Here and There

The other day, I was out walking in my neighborhood after work when I spied a bumper sticker on a sedan. What did it say?

“Hillary for president.”

I’ve seen lots of people claim that referring to Hillary Clinton by only her first name is sexist. We call John McCain “McCain” and Barack Obama “Obama,” right?

Well, there are a few complicating factors. For one thing, if we called Hillary “Clinton,” it would be ambiguous, because we’ve already had one major political leader called “Clinton,” so in most people’s mind, the moniker already belongs to Bill. (In fact, in the newspaper business, our convention is to refer to people by last name only after we’ve given their full names, and the only exception is when we’re referring to two people with the same last name, in which case we use their first name on subsequent reference.)

And, another thing, Hillary is tacitly sanctioning the first-name convention by putting it on her bumper stickers and campaign materials!

I’m all in favor of calling out discrimination when and where it exists, but in this instance, it just seems ridiculous. Even without all the factors I’ve just mentioned, nobody calls it sexist when we in California call Arnold Schwarzenegger by his first name, do they?

- Beth W.

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