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By Lisbeth Freeman

There’s something about Bernie that troubles me. As a former Vermonter, I am not new to his rhetoric, but his Presidential campaign has been a constant din of the same concepts of economic inequality and Wall Street repeated over and over. While I generally agree with his concerns, I’m left with a discord in the base of my brain when I watch him on stage during debates, or when I hear him discuss economic inequality as though it is the only ill that confronts American society and culture. Why do I cringe? Unfortunately, the problem is that Senator Sanders has a problem with women. Especially women he is campaigning against.

A brief history lesson provides some context. Back in 1986, Bernie decided to run for Governor of Vermont against incumbent Governor Madeleine Kunin. Tim Murphy chronicled this run in an article titled That Time Bernie Sanders Said He was a Better Feminist than His Female Opponent in Mother Jones in February of this year. He made the decision to run despite warnings that an independent candidacy might result in Republican Peter Smith winning the election and his own left wing coalition concern that it was merely a “vanity campaign” that could hurt other down-ticket progressives. Governor Kunin has reflected on that time, noting that in a rally in Burlington, VT, then-Mayor Sanders “declared that ‘he would be a better feminist than I.'” Sanders shouted that Kunin had “done nothing for women.” In another article penned by Governor Kunin herself, she notes that

“[w]hen Sanders was my opponent, he focused like a laser beam on ‘class analysis,’ in which ‘women’s issues’ were essentially a distraction from more important issues. He urged voters not to vote for me just because I was a woman. That would be a ‘sexist position,’ he declared.” Hmmm, that sounds strangely familiar.

Bernie had this to say about the 1986 campaign, from the Mother Jones article:

“‘Liberals were angry I was running against a female Democrat,’ Sanders recalled in his own memoir, Outsider in the House. Sanders, for his part, inflamed the tensions, arguing at the time that Kunin was an empty suit. ‘[M]any people are excited because she’s the first woman governor,’ he told an interviewer in 1986. ‘But after that there ain’t much.’ In another interview, he suggested the governor was coasting by on superficial approval. ‘I think [her] popularity is not very deep,’ he said. ‘In other words, she does very well on television. She has an excellent press secretary.'”

Which of course brings us to Killer Mike and his now-notorious statement that “a uterus doesn’t qualify you to be President.” Senator Sanders responded to the mild uproar over that statement by explaining:

“What Mike said essentially is that … people should not be voting for candidates based on their gender, but based on what they believe. I think that makes sense,” said Sanders. “I don’t go around, no one has ever heard me say, ‘Hey guys, let’s stand together, vote for a man.’ I would never do that, never have.” … “I think the media is blowing this thing up.”

Ugh. Really, can there be any worse comparison? This statement, as logical as it may appear on its face, completely dismisses the oppression of women – politically, physically, sexually, and violently – by men since the beginning of history. Bernie knows this is a silly comparison, but he went with it. Was it a dog whistle aimed at his fanboys? Or simply another example of his tone deafness on race and gender? Indeed, this is a clear echo of Chief Justice John Roberts declaration that “[t]he way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” Turning discrimination on its head like this is a clever trick, but it does nothing to end discrimination.

And let’s look at the basic premise of his statement. Should women voters give preference to female candidates in today’s cultural and political environment? Is it “sexist” for women to trust other women to protect their rights more than they trust male politicians? Bernie lays that sexist judgment squarely on women’s heads, just as he did back in 1986. “People should not be voting for candidates based on their gender, but based on what they believe.” To an extent that may be true. But it is also true that women in this nation have been figuratively screwed by the male-dominated political forces since before the formation of the United States, before there was a Wall Street, before economic inequality was something other than the institution of slavery – and therefore isn’t it completely reasonable and perhaps responsible to give preference to female candidates?

I wrote the majority of this article prior to the Flint, Michigan debate on March 6, 2016. That debate brought my dis-ease with Sanders into clear focus. Senator Sanders has behaved gruffly, even rudely towards Secretary Clinton in previous debates. While any comparison to this year’s Republican debates is unhelpful, candidates were expected to behave with a certain decorum in previous election cycle debates. Remember Al Gore’s sighs in the 2000 campaign that were so widely ridiculed in the media? Bernie has been allowed to grunt, groan, wag his finger, wave his arms, laugh, cough, and clear his throat – all while Secretary Clinton is speaking – throughout the debates thus far without any media criticism.

In Flint, though, Bernie took it to a new level. In what has already been well documented in response to the heated debate, Bernie shushed the Secretary by yelling “Excuse me, I’m talking!” as well as several other similar outbursts, causing the audience to gasp. And he had this to say about his racial blind spot: “When you’re white, you don’t know what it’s like to be living in a ghetto,” Sanders concluded. “You don’t know what it’s like to be poor. You don’t know what it’s like to be hassled when you walk down the street or you get dragged out of a car.” Not only is this ignorant of the fact that there are poor white people who may indeed live in a “ghetto,” but also entirely fails to recognize the harassment, physical assaults, and other challenges faced by non-poor black people, as well as all women and all LGBT people. Bernie went all in with his white straight male privilege in the Flint debate, and that behavior incited immediate uproar in social media.

Bernie’s laser focus on economic inequality, campaign finance reform, and Wall Street during his long political career has been lauded for its consistency and authenticity. But maybe, just maybe, that focus comes with the price tag of his failure to grasp the very real barriers that Women, Blacks, Latinos, LGBT, and immigrants face separate and apart from the general causes of economic inequality. Bernie disrespected Governor Kunin’s validity as a feminist in 1986, and he continues that angle against Secretary Clinton in 2016. Thirty years have passed and he’s singing the same old gender song. Maybe Bernie should be the one to shush and pay better attention to Hillary’s message – that it is time to break down ALL the barriers to economic and social justice, and Wall Street is just a small part of that equation. Indeed, perhaps his own white maleness is his biggest problem – and not Hillary interrupting him.

Update: I’ve added a new article that talks further on Bernie’s white male problem.

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