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Why does the CNBC store carry the "Hillary Nutcracker"?

by: Mike Caulfield

Mon May 05, 2008 at 21:44:05 PM EDT


(Not a local New Hampshire story, but something we should all be disgusted at, whichever candidate we support - promoted by Laura Clawson)

I just got back from a vacation, and I had a layover in Washington, DC. Across from where I sat lay the CNBC store, proudly sporting that NBC peacock we've come to know so well.

I wandered over to grab a newspaper or a magazine, and this is what I found in the center of the store, facing outward from the cash register.

Did you get it? Did you get the joke? Because strong women hate penises. Strong women want to "bust men's balls" because let's face it, they're envious of our balls. They are all, you know, menopausal and uptight. And we dudes, we're just hanging out, being  cool, when they come around cracking our nuts...

Because, you know, male power is natural, but female power is a pathology. Always.

That's why a major news outlet can sell a novelty item where a female presidential candidate cracks nuts with her "stainless steel thighs".

Is there some way to apply pressure to CNBC to stop selling this misogynist crap? If you have any ideas, leave them in the comments.  

Mike Caulfield :: Why does the CNBC store carry the "Hillary Nutcracker"?
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Why do pundits/surrogates use stoopid anatomical metaphors? (4.00 / 1)

"If she gave him one of her cojones, they'd both have two."

-- James Carville, quoted by Newsweek, on how "Hillary is the tougher of the two, the candidate you want on your side in a knife fight."

What's next - the Obama blackface doll?

This race is becoming a stoopidity catharsis for the nation.

birch, finch, beech


Too late? (4.00 / 1)
Didn't they darken him for a spot or was that story enveloped in a "fog of plausible deniabilty."

Our collective conscience has triggers that are easy to exploit. Hello... Fox News!!!

www.KusterforCongress.com - www.paulhodesforsenate.com

www.nikitsongas.com - www.devalpatrick.com


[ Parent ]
Memo to James Carville: (4.00 / 1)
You're not Stephen Colbert.  It's funny when he says it because he's making fun of people like you.

--
"Act as if ye have faith and faith shall be given to you." -Aaron Sorkin


[ Parent ]
Makes sense when you consider the store name (0.00 / 0)
We know MSNBO has it in for Hillary so it makes sense that their sister network does too.

But...I bet CNBC actually has nothing to to with the store other than lending their name, for a fee.


Quick research (0.00 / 0)
The Paradies Shops of Atlanta is the owner of the CNBC shops.  Also PGA shops and many other airport shops.

http://www.theparadiesshops.co...


Thanks, but as you know (0.00 / 0)
A brand name bears reponsibility for what they sell -- or brands are meaningless.

My hope is that pressuring CNBC to get this removed will draw a line. It's a place to start to push back.  



[ Parent ]
Incidentally, Hillary is coming to take your nuts, didn't you know (4.00 / 1)

It's really just incredible how in danger men's gentitalia are. I had no idea.  



Femdom was never my bag baby n/t (0.00 / 0)


www.KusterforCongress.com - www.paulhodesforsenate.com

www.nikitsongas.com - www.devalpatrick.com


[ Parent ]
Mike I'm going to quote you over at MyDD (4.00 / 1)
I think it would be good to bring this to the attention of more people and maybe get a protest going.

Ok if I quote and show the images?


[ Parent ]
Jack & Jill-ass ? n/t (0.00 / 0)


Not in the shot

[ Parent ]
A little O/T but (4.00 / 2)
There are CNBC shops??

I sort of understand ESPN shops with a sports theme. But what kind of nerd goes shopping in a financial news network outlet? And for what? Green eyeshades?


Monopoly (4.00 / 2)
Airport shops, man they have a monopoly!  I saw that very nutcracker on my last trip to DC in April.

In one airport shop, Faux News was blaring loudly.  I caught the clerk grimacing, and I asked "how can you listen to that all day?"  Her reply:  "We can't change the station.  We get paid to keep it on Fox."

Disgusting.

Paula M. DiNardo
Dover NH

A Blue Hampster since 2007!



[ Parent ]
"But what kind of nerd goes shopping in a financial news network outlet?" (4.00 / 1)
Mike Caulfield, apparently.

--
"Act as if ye have faith and faith shall be given to you." -Aaron Sorkin


[ Parent ]
play like a bubba, act like a bubba, pander like a bubba...this is what you get (0.00 / 0)
From the Rajin Cajun and not from CNBC as Dean noted in his first post:  
Hillary is the tougher of the two, the candidate you want on your side in a knife fight, a gender reversal that prompts Carville to indulge in some ribald humor: "If she gave him one of her cojones, they'd both have two."
Sorry Mike...this is not a negative for Hillary as offensive and sexist as it is...wouldn't you love to know who is actually paying for the Hillary nutcracker at CNBC...would not surprise me that Penn is behind it (now that he is off the payroll or maybe he is not).

Not about Hillary -- or even the campaign (4.00 / 3)
If Hillary supports it, or heck, if Mark Penn designed it -- it doesn't really matter to me. Obama's team could put out racist crap, CNBC still shouldn't carry it. No one owns a gender or a race -- and things like this hurt not just Hillary, but any woman that wants to be taken seriously in business. It's sending us hurtling backwards.

I wonder if we've become so obsessed at looking at everything through the prism of the horserace that we are turning a blind eye to what discourse like this does to normal people. This legitimizes the eye-rolling work-based sexism that we are all against, and hurts every woman trying to get herself taken seriously by mael colleagues -- it should be gone. I don't care if Hillary herself signed it.  

(And does Carville damage public discourse? Of course. But that's not a brainteaser, Arnie. It's too easy an answer to a question which is broadly social.)



[ Parent ]
maels = males (4.00 / 2)
But in short, if people want to think Hillary's campaign rhetoric is responsible for this, that's fine -- but get mad about the item. Get angry at Hillary for not fighting the stereotype.

If people want to see Obama as responsible, great. Or McCain, or Chris Matthews. Whoever.

This isn't the people are piling on Hillary so she should win argument -- this is having crap like that in stores hurts my daughters chances to get a fair shake in the world. Hillary will be gone in a month or two. But the damage from this will linger.



[ Parent ]
Yes! (4.00 / 1)
this is having crap like that in stores hurts my daughters chances to get a fair shake in the world.

That's it. That. Is. It.

birch, finch, beech


[ Parent ]
The Nutcracker has been around awhile (0.00 / 0)
I saw the first ad for it on DU last spring.  It may have been around even before she announce her run, I'm not sure.  I think it is part of the old Rethug anti-hill game that in my opinion worked on many of our progressives.

As an aside, my daughter's boyfriend gave me one for Christmas as a gag gift since I'm such a crazy Hillary supporter.  It will remain unopened for a future eBay sale.


[ Parent ]
Not to condone this, (0.00 / 0)
which I don't, but the Chowdah is on to something here. Carville isn't the only one using testicles in his rhetoric.

Ben Smith's column has reference to this:

Clinton may not like the story, but her supporters love it: The sheet metal workers union official in Portage, Indiana cited by Bayh had praised her "testicular fortitude" before lighting into unnamed "Gucci wearing, latte-drinking" opponents.

Also last week, a New York Post columnist wrote that she'd won the "cojones primary."

And Carville, that southerner, probably has forgotten, along with most of America, that part of the lynching ritual included castration, gets away with saying:

"If she gave him one of her cojones, they'd both have two," Carville said.

The nutcracker thing is absolutely offensive, and one has to wonder when even her supporters praise her for being more manly than the male Obama (according to Carville, she has three testicles, after all). But nobody picked up on the other horrible insult to the whole thing, probably because along with lacking education in civics, our basic grasp of history in this country is tenuous at best.


[ Parent ]
There's a real big difference (4.00 / 2)
between saying she's got balls, versus saying she will emasculate men.

I've seen plenty of favorable dKos diaries "complimenting" women Democratic leaders, including Boxer and Pelosi, by giving them honorary brass ones. It makes some sense for Carville and company to try to address "women aren't tough enough to be President" with this talk. That's a defensive maneuver.

But the ballbuster stereotype is entirely different.


[ Parent ]
Exactly (0.00 / 0)
Elwood has this one exactly correct. For whatever reason, the term "balls" has come to mean guts, courage, fortitude. So, to say someone has balls is to say they have guts - and when you use the term with a woman, it isn't sexist, at least not in my opinion.  That is very different from saying that a woman wants to do what the nutcracker implies, which is sexist, and insulting.  

As for the Chowder's conspiracy theory, I could say, oooh, I wonder who is paying for it, maybe it is David Axelrod - only that would be baseless speculation. Don't we have enough issues talk about in this race without trying to connect one of our candidates to a stupid novelty item in an airport store when there is no factual basis for it?  



"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."  Franklin D. Roosevelt    


[ Parent ]
Well, I still think the balls thing is sexist (4.00 / 4)
When someone says - for example - that the Romney health insurance plan is a great program for nurturing kids, and "that Mitt sure has big ovaries!" as a compliment, I'll retract.

[ Parent ]
______ 's got gears (4.00 / 1)
That's what a male colleague says when referring to guts, courage, fortitude, etc... instead of saying balls, cajones, or another sexist representation.

The connotation may still be the same, but it sure is a much nicer way to say it.

Feeling hopeful since 2004...now "Secretary" of the New Boston Democratic Caucus


[ Parent ]
points well taken! (0.00 / 0)




"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."  Franklin D. Roosevelt    


[ Parent ]
Whatever happened to having a "spine"? (4.00 / 1)
I guess that's too 2004.

I'm surprised at myself for not being as worked up as everyone else about this - I think maybe it's because I'm so desperately cynical about the low-brow nature of pop culture right now.  As a teacher, I hear and overhear daily the latest in consumer attempts to vulgarize our society that are pushed on to our kids.  My ears must be getting numb to teh stoopid of it all.

birch, finch, beech


[ Parent ]
The audacity of progress. (0.00 / 0)


--
"Act as if ye have faith and faith shall be given to you." -Aaron Sorkin


[ Parent ]
Bearings like gears (0.00 / 0)


During the morning press conference at Liberty Science Center here, the senator was flanked by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I) and former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean (R). Lieberman was quick to jump to his ally's defense with characteristic jokiness.

"I just want to report that this morning I personally checked John McCain's bearings. He has not lost any of them," said the white-haired Connecticut senator. "They are all in really great shape."



www.KusterforCongress.com - www.paulhodesforsenate.com

www.nikitsongas.com - www.devalpatrick.com


[ Parent ]
Spencer's Gifts? (0.00 / 0)
Is where I would expect to see this... but not front and center in an airport.  Yikes!  Distasteful, disgusting, and deplorable.

I will send an e-mail to CNBC.

Can't boycott them, already doing that.  

Feeling hopeful since 2004...now "Secretary" of the New Boston Democratic Caucus


This Diary highlighted by Ben Smith (4.00 / 2)

Dept. of casual misogyny

Blue Hampshire takes umbrage at the fact that CNBC airport shops are selling Hillary nutcrackers.

By Ben Smith 11:30 AM



www.KusterforCongress.com - www.paulhodesforsenate.com

www.nikitsongas.com - www.devalpatrick.com


good lord (4.00 / 4)
So, now we'll know women have achieved equality when MEN get the brass ovary award?

Given how badly men have screwed up, I shouldn't think women would have such lowly aspirations as mere testicles.  


a side issue... (0.00 / 0)
Why is a souvenir store which is ostensibly run by a supposedly objective news organization selling items which denigrate ANY major candidate?  It kinda creates the impression that they are not serious about their work (even though the store is run by some third party and NBC's only connection to it is renting out their logos to the storeowner.)

Thanks for articulating this (0.00 / 0)
Mike, I saw one of these Hillary dolls earlier this week and had an immediate sinking feeling, but wasn't clear at first why I found it so sickening and disappointing, but you nailed it. And you made me laugh. Thanks on both counts.


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