I like my girls chubby.” She says that he was one of her favorite senators(!).
As Gillibrand's title infers, the book goes into detail about the things that women in politics still have to deal with that their male counterparts, well, don't.
It's high freaking time this book was written, and may it encourage other professional and non-professional truths to sort through about just where the proverbial buck stops on this issue.
Some told of senators ogling women on the Senate floor or watching porn on iPads and on state-owned computers, of legislators hitting on female staffers or using them to help them meet women, and of hundreds of little comments in public and private that women had to brush off to go about their day. Some said they often felt marginalized and not listened to—that the sexism in the Legislature made their jobs harder and, at times, produced public policy hostile to women.
Yet, despite their strong feelings, women in the Capitol rarely talk about, except in the most private discussions, the misogyny they see all the time. It’s just the way the Legislature has always been.
Gillibrand surely isn't alone in having to deal with such comments with her male colleagues at the Capitol, although some of her encounters are jaw-droppingly bad/offensive. When she was still in the House, a Southern representative told her, “You know, Kirsten, you’re even pretty when you’re fat."
Morning Joe Schmoe and Morning Mika et al gave that a look-see -- let's hope the media does grab on with four hands to get this information out there, and that women and men sit up and see the regressive elephant hogging all the space and oxygen in the room.
This goes deeper than reflexive Hillary-type bashing, after the stats we have heard about sexual assault on both sexes in the military, and now have a sitting Senator's word for the attitude in the highest legislative body in the land.
Once again, humiliated a bit by fellow Americans.
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