On Misogyny: Disqualifying

Roger Ailes polluted the conservative movement with his misogyny for decades. Who knows how his behavior warped the process? How many good reporters were lost? How many stories were spiked as the news network spent resources and time covering up for his vices.

God have mercy on us.

An open racist can no longer run for national office in the United States of America. In fact, even a plausible accusation of racism can derail a court appointment or cabinet level nomination. A candidate might have other merits, but racism is disqualifying.

Nobody is perfect, we never elect saints only sinners, but a pattern of racism or racist dog whistles means a candidate cannot earn a good person’s vote in the United States of America. We have made some moral progress and the general consensus that we will give up the services of any racist (that we know is racist) is part of this progress.

We should apply the same rule to a pattern of demeaning women, certainly to a Roger Ailes. Whatever his merits, he was a misogynist. Roger Ailes created a hostile work place for the women he hired and that was bad. Some fringe talk radio hosts (not my friends!) would respond that this is political correctness or requires being a “feminazi.”

Feminism is a complicated word. In one sense (votes for women and equal treatment before the law), feminism won. We are all feminists. Surely the movement has split and made other demands since the heroism of the suffragettes and pro-life women like Susan B, Anthony. Their views are not controversial, because they won.

No gentleman, prior to feminism, would tolerate the behavior we saw from Roger Ailes. Just as a practicing racist should never be President, so a practicing misogynist should never again be in the Oval Office. I say that as an old fashioned gentleman, not as a feminist. I agree with Theodore Roosevelt that no cad or roué is fit for the Oval Office. It is unworthy of a gentleman to live a life that treats women as objects: it is a sin.

I am also a feminist in the nineteenth century sense: Susan B. Anthony is in my University of Rochester DNA. There is no place for a person who uses women as tokens. “I help the women” is as offensive as “I help the blacks.”

I will not vote for any person who treats women as objects or prizes to be won.

It is worth pointing out that my grandmothers were born in a nation where they could not vote. Women were not allowed to go to college programs. Friends of mine were discouraged from pursuing higher education or careers in science, because they were women. I do not like Clinton or support her policies, but I am glad that a woman has a plausible chance to be President.

Nothing compares to race in the United States, but sexual discrimination comes close. African-American men could vote (in theory) long before African-American women.

All of this is to say: no misogynist candidate has earned my vote.

No woman who favors abortion for women babies has earned my vote. No man who uses women as toys has earned my vote.

Anybody who knows me will know that I am not perfect on any score. I have sinned and do sin:  I do not hold myself up as a moral example. As one dear friend pointed out, many Presidents have privately used women as objects and I have voted for them.

But so help me God, I will never vote for a man or woman who does so again if I know it. I will not do it for a Supreme Court pick or all the good in the world.

No gentleman, and I aspire to be one, could. If there is no lover of all humanity, no sinner in process, then I will not vote for that office: no racists, no misogynists.

Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.