With the presidential election now in full swing, the Ms. Blog is excited to bring you a series presented in conjunction with Presidential Gender Watch 2016, a project of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation and the Center for American Women and Politics. They’ll be tracking, analyzing and illuminating gender dynamics during election season—so check back with us regularly!

Hillary Clinton is an emotional and political lightning rod. Of this there is absolutely no doubt. If you do a Google search for why people dislike Hillary Clinton, you get over a million entries with titles such as, ”Our Love/Hate Relationship with Hillary Clinton Will Never End,” “The Jarring Reasons People Don’t Want Hillary Clinton to Be President” and “Why Do Young People Have Such Visceral Dislike for Hillary?” Her own advocates are willing to stipulate that liking her is not even necessary to vote for her.

Clearly, there is more to this question of likability that needs to be interrogated. Likability is not gender neutral. Neither are most of the decisions we make, despite our desire to be prejudice-free. The 2016 presidential election is awash in explicit expressions of racism, sexism and xenophobia, leaving me wondering about the ways in which race and gender are implicitly shaping ordinary citizens’ views of the campaign.

Implicit messages are more insidious because they are consumed and deployed beyond the realm of consciousness. We need not think deeply to identify the racism in Donald Trump’s depiction of Mexican immigrants as rapists or the sexism of his asking if Megyn Kelly’s tough questions were due to her being on her period. Identifying subtler racist and sexist cues is more challenging, however, because no one is immune to these subtleties, engaged in personal and public anti-racist and anti-sexist work

http://msmagazine.com/blog/2016/03/17/3-ways-to-tell-if-your-distaste-for-hillary-clinton-is-sexist/

You know, the world would be a happier place if a girl would just smile more.

Just ask the guys on Twitter.

Now, by "girl," I mean a former U.S. senator and secretary of state who is likely to be the first female president of these allegedly united states.

As for "the world," let's narrow it down. We're talking mean men who apparently spend much of their day breathing into paper bags because they're not even allowed to ask a secretary to grab them a cuppa joe anymore without someone from HR signing them up for diversity training.

What? No more office wife? Evidence of hell in a handbasket right there. Just ask them.

So now we've got this Hillary woman going all presidential on us. She's everywhere. Giving speeches. Declaring victories. Starring in one town hall after another. How much suffering must a good ol' boy endure?

"God," they pray, "pick another name."

On Tuesday night, Hillary Clinton did what even Hillary Clinton thought she wouldn't do: She swept the primaries. Missouri (barely), Illinois, North Carolina, Florida — she won them and my home state of Ohio, which is in the Eastern time zone, people. Boy am I tired of that question.

Clinton strolled her conquering self across the stage in Florida as results poured in, and she delivered a victory speech while some of the white guys in TV-land offered their critiques via Twitter.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) made the case for a broader progressive push in an interview with MSNBC host Ed Schultz on Friday, saying his recent sojourn into southern states showed him there was still a Democratic base in a region usually known for supporting Republicans.

“I’ve been meeting with unionists, independents, progressive Democrats,” Sanders explained via satellite from Columbia, South Carolina. “And they are tired of being abandoned by the national Democratic party. They want some help, and they believe that with some help they can start winning in these conservative states.”

One cause for concern, Sanders explained to Schultz, was seeing many white, working-class voters in “low-income states” like Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina voting against their own best interest.

“These are guys getting hung up on gay marriage issues,” Sanders told Schultz. “They’re getting hung up on abortion issues. And it is time we started focusing on the economic issues that bring us together: Defending Social Security, defending Medicare, making sure that Medicaid is not cut, that veterans’ programs are not cut.”

Hillary Clinton is receiving the endorsement of the United Farm Workers, the largest farmworkers union in the country.

The union, active in 10 states, has a largely Latino membership, a key voting bloc for Clinton in both the primary and general elections. She received their endorsement over then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in the 2008 primary.

United Farm Workers President Arturo S. Rodriguez says the group spent a year discussing the race and recently interviewed Clinton for an hour on her positions.

Clinton, says Rodriguez in a statement, is "the strong, most respectful leader our country needs now."

"Hillary Clinton has the strong resolve needed to make change happen," he says. "And she is the best equipped to defeat the nativist, hateful forces of the current Republican front-runner."

The Latino vote has split between Clinton and rival Bernie Sanders in recent primary contests. Her team sees galvanizing Latino support as a key part of their strategy to defeat GOP front-runner Donald Trump.


Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article63753972.html#storylink=cpy