How. Did. We. Miss. This?

Following closely on the heels of a Media Matters study that concluded that Maureen Dowd "repeatedly uses gender to mock Democrats," as well as, much post-election talk that the coverage of Hillary Clinton was sexist the New York Times' own public editor has got in on the act. In a column that ran this weekend Clark Hoyt addressed charges of sexism against the paper (unfounded) and Dowd (what the complaints "often boiled down to") and concluded that,

Dowd's columns about Clinton's campaign were so loaded with language painting her as a 50-foot woman with a suffocating embrace, a conniving film noir dame and a victim dependent on her husband that they could easily have been listed in that Times article on sexism, right along with the comments of Chris Matthews, Mike Barnicle, Tucker Carlson or, for that matter, Kristol, who made the Hall of Shame for a comment on Fox News, not for his Times work.

Dowd responded saying she's been "twisting gender stereotypes around for 24 years." Except, well, as far as we can tell characterizing Hillary as "mommy dearest," a "conniving film noir dame," a "debate domanatrix," "Eve Harrington" and "Lady Voldemort" isn't so much twisting gender stereotypes as ENDLESSLY REINFORCING them. Also, rest assured, the word "skank" has never darkened the Times pages.