Political Memes

This always bothered me as a kid when Bill was president. I grew up in a Rush Limbaugh house, and the right wing folks were always joking that Hillary was a man.

I'd ask my Dad why, but he would shake his head. The only reason Rush seemed to "joke" about it was because she wore pantsuits. But I wore jeans sometimes and shorts (they're comfy and easy to wear!) But I wasn't mannish. I was a little girl? Does changing my clothes change my gender? Should I only wear skirts?

Fuck that! I hate when it's hot and my thighs get all sweaty!

Then, of course, they seemed gleeful to turn those jokes into "we were right, that's why he cheated" at the end.

It wasn't until I got older and they skipped Laura Bush and went straight back to "she's a man!" about Michelle Obama, and I realized it wasn't ever about them actually being masculine. It was just that the greatest insult men can lob at women is to insult their appearance, their femininity. And I figure that's less about these women being mannish, and more because the worst thing you could've said about Rush was that he was a weak girlyman.

I figure... that's probably part of what the whole trans thing is. Kind of how "gay" was a massive insult until people realized, oh, wait, you can't just yell "gay" at someone and make them less straight somehow. They've been using "you aren't your gender" at people for so long that seeing it not matter was fucking them up.

...and I want to add, because I'm kind of a basic bitch in a lot of ways which means if I noticed it, so did other women. "She has amazing arms so she's a man" did not stick with a lot of women. I'm sorry, sis has a body we would kill for and you're trying to use that as an insult? I know women who would politely pretend that "joke" was cute, but as soon as the asshole left would say, "...she looks like a woman! A strong one! Who wouldn't want that?"

(I've worked on customer service in the south, don't judge us for humoring crazy people.)

This ramble was brought to you by; ADHD meds haven't kicked in yet and I got to work early.