In the days following the debate, the Sanders campaign vetted the prospect of having Warren serve as both the vice president and the Treasury secretary, according to an Intercept report.
The Sanders campaign made a direct appeal to women voters on Saturday through author and activist Naomi Klein, a surrogate for the Sanders campaign, who introduced him at the march and other events throughout the day.
“Women understand that Bernie has their backs and women understand that the issues cannot be pried apart — that they are women’s issues,” Klein said at the march. “When we fight unjust wars we are fighting for women and children, when we fight climate change we are fighting for women and children.”
In interviews, a number of women at Sanders events throughout the day saw the recent issues with the Warren campaign as either made up — either by the media or by Warren herself — or small-potatoes developments in the overall campaign.
But even some women who like and respect Sanders said the way he handled the Warren flap has made them think twice.
Undecided voters Helen Crowell and Kris Cotter, both from Glen, said they are considering Warren and Sanders. Crowell said Sanders’ approach to the matter over the last week hurt his standing in her mind.
“I don’t think he’s lying about it,” Crowell said, in reference to allegations that Sanders told Warren that a woman couldn’t win the presidency. “But I think his behavior was a little bit … It highlighted for me the lack, maybe a lack of understanding of his male privilege and what that means for being able to communicate well with women.
“I still think very highly of him. I just feel like it highlighted for me why we need a woman president,” Crowell added.
“He said to Elizabeth Warren at the debate when she started talking, he said, ‘We’re not going to talk about this now.’ That’s a very kind of, you know, paternal,” Crowell said. “Like, she gets to decide what she talks about.”…
Bernie Sanders has had a history of issue with women…..
Some may have forgotten this from view from a year ago….
Bernie Sanders seems to feel those double standards can just be overlooked, even when sexism has clearly manifested in his own campaign. And not just when his surrogates called his opponent a “democratic whore.” According to The New York Times, one of Bernie’s delegates claimed in an email that within his campaign, “There was an entire wave of rotten sexual harassment that seemingly was never dealt with.”
When women who worked for him came forward to discuss how they were paid less and experienced sexual harassment, Bernie initially replied, “I was a little bit busy running around the country” and seemingly couldn’t be expected to know about staff complaints. Bernie now seems to be trying to discuss those issues, but, frankly, after his female staffers came forward to talk to The New York Times, it would be impossible for any candidate not to do so. Sadly, it doesn’t seem to have been his instinct before then.
That’s in keeping with someone who claimed, “women’s issues were a distraction.” And while many male candidates for President might have felt that way, this year is filled with women who don’t. Women who have a lived experience of “women’s issues” are very willing to talk about them proudly. Kirstin Gillibrand has pledged to make women’s issues the focus of her campaign and wants to “fight for other people’s kids as hard as I fight for my own.” Kamala Harris has stated that, “It’s a woman’s issue to care about climate change. It’s a woman’s issue to want comprehensive immigration reform. It’s a woman’s issue to think about criminal justice reform. It’s a woman’s issue to care about reproductive healthcare and the Affordable Care Act. It’s a woman’s issue to care about so many of these things.” Elizabeth Warren, who offers many similar progressive policies to Bernie, has introduced a universal childcare proposal and discussed how hard it was for her to find childcare while she was a working mom.
Bernie may think that you can elect a candidate without considering their gender, but to many of us, it’s clear that men like Bernie overlook the pressures that women are made to deal with because of their gender. These men simply don’t seem to feel that the problems women experience are as real as the problems they and other men who look like them experience.
But they are. They’re not a distraction. They merit the same level of serious consideration…
image…commondreams.com
While I cannot exactly put myself in the mind-set of those kind of Democrats, I cannot picture how anyone can watch and listen to that exchange and not think that Warren came across worse.