Valerie Jarrett plays gender card: My critics must be sexists

Valerie Jarrett, President Obama’s behind-the-scenes adviser and personal family friend, shrugged off critics who said she had a hand in bringing on the Democratic Party’s Election Day disaster and suggested that those who wanted her out were perhaps sexist.

And she’s not the only one.

On the heels of tough-stance stories about Ms. Jarrett in both the New Republic and Politico, in which it was opined that the adviser ought to step aside, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile and MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski called the criticisms sexist.

“After the past week’s political upheavals in Washington and around the country, we are reminded that certain things remain constant in politics,” Ms. Brazile wrote, in CNN. “Unfortunately, one of those things is the sexism leveled at any woman who rises to power in the White House.”

Ms. Jarrett, in separate statements, seemed to agree and said that the criticism she was suffering hearkened back to the days of women fighting for equal pay, or the right to vote, The Hill reported.

“If I take a bump or bruise along the way, that’s nothing compared to the sacrifices that the women whose shoulders I stand upon made along the way,” she said, The Hill reported.

Ms. Jarrett also dismissed her critics by saying during an interview on MSNBC: “When you break glass ceilings, you’re going to get scraped — a minor scrape from a shard or two of the glass.”