A Double Standard?

A Double Standard?

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

(Sorry about missing last week’s column, but I was quite sick with…something; fever, fatigue, no interest in women. Oh yeah, it was bad. But I’m back now, so here it is)

Koki Roberts, long time commentator on ABC’s This Week With George Stephenopolis, lamented on The Today Show that a woman in the political world is often seen differently than a man.
Hmmm…what a shock.
Roberts said that sounding “Scolding” is something that women have been accused of whereas men have not. She was of course elliptically referring to Democratic Presidential candidate, Hilary Clinton. The rather pitchy and, it could be argued, grating, tone that sometimes creeps into Hilary’s voice when she’s passionately addressing a particular point or issue has been mentioned in the news of late. Roberts was taking a hand-off from former president Bill Clinton press secretary, Dee Dee Myers, who said on The Tavis Smiley Show that women were criticized at certain times in their political careers for the way their voices sound. It has been said that the former first lady aquires a “Shrill” quality to her voice when she gets impassioned. The implications I inferred from Roberts and Myers comments were that women in politics are victims of sexism and an unfair double standard. Double standard? Yes. Unfair? No. Sexism? Hardly.
Let me illustrate my point.
Say you’re an average sized woman getting ready to pull out of the parking lot of a supermarket late at night. Just as you’re about to drive away you see another average sized woman come out of the store. As she’s walking to her car, suddenly two average sized men jump out from behind the small recycling shed and grab her, and without gun, knife, or club, violently knock her to the ground. You watch as they hold her down, slap her, rip at her clothes, and you surmise the obvious…they’re going to rape her. What would you do? Would you, (a) shove the gearshift into park, check your make-up, run over to the assailants, and like a character in an action movie, bravely kick the hell out of them, thus saving the woman from any further harm? Or (b), lock your own car doors, take out your cell phone and call the police, then watch in horror as you wait for the squad car to show up? If you answered (a), you’re stupid. For one thing, they’d simply punch you in that delicate little jaw of yours to incapacitate you, and all you’d accomplish would be the need for reconstructive surgery for you, and a doubling of raping pleasure for them. Not only that, your friends and family would rail against you for being so stupid as to do such an idiotic thing in the first place. However, if you answered (b), (staying in your car and calling the police) although the woman might be raped before the police get there, your jaw would still be in tact, you would have aided a woman in trouble, and all would think you a hero for doing no more than quickly phoning for help; also, your loved ones would respect your quick response and smart thinking
Now let’s change it up a little.
Keep the same scenario, same parking lot, same victim, only this time, switch the words ‘Say you’re an average sized woman’ with the words, ‘Say you’re an average sized man.’ Now what do we have? If you’re a man and you answered (b), what we have is a coward. We have a guy that just sat there, in his locked car, safe and snug, watching while this poor woman was being assaulted, protecting himself from possible injury. Your friends and family would look at you as some scared, effete, testically challenged little wuss, not man enough to even help a woman, a woman being ravished by two guys with NO weapons. You’re labeled a total wimp, even if it meant that you got your ass kicked. The ‘…average sized woman’ would be criticized for being stupid if she attempted to fight the guys. The ‘…average sized man’ would be ridiculed if he didn’t attempt to fight the guys. Double standard? Yes. Unfair? No. Sexist? Hardly. Why? Because of the way men and women are designed. That’s just the way it is, simple as that.
So I ask Ms. Roberts, Ms. Myers, Ms. Feminist, Mr. Liberal, and whomever else would make the myopic mistake of mingling, mangling, mongrelizing, and misunderstanding the mettle of man and maid – What the hell is wrong with you people? The reason we don’t attribute a shrill voice to men is because MEN DON’T HAVE SHRILL VOICES! THEY’RE MEN! HAIRY CHESTED, DEEPER VOCAL REGISTERED MEN! (Chris Matthews not included).
I once sang in a small church choir. I’m a bass. On a particular piece on music we were rehearsing I dropped an octave lower (I’m kind of a deep bass) because I thought it would sound cool. The musical director stopped us and told me not to do that because he said I sounded like a gravel truck. Funny thing, though; he never told any of the of women that they sounded like a gravel truck no matter how low they sang. I guess if I were a male equivalent of Dee Dee Myers or Koki Roberts I might have complained of the director unfairly singling out the men as having low rumbling voices and ignoring the ‘gravelly’ sound of the altos and sopranos.
Reality check…sorry ladies, but when a woman gets angry and raises her voice, it sounds shrill. That’s it – period! Nothing you can do about it. I’m afraid it comes with the ovaries.
So if Hilary is accused of sounding shrill, it’s because she does. She’ll just have to accept the fact that she’s a woman, even if it pains her to do so, and figure a way around it (her shrill voice, not being a woman).
Cheer up Koki, someday maybe science and technology will reach a high enough level to eliminate gender roles and sexual identities all together so that we can all be a mass of androgynous, androidal human insects.
Now won’t that be nice.

Keck