Um………no.
Bill Maher explains that it’s fine for him to call Sarah Palin a cunt.
No it isn’t.
In a brief interview with ABC’s Jake Tapper, Bill Maher explains why calling Sarah Palin a “cunt” or a “twat,” as he has, is in no way equivalent to calling Sandra Fluke a “slut” or a “prostitute,” as Rush Limbaugh did.
I don’t care whether it’s equivalent or not; I care that it’s sexist and bad. Jacob Sullum notes:
Maher seems sincerely oblivious to the fact that “different tastes and different opinions” tend to color people’s views about when sexist epithets are acceptable and when they are so “disgusting” that they are beyond the pale.
And here’s another thing that tends to color people’s views about when sexist epithets are acceptable: being the object of them. It’s easy for Maher to think it’s fine to call Palin a cunt, because Palin’s a woman and he’s a man. It’s a great deal too easy. It’s not attractive for white people to shrug 0ff racist epithets, and it’s not attractive for men to shrug off sexist epithets.
Nick Gillespie – also in Reason – offers more putative liberals talking sexist shit.
At The Daily Beast, Kirsten Powers provides a somewhat more in-depth catalog of vagina dentata imagineering by liberal asshats.
Olbermann, for instance, suggested that that the best way to take Hillary Clinton out of the 2008 presidential race “was to find ‘somebody who can take her into a room and only he comes out.‘” And that conservative commentator S.E. Cupp should have been aborted by her parents. Enchante!
Matt Taibbi, whom Noah tags for calling Andrew Breitbart “a douche” in his obit, is similarly scampish toward the ladies, writes Powers:
Left-wing darling Matt Taibbi wrote on his blog in 2009, “When I read [Malkin’s] stuff, I imagine her narrating her text, book-on-tape style, with a big, hairy set of balls in her mouth.” In a Rolling Stone article about Secretary of State Clinton, he referred to her “flabby arms.” When feminist writer Erica Jong criticized him for it, he responded by referring to Jong as an “800-year old sex novelist.” (Jong is almost 70, which apparently makes her an irrelevant human being.)
Boy, those jokes are fall-down funny, aren’t they?
And then there’s Chris Matthews, the leg-tingled MSNBC host and stalwart JFK defender, who particularly seems to thrive on attacking Hillary Clinton in gender-specific terms:
Over the years he has referred to the former first lady, senator and presidential candidate and current secretary of state as a“she-devil,” “Nurse Ratched,” and “Madame Defarge.” Matthews has also called Clinton “witchy,” “anti-male,” and “uppity” and once claimed she won her Senate seat only because her “husband messed around.”
Sexist shit, all of it. Not ok, any of it. It’s not any more ok because it’s liberals doing it. On the contrary: it’s a deal-breaker. (We know that. We remember all the deals that got broken last summer.)
Update: forgot to h/t skepticlawyer for the link.
Good lord; as if there weren’t enough legitimate things to criticise Sarah Palin for. What a lack of common decency to resort to such epithets; but also what a lack of creativity! Same goes for critics of Breitbart! Such language – my grandmother would not approve.
Good on Powers and Gillespie. Everybody is way too tolerant of misogyny as a form of verbal aggression. And, if we’re going to be honest, the depth of outrage against Limbaugh is motivated less by his misogyny than by the opportunity to bring down a racist. In any event, if Bill Maher is brought down a peg as a consequence of this conversation, fine with me. The man’s a self-righteous bully without a hint of self-irony.
And, unfortunately, the corruption isn’t limited to men.
Well, there’s the fallacy of special pleading wherein Maher demonstrates his self-acclaimed candidature for the post of “special.” And then there’s the truism of special sewage wherein Maher demonstrates he’s almost over-qualified.
When “progressives” are sexist, it feels worse. I no longer expect them to have my back (which is sad enough in itself), but I still feel like they *should*. And so when they don’t, I not only feel denigrated, I feel betrayed.
The biggest reason I harbor such deep contempt for ‘liberals’ and forward thinkers who so readily and eagerly resort to sexist, homophobic, racist or other bigoted insults is that it makes it so much harder to take conservatives to task over them. I should not be walking into a discussion about this or that right wing hispanic Republican only to hear ‘lol he looks like he just got off the banana boat.’*
No. Just no. You are behaving indistinguishably from the very same people you were decrying earlier for their bigoted attitudes towards others of differing opinions, faiths and backgrounds. If it’s from their behavior and rhetoric you’re drawing those opinions why shouldn’t the same be assumed about you?
*I have heard versions of this that don’t bug as they’re less racists jabs and more ‘you realize who you’re partnering with, right?’ That said, most often, it’s just some idiot trying to be funny.
Natalie Reed’s take on Hipster Misogyny.
The comment I made on this piece over at my place, which bears repeating:
An anecdote: some once funny things just pass their use-by date, forever. I still can’t abide Plautus’ slave jokes. You know what I told one Latin tutor who wanted me to direct Aulularia?
‘Only if I get to put the wily old slave in blackface, have him sitting on a tree stump with a banjo and whistling Dixie’.
My tutor found someone else.
Bill calling Sarah Palin a cunt, might well have been unnecessary, but I’m not convinced it’s as sexist as you make out.
Personally, I’ll call someone a dick if they’re a dick – not because they’re a man, but because they’re a dick. I draw the line at cunt, because I’m not that foul-mouthed.
But calling someone a dick, doesn’t imply a sexist insult, any more than calling them a cunt does. It most definitely implies contempt, but not because of gender.
“cunt” is no more a sexist insult than “dick”, “twat” or “tool”. They’re all expressions of contempt and gender does not (generally) enter into the intended insult at all.
“slut” and “prostitute” on the other hand…
Ezekiel: No. The problem with “c**t” (and some of the synonymous epithets) is that it expresses contempt by equating its target with a woman’s genitals, and is therefore an inherently misogynistic insult. It denigrates its targets by comparing them to something archetypally female, and therefore implicitly declares the female body to be bad and dirty and worthy of contempt. It’s intrinsically insulting to women, regardless of against whom it’s used, in the same way that denigrating something or someone by saying “That’s so gay” is intrinsically insulting to gay people.
And although both are gendered insults, “c**t” is worse than “dick” because it reinforces an existing pattern of oppression, by virtue of the fact that it targets a group who are already generally oppressed and marginalized. (In the same way that the N-word is much more offensive than “honky” or “cracker”.)
=====
Indeed; and on a closely-related note, I’m also depressed by the numbers of “liberals” who are willing to throw undocumented immigrants under the bus for political gain.
The sad thing is that I wouldn’t have seen a problem with these jokes when I was sixteen. Somehow in the ensuing six or seven years I managed to educate myself. It’s disappointing that people who’ve had much more time to learn still don’t get it.
My own take on Limbaugh and Maher.
Actually, you’re wrong. It’s quite okay for Bill Maher to call Palin or any other woman in his sights a “cunt” or a “twat” when he’s doing his act. Why? Because Maher is a comedian who does political shtick, and he’s never billed himself as anything else. As he himself says, he’s a “pottymouth.” Well that’s part of his act, isn’t it? And if we’ve gotten to the point in this country that a political comedian can’t combine “pottymouth” with his act, then we’ve fallen into some serious 1st Amendment trouble.
Rush Limbaugh is also, like Maher, an entertainer, although in Limbaugh’s case you’ll never, ever catch him admitting it. No, Rusht bills himself as this formidable agent for political change – a kingmaker, a kingbreaker. The last thing he wants people to think of him as is an entertainer, and especially not a “comedian”: that would strip all the gravitas from his act, wouldn’t it? People would stop taking him so seriously then, wouldn’t they?
That’s why Maher gets to call Palin a “cunt” and shopuld receive no backlash, but Limbaugh justifiably takes heat for calling Fluke a “slut”: it’s because they self-identify by entirely different labels.
Richard Craig:
Nobody says that he should be legally prevented from saying so. People are claiming that saying so makes him a vile misogynistic asshole. Freedom of speech does not include the right to never have anybody form a negative opinion of your for what you said.
Only morons conflate criticism with censorship.
I think we just discovered the El Dorado of special pleading. Pathetic, really.
it’s a deal-breaker
What deal, exactly, does it break, I wonder? What is the consequence when someone fails to be convinced by your arguments that certain words just are sexist or misogynist?
It’s now special pleading that we apply different standards to people in different positions? Whether or not you agree with the previous poster, that is a ludicrous position to take.
Replace those words with analogous epithets denigrating Jews or black people and you may gain some insight.
FWIW, I think the market punishment is best: advertisers deserting Rush’s show, leading democrats refusing to be interviewed by Maher. But I also take a propertarian view as well: the deal breaker means Ophelia gets to ban people whose speech she doesn’t like from her blog. That isn’t an infringement of the speaker’s speech rights. He can continue to say what he likes: the good ol’ First Amendment. It is, however, a legitimate defence of Ophelia’s property. The speaker can say what he likes, but not on Ophelia’s property.
Recently, Scots comedian Frankie Boyle made a tasteless joke about a child with Downs Syndrome that managed to combine misogyny and disablism. As a result, the (majority female) board of the Wales Millennium Centre turned him down when he tried to hire it as a venue:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17029776
To his credit, Boyle took it on the chin. This is because he understands that what the WMC did was not a violation of his speech rights. It was a simple exercise of its property rights. Frankie Boyle is a very funny man. He will find other venues. He will continue to be able to speak. Just not at the Wales Millennium Centre.
And another thing: the combination of market capitalism with reliable contraception with growing (even elevated) levels of female education with increasing female workforce participation means that to the extent that (statistically) women’s views differ from men’s, the market will come to reflect that difference. Political parties could once ignore women and black people. Ditto businesses. They can’t any more. This is the nature of the free market in a democracy: people get to exercise their preferences. Accepting that those preferences may differ in all sorts of ways (and may also be backed by market power in ways some people find discomforting) is part of being an adult.
This means that, on her property, Ophelia gets to say that certain words just are sexist or misogynist. She gets to define it as a deal-breaker for her.
Probably, a year ago, I would have agreed with the people who say it’s okay to call someone “cunt”. Now I just think it makes Bill Mahar look like an asshole. The English language is vibrant and foul enough that we can certainly find ways to insult someone as utterly stupid and incompetent as Sarah Palin without picking on her because she happens to be a woman. Penis or vagina she’s still a moron.
» skepticlawyer:
Replace those words with analogous epithets denigrating Jews or black people and you may gain some insight.
What exactly is the patronizing in aid of? But speaking of someone in need of insight, you are begging the only question at issue (if we are actually interested in a discussion), i.e. whether some words are in fact inherently sexist, misogynist, etc.
on her property, Ophelia gets to say that certain words just are sexist or misogynist. She gets to define it as a deal-breaker for her.
And who exactly is denying Ophelia the right to say that? Hayhead McStrawman, I presume? And since Maher, Taibbi, and Matthews are very unlikely indeed to comment here, “deal-breaker” will have to refer to something else, anyway.
I don’t care if its sexist or not. I don’t care if all those people are male, atheist or whatever. Using abusive language like that is meant to insult the victims and to end all debate. Therefor it’s stupid.
“Because Maher is a comedian”
Yeah, I’m laughing my pants off. This stupidity has ruined Dutch cabaret already. I am all for political incorrect jokes – Eddy Murphy’s Raw belongs to the funniest I have ever seen – but calling someone names is. not. funny. Period.
Peter Beattie @ 14 – the deal it breaks is friendship and/or respect. Nothing more public or earth-shaking than that, but that for sure.
Peter Beattie @ 18 – your question wasn’t particularly thoughtful, so that could explain skepticlawyer’s reply to it.
Bill Maher and Rush Limbaugh are not in different positions. Both do the exact same job and provide about the same level of insight. Bill Maher is just more ready to insist ‘it’s just comedy’ while Limbaugh tends to balk from that excuse. Obviously both men are being serious about their criticism and use the words slut and cunt to emphasize their contempt for these women and their politics.
If one contrarian loud mouth fool can’t call his political enemies sluts, cunts and bitches neither can this loud mouth contrarian fool.
@mnbo
“I am all for political incorrect jokes – Eddy Murphy’s Raw belongs to the funniest I have ever seen – but calling someone names is. not. funny. Period.”
Ah M!Shep’s voice and dialog delivery is as stale as I remember it.
Interesting to see that the people defending these words are all men.
And, of course, there’s no shortage of liberals eager to defend Maher because “he’s on our side!”
Ah, there we are. The late, lamented Peter Beattie. Formerly a thoughtful commenter. Recently? A full on devotee of the ERV school of its-free-speech-you’re-so-stupid-unsophisticated-such-a-prescriptivist-fuck-you-words-can-mean-what-i-want.
Beattie-fuck right off. You’re a first rate douche.
» Josh Slocum:
Beattie-fuck right off. You’re a first rate douche.
Geez, I didn’t expect that first-rate argument. *slowclap*
I’d find it worrying, though, if people on my “side” of an argument (to the extent that there are sides) felt it beneath them to spell out why they are not begging the central question and why they are not being bigotedly prescriptivist in their insistence to saddle others with their peculiar interpretations of certain words. It usually says a lot about how well your case is supported if you more or less encourage insults to stand in for actual arguments.
Oh really, Peter. Your first comment (#14) didn’t do much of a job of spelling things out. It was just a pseudo-question attached to a strawman.
In any case, you’ve seen the spelling out before. The current post, as I’ve repeatedly said, draws on that background. That’s how blogging works. It would be boring beyond endurance to argue everything from scratch in every post.
And don’t do that awful *slow clap* thing – that’s so ERV. Yuck.
» Ophelia:
Your first comment (#14) didn’t do much of a job of spelling things out. It was just a pseudo-question attached to a strawman.
And it didn’t need to, because the question-begging is bloody obvious. And it is now a strawman to assume that you think “cunt” just is misogynist? Which more nuanced position did I miss?
In any case, you’ve seen the spelling out before.
I have indeed seen the discussion last year, which you shut down at B&W when people didn’t stop questioning arguments they thought were very weak. So please don’t pretend you were completely open about all this, you explicitly said to me you didn’t want to discuss the core point of intrinsic misogyny. Which, then as now, I’d say is fine if you’d just be clear about it and didn’t mislead people into thinking they might be able to have a discussion about it with you or on your blog.
And don’t do that awful *slow clap* thing – that’s so ERV. Yuck.
Are you going to tell people to get off the lawn next?
I see, you don’t need to because your point is bloody obvious, but other people do need to because you say so. That’s fair.
I am clear about it; I’ve said many times that I don’t want to discuss the issues from the ground up every single time I post about misogynist epithets. I’ve discussed them from the ground up many times in the past and I don’t want to do it every single time. That is of course all the more true because there are so many misogynists eager to seize the chance to air their misogyny by discussing the issue from the ground up every time they spot a woman talking about it. That’s probably what you’re doing now.
I wonder if you do the same thing every time you see a non-white person post about racist epithets. I doubt it, but maybe you do. (If so, I’d love it if you would link to such an exchange.)
Your final point – that’s another ERV specialty. I’m a disgusting old hag yelling at people to get off her lawn; I’m Nanny Offal. Don’t bring that here.
I don’t see why his comment offends so many people. He said it during a stand up routine. Comedians say much more offensive things all the time in comedy routines. He didn’t use that language on his political show. How is this any different then a comedian calling someone a B word. Words only have the power we give them.
» Ophelia:
I see, you don’t need to because your point is bloody obvious, but other people do need to because you say so. That’s fair.
No, you don’t see, and I doubt that you want to. You’re much too eager to see your opinion in this matter vindicated.
My point is that you (and others saying the same thing) carry the burden of proof here: you say something is sexist or misogynistic; others (like me) say, let’s not get too eager to ostracise people. You think a certain behaviour (or certain people) should be judged in a certain way, others say live and let live. If you cannot even bring yourself to acknowledge that, if anybody carries any burden of proof here, it is you, then you are recusing yourself from rational discussion of this topic. (Exactly the same applies to those positing a god; the doubter doesn’t even need to make points, much less bloody obvious ones. He only needs to point to a lack of evidence.)
I don’t even necessarily have a position in such a debate (although in this particular instance I do); I simply insist that it is a value in itself that people who make accusations provide good reasons for them. To get all defensive and paint those asking questions as almost as bad as the alleged offenders, just because (just as allegedly) some of the offenders ask the same questions, is subversive of healthy discussion. And I suppose were the topic anything else, you would actually agree with me.
…there are so many misogynists eager to seize the chance to air their misogyny by discussing the issue from the ground up every time they spot a woman talking about it. That’s probably what you’re doing now.
You don’t know me. And you have made it pretty clear that you don’t even want to understand me. So please cut the arrogant crap of pretending to know even to some probability what I am doing. It may feel great to you that you’ve smoked out another misogynist, but what you have is nothing more than Adler’s “thousand-and-one-fold experience”. And you’ve fooled yourself. That you won’t even consider the possibility should give you pause.
I wonder if you do the same thing every time you see a non-white person post about racist epithets. I doubt it, but maybe you do. (If so, I’d love it if you would link to such an exchange.)
As I say, you aren’t even trying to understand what I am saying. Even if you do not agree that “twat” and “nigger” are qualitatively different in that one is inherently denigrating to a certain subgroup while the other is not (which I happen to think is true), to present the issue as if there is no reasoned dissent to your opinion is simply dishonest.
Your final point – that’s another ERV specialty.
And your constant referring to ERV is as irritating as it is condescending. If you want to make the ridiculous point that I am just parroting ERV, then say so. If you think it is okay not to pay my opinion the respect of treating it as my own, then at least don’t do it in this underhand way.
I’m a disgusting old hag yelling at people to get off her lawn …
If you think that’s what I said, then you’re positively paranoid and slashing at the ghosts of your own imagination. I will happily answer for my opinions. But don’t saddle what I said (that you sounded like a crank, and nothing more) with some bullshit about how you think others perceive you.
Peter Beattie:
One: I told you. I’ve said many times that I don’t want to discuss the issues from the ground up every single time I post about misogynist epithets. I’ve discussed them from the ground up many times in the past and I don’t want to do it every single time. That is of course all the more true because there are so many misogynists eager to seize the chance to air their misogyny by discussing the issue from the ground up every time they spot a woman talking about it.
Two: So you’re saying it’s people who consider sexist epithets sexist epithets who are “ostracizing” people. I say it’s people who use sexist epithets who are ostracizing people.
Three: I’ve said 50 thousand times that I don’t consider this a purely factual or philosophical subject that can be discussed in detached philosophical terms. That’s one reason racist/sexist/homophobic epithets are such a bad thing: they derail reasoned discussion. Your nonsense about burden of proof is just blowing smoke.
Four: “And I suppose were the topic anything else, you would actually agree with me.”
My point exactly: this subject is not like other subjects. Your insistence on pretending it is is just a meta-level of provocation.
Five: There’s nothing at stake on your side. Nothing. Nothing is lost if people just don’t call women cunts, any more than anything is lost if people just don’t call black people niggers or Jews kikes. Writing long pedantic chippy screeds on why “cunt” is not misogynist is not an intelligent or respectable use of time. It is, in fact, contemptible.
I’ll just repost a comment Paul W made last summer –
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2011/claiming-to-speak-for/#comment-101523
On the other hand, Abbie’s whole “twatson” and “cunt” and “smelly snatch” thing is just beyond the pale.
It’s like calling a black person you disagree with a stinking nigger, which even if you’re black is just not an okay thing to do in mixed company, much less as publicly as possible.
I don’t know if you understand how the words “cunt” and “twat” work in the United States, but seriously, dude, that is very, very far from okay.
You (and maybe Peter Beattie) may be used to the UK-style usage of “cunt,” where it’s used as a fairly generic insult, often applied to men, and seems to have lost its strong, conscious sex and gender connotations for a lot of people.
That is not true in the US. Not even close. In the US, “cunt” is about as harsh a word as there is. The only more verboten word I can think of is “nigger.”
It’s very different from, say, “bastard,” which has almost entirely lost its connotation of sexual illegitimacy. In the US, people often call somebody that they think is mean, insensitive, brutal or whatever “a bastard,” and few people take it as confirming that people whose parents were not married are somehow actually awful, and a good thing to compare awful people to. It’s just a word we use for nasty pieces of work, and actual bastardy has mostly lost its negative implications. (Even for people who still think illegitmacy is somehow a big deal, it’s a failing the parents, not the fault of the child. We don’t call actual bastards bastards.)
In the UK, a lot of people seem to use “cunt” that way—it’s like calling them a “bastard,” or maybe a “dick,” where the word has it’s own free-floating insultingness, almost untethered to its original meaning. Maybe in the UK it’s not very demeaning to people with actual vaginas to call people cunts, in an insulting way, because everybody knows it’s just another swear word whose base meaning isn’t terribly relevant.
Trust me, in the US, it’s really not like that at all. Cunt is a very gendered, very verboten word, used very specifically to insult women in a way that is very vividly insulting them as women. When I went to the UK for a while—and especially when I read Trainspotting—I was shocked that guys would freely call people “cunts,” and it seemed bizarre to apply the term to guys.
In the US, it is fairly common for people who don’t worry about gendered insults to call women “bitches” and guys “dicks” or “pussies,” and it’s common enough that those usages have lost much of their gendered sting. (Like Ophelia, I still think it’s a bad thing to do, and the gender-specific uses are a sign of why.)
“Cunt” is different. Even among people who swear colorfully and incessantly, and who are not at all worried about sexist connotations, calling anybody a “cunt” is a whole other level of cursing from calling a woman a “bitch” or a man a “bastard” or a “pussy.” Its the one you pull out when you want to make it extraordinarily clear that you hate the person in question—and it’s always a woman—and that the hatred is something very much to do with her sex.
If you are ever involved with an American woman, and you want her to leave you and never look back, just call her a cunt. It’s like being involved with a black person and calling them a nigger. It’s burning the bridge, by telling the person you basically hate them for what they are, or just hate them so fucking much you’re willing to say something that utterly hateful anyhow, knowing that it will irrevocably destroy the relationship, because you are so scarily hateful toward them, and want so badly for them to know it so viscerally, that you pull out the most vicious word you can think of. That’s the deal-breaker word for women, which you only use if you very seriously want to break the deal.
It’s really not like guys calling each other cunts in the UK. It’s generally not done, here, even by people who toss all sorts of epithets around casually, or even fairly viciously. It’s the extra-vicious word you use when the sheer demeaning gendered viciousness is the point.
IMO, whatever else Abbie was saying that might have had some merit, she just went way over the top with the cunt and twat and smelly snatch thing. I’m a guy and not the most sensitive guy in the world, but holy cow, thats some vicious sexist-as-she-can-be sexist shit.
If nothing else, it’s stupid for any woman with a shred of feminism to use those words that way and expect anybody to listen to anything she’s saying.
Paul W July 29 2011
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