“It would be nice to see comments sticking to valid points instead of ALWAYS going after women on the basis of ‘looks.’”
Mirya R. Holman, an assistant professor of political science at Tulane University who studies gender and politics, said, “This does mimic what conservative women have said in the past: ‘You liberals think you’re so enlightened,
but we still get people saying vile things about us.’”
Jennifer Palmieri, the director of communications for the Clinton campaign, who memorably clashed with Ms. Conway at a postelection forum at Harvard, also sees echoes of the sexism
that dogged her candidate in the attacks on Ms. Conway.
“If women were more united and speaking up at this behavior, including when it’s perpetrated by the left, we’d all be a lot better off.”
Ms. Conway suggested in an interview with The Daily Caller
that there would have been more outrage at the comments if she had been a liberal woman, adding, “And it is not just if I were a liberal woman, but if I were a pro-abortion one.” Ms. Conway did not respond to a message left with her assistant requesting comment for this article.
“I think some of the reticence that might be coming across in not a huge chorus of defense of Kellyanne Conway in the face of these sexist comments is the feeling
that she doesn’t have our back,” said Gillian Thomas, a senior staff lawyer of the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.