Amy Klobuchar’s run for the presidency and the sexist double-standard (VIDEO)

By
Megan Hamilton
-

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar has joined the expanding list of Democratic hopefuls vying for the 2020 presidential campaign. The list includes a number of impressive progressive women, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.).

And Klobuchar is off to a great start, having raised $1 million in just 48 hours, The Hill reports. She actually even received a donation from all 50 states within just 20 minutes of her announcement earlier this week.

But some people spin Klobuchar as a grouchy boss who has high standards, Vanity Fair reports. There’s been scuttlebutt about her supposed outbursts for years and this is worrisome — and unfair.

Few people raise their eyebrows when Sen. Lindsey Graham has a meltdown during then-Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing.

As you can see in the video below.

Then there’s the Texas city councilman who called Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) a “bimbo.”

Reportedly he had this to say, according to The New York Daily News: 

“The embarrassment is to have bimbos like you with nothing between your ears,” he allegedly tweeted.

Richardson has since deleted his accounts on Twitter and Facebook, but his tweet was captured for posterity.

This is the ridiculousness that powerful women have to fight.

Klobuchar has taken progressive stances on healthcare, fought to decrease student debt, and criticized Trump’s hysteria on immigrants, Elle reports. She’s stood up for the little Guatemalan girl who died after being taken into custody by Border Patrol officers.

Klobuchar has gone to bat for women’s rights. And the Coalition To Stop Gun Violence endorsed her when she ran for re-election in 2018.

But there’s talk that she threw office supplies at her staff at one point and there are unflattering comparisons to Trump.

It remains to be seen whether Klobuchar needs to do damage control in this instance because she’s an unfamiliar face to many voters. And that could be a problem.

“When nobody knows you, everything is potentially damaging, if there’s a constant drumbeat of negative stories,” Democratic strategist Mo Elliethee told Vanity Fair.

She is perhaps, most notable for her fiery grilling of Kavanaugh, and despite her relative obscurity elsewhere, she’s won every congressional district in her state every time she’s run. So let’s hope she carries that right on through. Klobuchar has admitted she can be tough on people and that she has high expectations, especially for herself. Which is an excellent quality for a presidential candidate to have.

This is a new age for women in politics, but despite this, we still have to deal with an eminently sexist double-standard. A double-standard that lets Trump get away with calling Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas.” A double-standard that allows a known misogynist like Kavanaugh to join one of the highest offices in the United States. And a double-standard that lets right-wing Christian ideologues like Mike Pence make major decisions about a woman’s right to govern her own body.

Ask yourself what would happen if this double-standard was reversed. What would male conservatives do if another respected liberal — and female jurist was nominated for the Supreme Court? What would happen if Warren mocked Trump for his small hands?

It’s the struggle every woman wakes up to every day in the U.S. and we might be tired, but we’re not done fighting.

In this video from The Guardian, Klobuchar turns the heat on Kavanaugh and then-nominee Attorney General William Barr.

Featured image license CC SA 2.0 by Lorie Shaull via Flickr

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR