Is that picture of Fred Thompson with his wife or his granddaughter? I have concerns about his judgment based on that alone.

I like how they put "Eleanor" in italics in their list of the supposedly fugliest first ladies. One of the most accomplished public figures in this country, and she's reduced to a sneer because of her perceived unattractiveness.

How friggin' pathetic. I get so sick of this type of comedy or provocation - not just as a female (and a human), but as a comedian. Forgetting all the other ways it's wrong, this type of attitude is just flipping BORING by now. When will people get that? *sigh*

My one consulation - I just left an annoyed comment over there, and so far the only other comment is equally annoyed. Yay!

Everytime I see Fred Thompson with his trophy wife I have to fight back the urge to vomit.

Ugh. What a revolting man.

Oh, puke.

Don't you think that using "lame" as a synonym for defective would be hurtful to differently abled people? I dislike the widespread use of "gay" similarly.... some people even say "girly"... careful with that language, Eugene.

I think the article is far from being a cogent political analysis, and is blatantly sexist.

It's been so long since "lame" was used for people with disabilties that I really don't think it's an issue anymore. Besids, it's used as a synonym for "loser", not "defective" (which also isn't a synonym for people with disabilities anymore).

There was a Daily Show segment about this, exactly. My guess would be the Daily Show was making fun of the men.style piece. It was pretty funny.

I've seen something like this before. I used to be in Marketing Research. We did a lot of awful projects, but the worst one I ever worked on was data entry of several hundred surveys for a popular men's magazine. One of the questions was open ended like "who/what kind of spreads would you like to featured?". I could not believe how many responses included "Senators wives". It was not one of the top 10 answeres, but definitely enough so that we had to make a category for it.

I figured it must have something to do with the money=power=sex alpha male thing.

"There was a Daily Show segment about this, exactly. My guess would be the Daily Show was making fun of the men.style piece. It was pretty funny."

Actually, I doubt it. The Daily Show is regularly pretty sexist. I haven't seen the clip, so I have no facts to stand on, but I've noticed that Jon Stewart almost never has women on his show, and furthermore, although he makes fun of everyone, of course, he tends to make fun of men for the foolish things they say or do, and make fun of women for being women.

On the actual men.style.com article though, it looks as if only Feministing readers have read it so far, judging by the comments beflow the article. They are great responses!

I would agree with Sappho. While somebody could certainly argue that the Daily Show was making fun of articles like the one in men.style, I thought their "FLILF" segment was just plain sexist. I felt bad for Kucinich's wife. I also think the "race" segments they do with their "token black guy" are more racist than ironic. While he may occasionally make good points, usually he's just there to laugh up black stereotypes.

Not to completely hate on the Daily Show (I love Stewart!) but I do think some of their segments are more just sexist/racist humor rather than actually making fun of sexism/racism.

"Is that picture of Fred Thompson with his wife or his granddaughter? I have concerns about his judgment based on that alone." - ggzax

Ageism.

This is gross, but not suprising. A woman can be an Ivy League graduate, a star athlete, or an amazing artist but all anyone wants to know is, "Is she hot?" Because of course, it she isn't, none of her achievements matter.

I really dislike the idea that women who happen to be married to politicians are treated like some kind of commodity (I hate it when any woman is, but it seems more common with politician's wives). As I've commented before, having worked in politics I have met a few of them. I have to say that the thread that tends to unite these women is that they have a desire to change something, possibly why they're married to men who want to change something.

Elizabeth Kucinich, who seems to get a lot of attention for her looks, is also a humanitarian working to alleviate poverty among women living in rural areas of Africa. I feel bad for her that the only thing the press seems to notice is the fact that she is beautiful as she is also sweet and has a strong desire to make a difference.

During the last election cycle there seemed to be a backlash against Howard Dean's wife when she stated that she would stay in VT should her husband be elected President since she had patients who would continue to be in need of her services. To me, this sounded like a reasoned approach to career balance, not so much to most of the population.

Wouldn't it be great if candidates' spouses could be treated as individuals instead of commodities?

I stand by my statement that the Daily Show segment on "FILFS" was funny, and satirical. Neither interviewee went along with what the reporter was asking. They looked at him as an idiot for bringing up the subject of "how hot is a candidate's wife". I saw this as showing how ridiculous questions like these are.

Segments with the "token black correspondant" or "resident muslim expert" are meant to point out how few people of color are found at other news networks, and their practice of calling anyone who relates somewhat to the news story an expert, regardless of actual credentials.

I agree that the DS has few female guests, but I've seen them point out sexist actions by politicians and news media many times.

"Ageism"

I've gone ahead and looked on several sites to get an idea of what ageism would actually entail. I found this:

"Ageism can be defined as 'any attitude, action, or institutional structure which subordinates a person or group because of age or any assignment of roles in society purely on the basis of age' (Traxler, 1980, p. 4). As an "ism", ageism reflects a prejudice in society against older adults."

I'm not prejudiced against Fred Thompson because of his age, so I think ageism isn't what's going on here. I'm squicked out by the vast difference in age between him and his wife. I'm willing to entertain the notion that there's some prejudice in my reaction, but you might have to come up with a new word for it.

Throughout my life I have observed that sometimes men marry much younger women. They do it much more often than women marry much younger men, though the reverse is not unheard of. In such situations there is often a power differential in the couple. The younger partner has fewer resources. The younger partner is easier to control. When there is more than a twenty year age difference the older partner is often as much a parental figure as a spouse. And something about this power differential squicks me out. Something about a person who seeks out this power differential makes me question whether they feel confident enough to form intimate relationships with peers. And this leads me to question their maturity and judgment.

This position is a bit prejudiced because I'm sure not every relationship between a much older and much younger partner is unequal. There must be exceptions, but I'm likely to have the instantaneous averse reaction no matter what the individual circumstances are, mostly because I'm not privy to that information.

Nobody's forming anti-intergenerational marriage squads and I'm not agitating for legislation or anything. I'm just squicked.

I wasn't going to vote for him anyway.