Emily’s List’s Malcolm: The Best Antidote to Gender Nonsense is Coakley

At the conclusion of her women’s endorsement press conference today, Coakley answered a question about sexism in the campaign by acknowledging that

… we still work with unconscious — totally unconscious — bias in the way people think and the way they speak about this race. 

Then she offered a feisty rejoinder to a question about Capuano’s labeling her as “timid”.  A transcription wouldn’t do it justice. Watch it at about 1:40 remaining in Alison King’s report for NECN:

During a subsequent interview, Emily’s List founder Ellen Malcolm talked about the irony of Coakley being labeled both “timid” and “ambitious.”

You have to kind of laugh at this campaign… The idea that she’s ambitious — all four people running for Senate are ambitious or they wouldn’t be in the race. So, I think there sometimes are attempts to make it seem like somehow a woman shouldn’t be ambitious, which of course isn’t true.. I don’t know who would ever call her timid; this woman has taken on the most powerful special interests in this state, fighting for the citizens, making a difference, winning…

In campaigns… people are going to say different things, they’re going to tap into [the fact that] people aren’t used to seeing women in positions [of power]… But the proof is in the candidate… Martha’s connected with and made a difference for the voters of Massachusetts… The biggest antidote to any kind of political or gender-based nonsense is Martha Coakley herself.