Report: Maureen Dowd repeatedly uses gender to mock Democrats
A Media Matters for America review of Maureen Dowd's New York Times columns between January 1, 2007, and June 8, 2008, reveals that Dowd has frequently characterized this election cycle's leading Democratic candidates -- Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards (NC) -- using gendered language, specifically characterizing Clinton as masculine, and Obama and Edwards as feminine....
OBAMA
Dowd has described Obama as "the diffident debutante" and "America's pretty boy." She has characterized him and his campaign as seemingly "effete," writing on March 9: "Obama's multiculturalism is a selling point with many Democrats. But his impassioned egghead advisers have made his campaign seem not only out of his control, but effete and vaguely foreign -- the same unflattering light that doomed Michael Dukakis and John Kerry." Similarly, in an April 2 column, Dowd claimed that "his strenuous and inadvertently hilarious efforts to woo working-class folk in Pennsylvania have only made him seem more effete." Later in the column, she wrote: "At the Wilbur chocolate shop in Lititz Monday, he spent most of his time skittering away from chocolate goodies, as though he were a starlet obsessing on a svelte waistline."...
Dowd has also frequently characterized Obama as a child....
CLINTON
Dowd called Clinton "The Man," following Clinton's win in the May 6 Indiana primary....
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Dowd has also frequently compared Clinton to aggressive, ruthless, or violent characters, describing her efforts to obtain the Democratic nomination as "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman," and writing that she "seized the chance to play Godzilla." On June 20, 2007, Dowd claimed that, "like Tony (Soprano), Hillary is so power-hungry that she can justify any thuggish means to get the prize." Similarly, on March 23, Dowd wrote: "It's impossible to imagine The Terminator, as a former aide calls her, giving up. Unless every circuit is out, she'll regenerate enough to claw her way out of the grave, crawl through the Rezko Memorial Lawn and up Obama's wall, hurl her torso into the house and brutally haunt his dreams."...
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EDWARDS
Dowd has described Edwards as a "Breck Girl," a "Material Boy," and a "glamour boy," and has called him the "Secretary of Hairdressing." In a September 16, 2007, column, Dowd wrote that Edwards and Obama seemed to be "hiding behind their wives' skirts," after asserting that they had "tiptoed around her (Clinton), letting their wives take shots at the front-runner."
REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES
By contrast, Dowd rarely feminized the all-male Republican field, and Media Matters found no instances of her doing so with McCain this election cycle since January 2007....
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Dowd has also used gendered language in contrasting Democrats with Republicans -- at times suggesting that Giuliani is tougher and more masculine than Obama and Edwards. In her September 16, 2007, column, for example, Dowd juxtaposed Giuliani with the "comely" Obama and Edwards, who -- she wrote -- seemed to be "hiding behind their wives' skirts" in their campaigns against Clinton. Dowd then added: "Enter Rudy. He may wear skirts, but he's not afraid to take down a skirt."...
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Later in the column, Dowd wrote that while Giuliani can't campaign on policy issues, "he can be the only man in the field tough enough to slap around a woman....
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