Does Chris Matthews have a problem with women?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

That's the question currently being posed by Media Matters, and it would seem to be an easy question to answer. Matthews has a history of treating women like objects to be simultaneously feared and desired, a tension he resolves, if not consciously, by lusting after them and/or demonizing them. It all depends on who the woman is. When the woman in question is strong and powerful, a woman who is not on her knees, that is, a woman who is a threat to his fragile manhood -- a woman like, say, Hillary Clinton -- Matthews demonizes her, calling her names and otherwise using his prominent public platform (MSNBC be shamed!) to attack her femininity/womanhood and/or to hold her femininity/womanhood against her, in so doing playing on misogynistic stereotypes of femininity and womanhood, for such is his debased understanding of femininity and womanhood.

Thus he calls Clinton a devil and a witch, an unappealing modern woman, the leader of the sisterhood, a castrator of men. Real men, you see -- and Matthews wants so badly to be a "real" man -- do not support Clinton and presumably prefer their women on their hands and knees, cooking, cleaning, and no doubt fulfilling Matthews's profoundly dysfunctional fantasies. Certainly they object to a woman actually making something of herself, worst of all running for president. It doesn't take much to imagine what Matthews would say in response to a Clinton victory in November. And I suspect his penis would explode.

For more on Matthews, make sure to read the Media Matters piece linked above. It includes contact information for MSNBC -- send them your objections.

And see also my post on Matthews the Sexist Jerk from last September.