Hillary Clinton in 1998: "Women have always been the primary victims of war"
Men's activists might pause to consider, as part of the "thirty-five years" of experience that Hillary Clinton has brought to the presidential race, statements that Clinton made in 1998 in an address to the First Ladies' Conference on Domestic Violence in San Salvadore.
The experience that you have gone through is in many ways comparable to what happens with domestic violence. Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat. Women often have to flee from the only homes they have ever known. Women are often the refugees from conflict and sometimes, more frequently in today’s warfare, victims. Women are often left with the responsibility, alone, of raising the children. Women are again the victims in crime and domestic violence as well.
Clinton made her remarks during the conflict in Kosovo; it is unlikely that she would have been unaware of the violence against battle-age, non-combatant males at the time. The extent of the violence against non-combatant battle age males--the overwhelming victims--during the conflict, along with the widespread tendency of the mass media to deemphasize the gender of male victims of violence and emphasize the gender of female victims is documented in "Effacing the Male: Gender, Misrepresentation, and Exclusion in the Kosovo War" by Adam Jones, Ph.D. Published in Transitions: The Journal of Men's Perspectives, 21: 1-3 (2001).
This is the abstract.
The Kosovo war of 1999 offered an excellent opportunity to analyze the representation of gender and violent victimization in the mass media. The present article focuses on the motif of "gendercide," or gender-selective mass killing -- in this case, of "battle-age" ethnic-Albanian men. A broad sample of media commentary is presented to demonstrate that "unworthy" male victims tend to be marginalized or ignored entirely in mass-media coverage. A trio of common marginalization strategies is discussed, and a theoretical framework of "first-order," "second-order," and "third-order" gendering is proposed to clarify the deficit in coverage. This deficit is then contrasted with the attention given to the victimization experiences of "worthy" victims, such as women, children, and the elderly. Finally, the small handful of responsible and insightful media reports on gender-selective atrocities against Kosovar men is evaluated for the alternative it may offer to "effacing the male" from coverage of war and violence.
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Hillary's Bunny Shot
Camille Paglia wrote in her eviscerating response to Gloria Steinem’s NYT op-ed piece endorsing Hillary where Ms. S. argued that gender is the new black --
"Hillary's disdain for masculinity fits right into the classic feminazi package, which is why Hillary acts on Gloria Steinem like catnip. Steinem's fawning, gaseous New York Times op-ed about her pal Hillary this week speaks volumes about the snobby clubbiness and reactionary sentimentality of the fossilized feminist establishment, which has blessedly fallen off the cultural map in the 21st century. History will judge Steinem and company very severely for their ethically obtuse indifference to the stream of working-class women and female subordinates whom Bill Clinton sexually harassed and abused, enabled by look-the-other-way and trash-the-victims Hillary."
To see a lovely photo of Gloria Steinem in her Playboy Bunny costume in 1962 – go to
http://cassandra2004.blogspot.com/2008/01/quote-of-day-camille-paglia-hillary.html
Unfortunately, Hillary's bunny shot is locked up in the White House archives that the Clintons have sealed until after the 2008 election...
Note To Hillary:
Tell all the men in VA hospitals with missing limbs, brain trauma, and post traumatic stress disorder your theory on war. Tell the soldiers who have seen their friends killed by bullets and roadside bombs they are not victims. Maybe you can show some respect and visit the graves of our brave men who have died serving their nation in Iraq. Those same graves are filled with soldiers that are 99% male. Respect a mans devotion in defending our nation even during a senseless war. Show some respect for men who carry heavy equipment during 110 degree temperatures. Show some respect for the loneliness these men endure every day. Show some respect for the men who conquered Nazi Germany. Show some respect for the soldiers society spit on when they returned form Vietnam. Show some fucking respect for the men who fought in the Revolutionary War and freed this nation from the British Empire. By the way Hillary, did John McCain suffer when he was a POW for five long years during the Vietnam war? Why don't you tell an American hero his suffering as a POW means very little when compared to what you consider are the real victims of war. Hillary you also have some nerve insinuating General David H. Petraeus [five star general] was a liar when he gave his Iraq assessment to the senate. Her response in regards to his comments was "The willing suspense of disbelief". I don't care what you think about the war but show some god damn respect! Hillary where were you during the aftermath of 9'11? As junior senator you had a responsibility to unite NYC. She visited ground zero a total of seven times! I suspect war hero Senator McCain would have been there every day! Rudolph Giuliani was there twelve hours every day for months. I'm a NY resident [born and raised in Queens] and my elected senator showed no respect towards my uncle Joseph who died during the attacks. We buried a collar bone! Who was the victim? My uncle who was incinerated during the attack or my money hungry aunt who collected upwards of a million dollars and subsequently moved to Las Vegas and squandered her money on cocaine. I can go on and on!
Anthony
"The Sun Isn't Yellow, Its Chicken!" [Bob Dylan]