Attacks On Wendy Davis’ Life Story Follow Classic Sexist Playbook [View all]

Here are the top three most sexist attacks in the Dallas Morning News profile:
She didn’t really struggle because she only lived in a trailer for a few months as a single mom. Claiming that “facts have been blurred” in her story, The Dallas Morning News’ Wayne Slater seized on Davis’ description of her struggles as a 19-year-old divorced single mom, pointing out that she was actually 21 when the divorce was finalized. In fact, Davis was a 19-year-old single mom who was only unofficially separated from her husband, and “lived only a few months in the family mobile home while separated from her husband before moving into an apartment with her daughter.”

She manipulated her husband into paying her tuition. After divorcing and enrolling in community college, Davis met her second husband, Jeff Davis, a 34-year-old lawyer, and married him after two years of dating. Davis helped her pay for the last two years of college and cashed in his 401(k) to help her pay for Harvard Law School while taking care of their children. He claimed Wendy left him “the next day” after he made the last payment on her Harvard Law loan.

She abandoned her children in order to pursue a career. Because Jeff Davis took care of their daughters while Wendy went to law school, therefore flipping traditional gender roles in childcare, right-wing pundits are now calling her a bad mother who “apparently abandoned her children.” “Wendy is tremendously ambitious,” one anonymous source, described as a former colleague and political supporter, told the Dallas Morning News. “She’s not going to let family or raising children or anything else get in her way.”

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2014/01/21/3184391/sexist-wendy-davis-attacks/





Abbott's campaign, in addition to the "Abortion Barbie" routine, has pulled out the "Bad Mother" and "Gold-Digger" bullet points from the MRA-GOP playbook pretty quickly. The Davis campaign has also out raised Abbott in recent contributions. Makes me think that they're a bit more concerned with her than they let on. However, it is interesting that they do not criticize any of her public policy positions, but only those things related to her sex.