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Under the Sun Cynthia Oi |
Like sticks and stones,
insulting words can hurtSometimes a guy just has to vent, especially if he's of that breed of he-man's man, and a bunch of legislative Mary-boys are annoying him at every turn.
The frustration was enough to provoke a hissy-fit of insults and exhortations for mall-crawling voters to inflict virtual violence at the ballot box.
Boy, that Arnold Schwarze-negger is quite a fellow, adept at offending a spectrum of people with one utterance. Flexing his vocal muscles instead of the one between his ears, the California governor called out Democratic lawmakers last weekend, deriding them as spineless "girlie men" (a Saturday Night Live skit reference) unable to stand up to what he labels "special interests" as the Golden State wrestles with an overdue budget plan.
Forget that some of the lawmakers are women -- who, if Ah-nold's views are to hold, would be "girlie women" ripe for goggles and gropes, but only in fun, mind you -- or that the expression could be regarded as an affront to gays. Schwarzenegger, in full action-figure mode, also deputized a crowd in Stockton as fellow "terminators" to eradicate his adversaries in November.
The whole incident -- including the puffed-up outrage from the likes of Arianna Huffington, the wealthy celebrity activist-writer who ran against the body-building champ in California's burlesque recall election last fall, and the chortling jeers from Limbaugh-bians who imply that the Republican governor's words hit too close to home for liberal comfort -- could be deemed sheer silliness.
What's interesting, however, is how politics seems to be drenched in testosterone. To be accepted as strong leaders, male candidates have to shoot deer and farm-raised pheasants, jog or bike through muggy Texas trails and air-thin Rocky Mountain high roads, toss footballs and chain-saw Crawford crabgrass. Even female candidates are expected to exhibit might and feistiness.
I suppose the dog-eat-dog nature of politics demands toughness, but often the quality is concept rather than reality.
If he was truly tough, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist would not have allowed valuable time to be wasted futzing around with the anti-gay marriage amendment babble-fest that played out in Congress last week. He would have told the White House and its Republican operatives that the Senate had more important issues to deal with, but he could not withstand his party's pressure.
Being tough means having the internal wherewithal to consider and assess what's best for the country, not how an action will be reduced and rolled out in a campaign ad. It means working hard to explain to voters in details, not in broad strokes of high-sounding slogans. Or in callous, demeaning remarks like Schwarzenegger's.
His expressions reflect a prevailing notion that girls and women are weak, muted beings less than the male of the species. In my lifetime, women have made advances throughout American society, but there remains a belief that women don't measure up to men and consequently an inequitable praxis of conduct and treatment exists.
From Wal-Mart to Wall Street, opportunities and pay for female employees fall short. About 1.6 million women who are suing the big-box retailer for sex discrimination feel that way and so do women who settled another discrimination case last week against securities giant Morgan Stanley for $54 million.
Although women in Hawaii earn more than the national average for women when compared to men, they are still shortchanged about 16 cents for every dollar earned by males, and that's not fair.
Neither Schwarzenegger nor others like him are directly at fault for these inequities, but there is an oblique connection through the perpetuation of their fallacious views.
Schwarzenegger is hugely popular, so much so that he is carefully courted by big-time Republican leaders who'd relish his endorsement of the president. He has an obligation to conduct himself decently and to mark his words conscientiously. He'd be a bigger man for it.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Cynthia Oi has been on the staff of the Star-Bulletin since 1976. She can be reached at: coi@starbulletin.com.