Sexism in politics doesn’t just come from Republicans

Since two women announced their candidacy for president, we braced ourselves for a year of barely-disguised sexism from our public servants, news sources, and uncles on Facebook, just like we braced ourselves for the not-so-subtle racism surrounding President Obama during the past two elections.

And we were right to do so. We didn’t have to wait longer than the first GOP debate to hear Trump defend how he’s called women “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals” and then accuse Fox News’ Megyn Kelly of being too hard of him because she had “blood coming out of her wherever.”

We even watched some women use the same kind of derogatory language. Cheryl Rios, CEO of Go Ape Marketing, said while women like her may be able to successfully run a business, running a country and waging war should be left to a “good, strong, honorable man.”

In an interview following Rios’ comments on women and the presidency, CNN’s Nadia Bilchik gave her a chance to redeem herself, reminding her of successful female leaders like Margaret Thatcher of England, Golda Meir of Israel, and Indira Gandhi of India. Maybe she just forgot about them? But Rios stuck to her tune:

“God created us differently. Men and women are not the same.”

It’s been easy to confine accusations of sexism in politics to Conservatives like Rios and to the Republican party. After all, it was two Republican primary candidates who slung insults at each other’s wives, and it was another Republican candidate who claimed women “left their kitchens” to go vote for him.

Even though Republicans are usually the ones caught by the media slinging sexist remarks (who can forget Mitt Romney’s binders full of women?), they’re not the only ones doing it.

A little over a week ago, Democratic former PA Governor Ed Rendell tried to address how Trump’s blunt sexism would damage his electability, but he couldn’t quite figure out how to phrase it to make himself sound any better than the orange demagogue.

He told the Washington Post: “There are probably more ugly women in America than attractive women. People take that stuff personally.”

Yeah, people take that stuff personally. People also take it personally when you call a majority of American women – or any woman –ugly. Not to mention, his statement makes absolutely no sense. Physical attractiveness has nothing to do with political views or whether or not someone is offended by a national public figure spewing sexist slurs. Plus, plenty of verifiably non-ugly women have denounced Trump, like supermodel Chrissy Tiegen, Scandal star Kerry Washington and MMA fighter Ronda Rousey.

Rendell did later apologize for his comment, saying it was a “stupid and insensitive” joke. But the whole ordeal shows how pervasive this idea is of a make-believe division between attractive women and ugly women, that somehow only women whom society deems lacking in physical beauty have the mental capacity to follow and understand politics and when they’re being insulted, or that attractive women simply don’t care about sexism.

It’s the same mindset that leads the media to deem it appropriate to critique Hillary’s clothing and hairstyles, or to suggest that Carly Fiorina’s choice in nail polish somehow discredited her as a presidential candidate.

If we want to move forward from our representatives using this kind of regressive language, we have to ignore party lines. We can’t heave accusations of sexism against members of one party while ignoring accusations directed at the other. It’s not a competition of whose team can be a little less sexist. Politicians, journalists, and voters all need to focus on the common goal to not ostracize women from politics. Politicians and the media especially need to be much more careful of the language and behavior they use when in the public eye and  to remain conscious of how they’re setting a standard for millions of Americans when it comes to treating women with respect.