Shocking: Herman Cain Makes a Sexist Comment

Never one to disappoint, former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain expressed a few words yesterday on Fox News that almost defy belief.

Almost.

We know he has a special place in his heart for the opposite gender… which is probably in the kitchen portion.

He was asked why, in a Washington Post-ABC News poll, the public felt President Obama addressed women’s issues better than Mitt Romney while men preferred Romney over Obama among men. Good ol’ Cain had this to say (beginning at the 3:10 mark):

Yes, President Obama is very likable to most people, if you just look at him and his family. But if you look at his policies, which is what most people disagree with, it’s a different story. And I think many men are much more familiar with the failed policies than a lot of other people, as well as the general public.

As sexist as this may be, I have to wonder who these “other people” are that he’s lumping into his statement. Robots, werewolves, zombies?

And lest Cain forgot, this same type of language that was used against a race of people many decades ago. You’d think he would know better…

What an ass… on so many levels. But this is not new information.

Iosue

“And lest Cain forgot, this same type of language that was used against a race of people many decades ago. You’d think he would know better…”

Like a true Republican, Cain wouldn’t care about that, since greed trumps everything else: “Screw you, I’ve got MINE!”
Holytape

Well, it’s almost as bad as when Wisconsin State Sentator Grothman said “You could argue that money is more important for men” on why the state had to strip away equal pay protections from the law. I don’t think there is a man in the republican leadership who thinks that women are equal to men. After all there most sacred religious texts says that women are not equal and that they should not speak.
Adi Rule

Everyone knows werewolves don’t give a sh*t about failed policies.
mkb

Sexism can be found in both parties, from both genders. See Hilary Rosen who thinks that Ann Romney never worked a day in her life because she didn’t have paid employment outside the home.
Persephone

You sound concerned.
Nordog

“And I think many men are much more familiar with the failed policies than a lot of other people, as well as the general public.”

Sexist? I don’t know. Given the structure, and the use of the qualifier “many”, this statement, imo, makes no sense at all. That is to say, it is vague enough to be saying nothing at all.

However, if one wishes to use it as a launching pad for high dudgeon the, of course, one will.
Patterrssonn

I guess that pretty much balances out the Republican attempts to wipe out women’s reproductive rights.
Patterrssonn

Thanks for the mansplanation.
Marguerite

I tend to agree. Is he really being sexist, or just dreadfully inarticulate? It’s hard to tell what he means here. He talks about men, “other people,” and “the general public” as if these are all separate categories, which is all rather incomprehensible. It seems to me that he just let his tongue get away from him somehow.
Patterrssonn

Thanks for the mansplanation.
CoreY Allen

I wonder if he’s alluding to the fact that construction unemployment in the last few years has hit men more than women? There seems to be a new “talking point” for Republicans about this recently. I read an economist recently decrying Romney’s claim that Obama didn’t create jobs for women. This is a statistical artifact driven by who originally lost their jobs under Bush.
59 Norris

What attempt was that?
Pascale Laviolette

Shannon I hope you’ve heard the parody album Tim Heidecker (comedian from Adult Swim) did about Cain’s Campaign… it’s fantastic, PLUS his album sales support victims of family violence and sexual assault. I’m in awe that he came up with 9 songs, all ridiculously catchy.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/06/tim-heidecker-herman-cain-album-songs_n_1078118.html
Michael

It’s weasely. He obviously means an unspecified number of men are more familiar with Obama’s failures than all the people who are less familiar than them. Kinda like how a lot of numbers are higher than 72. It means nothing.
Patterrssonn

Are you asking ‘which’ attempt? Or have you completely missed out on all the laws attacking reproductive rights that republicans have been trying to pass lately. If you have then it would be a simple matter of googling the issue. I just hope you have a strong stomach, some of them are beyond grotesque.
Nordog

For confidence’s sake, can you offer just one legislative effort on the part of the GOP to roll back reproductive rights?

Are you referring to pushback on ObamaCare’s mandate to pay for contraceptives? If so, that’s a fail.
Persephone

It’s “current-events 101” trolling: pretend not to have any awareness of anything that’s been happening recently in an attempt to force the other person to do a recap of the news for them. It derails the argument. Don’t give him what he wants.
Atheist101

He could simply mean that women are less interested in politics than men. Which I think is true though if you measure the difference scientifically it is probably pretty slim.
Persephone

If you are serious when you say this, then you have not been paying attention in the slightest, and you really should keep yourself better informed. It is not the responsibility of anyone else to do this for you.

It sounds to me like you’re just using a diversionary tactic, though. Nobody could be that woefully uninformed.
Nordog

Wrong. Rather, the so-called “War on Women” is a bunch of lies and came out of the left’s efforts to ensure that ObamaCare, and the individual mandate (including the mandate to pay for other peoples sterile sex supplies) is not derailed.

Now, if there’s something eles, then indeed I missed it. But given the lies spewed regularly by the left on this subject, I doubt there is any there there.
Sue Blue

Right up there with Supreme Court cocksman Clarence Thomas of ass-slapping fame. Male privilege at its finest! These guys must keep a cheat-sheet of chauvinist chestnuts in their pockets…gems like, “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach – so get back in the kitchen and make me a sammich!”
Persephone

Oh, wow. Oh, just, wow. Oh man. Wow. I’m going to go now. And. . . laugh or something. I can’t take that even remotely seriously.
Nordog

Yeah, you got bupkis. Just as I thought.
Nordog

The charge was that Republicans are trying to “wipe out women’s reproductive rights.” [direct quote] Even given allowance for hyperbole, it’s still wrong.

Just cite one bit of legislation to prevent women access to any of the products or services euphemistically referred to as “reproductive” in nature (but are actually ordered to preventing reproduction.
Atheist101

Oh, in the US more women vote than men. Who would have thought?
Yessenia

http://womenslawproject.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/record-number-of-anti-choice-bills-introduced-in-2011-we%E2%80%99ve-had-enough/

162 enough for you?
Post Hoc Ergo Cheese

Right, because limiting women’s equal access to preventive healthcare in no way limits women’s equal access to women’s reproductive healthcare.

That’s a fail indeed.
Michael

He was asked for an answer and he gave a response. There’s a Babylon 5 quote in there somewhere.
Coyotenose

Pretty trollish and bratty to wait a few minutes and then post that.

* Points at Yessenia’s post* Actually, you got bupkis. Enjoy.
Reginald Selkirk

Do a news search on “transvaginal” and see what pops up.
amycas

I live in Texas where we have parental consent laws that prevent scared young girls from getting an abortion. In Texas there is also a law that requires women to pay for two visits to the doctor: the first one she is forced to sit through an ultrasound and listen to the doctor rattle off a series of statements about abortion and the development of the fetus that are either lies or half-truths, then she has to wait 24 hours before she can go back to have an abortion. Hmmm, how many women do you think will actually change their mind about it? Not many, actually. The law is written to restrict abortion access as much as possible. Poor women will have to take two days off of work, most of these women already have children, so they will have to pay for childcare fr two days as well. Then they also have to pay for two doctor visits, and the mandated ultrasound. What sounds more invasive to you: telling insurance companies and businesses that provide insurance companies what preventative care should be covered, or forcing women to undergo an unnecessary medical procedure before being allowed access to her fundamental reproductive rights?
amycas

“services euphemistically referred to as “reproductive” in nature (but are actually ordered to preventing reproduction.”

Are you suggesting that preventing reproduction is not part of my reproductive rights? How am I supposed to have control of my body and choose if/when to reproduce if I don’t have access to contraception or abortions?

You’re being deliberately obtuse here.

Let’s use an analogy here: All citizens over 18 in the US have a right to vote (except those with felonies in some states). Now, let’s say we enact a law that imposes a poll tax of say…$100. Let’s just say that there is a district that is particularly poor, and the citizens there cannot afford the poll tax, so they effectively cannot vote. That is restricting access to fundamental rights. It’s saying,”Yes, you have the right to do this, but we’re going to make it so difficult to access it, that you actually won’t be able to exercise that right.”
amycas

I feel the same way. At first it seemed like he was implying that men are better informed on the issues (why exactly would men be better informed about women’s right issues than women?), but then the rest of his sentence makes no sense. So I’m inclined to believe he’s just incredibly inarticulate. Hanlon’s razor: never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity.
amycas

Thank you for following up your posts by actually looking at some facts. I really appreciate that.

(also, I’m a woman who is extremely interested in politics)
Teletheus

“Are you referring to one of the many examples from the GOP in the last few months, all of which are in keeping with the apparent playbook to make reproductive rights an issue in the upcoming election? If so, I’m going to ignore them all because I don’t understand what ‘reproductive rights’ are.”

Fixed that for you.
Patterrssonn

It can’t be easy being an atheist and an apologist for the Christian Extremist party.
Cognitive dissonance doesn’t even come close to describing what must be going on in your poor head Nordog.
Onamission5

So according to Cain, men are people who know important shit, and women are “other.”

Niiice.
Tim Brown

What does this have to do with atheism?
Brimshack

Tu Quoque AND Tokenism in one small post. Excellent!
Deven_Kale

Actually, I give him a pass on this one. People make simple mistakes when talking under high pressure situations, like a national telecast, all the time. This didn’t seem to be something that was well thought out or really indicative of a negative stereotype of women or anything.

Just looking at the words themselves, there’s a lot of ambiguity in it anyway. He says,

many men are much more familiar with the failed policies than a lot of other people.

I personally think, based on his saying “many”, the “other people” were more likely to be those men who didn’t fit into the “many” group and not necessarily women at all.
Nordog

I am not an atheist.
Nordog

I don’t see one at the link that fits the description.

I do see references to efforts to put restrictions on abortion, which is in keeping with Roe v. Wade. Are you against Roe now too?

Again, the charge was, “wiping out reproductive rights”.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

I will even flip it over for you, since you’re not really talking about reproduction here, but contraception and abortion.

There is not one bill or one effort by any nationally elected politician to wipe out a woman’s right to sterile sex or the destruction of any baby caused by the inevitable failure at attempting sterile sex. None. Bupkis.