Chris Matthews openly disdains the female majority in this country. From Media Matters (
watch the video):
On the September 5 broadcast of NBC's Today, MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews, discussing the November elections with host Matt Lauer, asserted that "the stakes" in the midterms would include "whether we want [House Democratic Leader] Nancy Pelosi [CA] to be the first woman speaker of the House or not." Matthews predicted that, in the event that Democrats take control of the House of Representatives in the November elections, "that iconic fact of that woman sitting behind the president during a State of the Union address is an enormous change in our culture," referring to Pelosi.
Memo to: Chris Matthews
Mr. Matthews, you say you are convinced (in "my own view") that having a woman sitting behind the President during a State of the Union address would be "an enormous change in our culture." I am wondering, how would you feel about having a woman as your physician? Having a woman as your boss? Having a woman as a colleague, or even... as a friend?
Mr. Matthews, there have already been enormous changes in our country's culture. Some of them happened many decades ago. For example, have you heard about the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution? It became the law of the land on
Thursday, June 5, 1919. Apparently you were not paying attention during civics class.
Late bulletin to Matthews: Women are able to vote and to hold office in this country! Evidently you have been living somewhere else, in some bizarre America of your own imagining.
For a national broadcaster such as yourself to imply that women cannot provide leadership, nor even sit in a chair of honor during a speech, is beneath contempt. Your statement is buffoonery in its most pathetic and disgraceful form, a blatant appeal to the worst instincts in your fellow human beings. You owe us all --- women and men alike --- a prompt apology.