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May. 31st, 2018 05:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pearwaldorfcontent notes: gendered slurs, current events, US politics
So Samantha Bee called Ivanka Trump a cunt.
I will note that the use of this particular four letter word is very much contextual, as the Brits and other Commonwealth countries don't treat it as the damning insult it is in the US. (I want to think it's because of Shakespeare and his dick/vagina jokes, but it's probably not.)
"Cunt" isn't exactly a word that's part of my common vocabulary, but "bitch" was. It took a long time for me to stop using it as a reflexive insult/slur, something you reach for when somebody cuts you off in traffic or is rude to the cashier. Which is not to say that I don't use it. But I use it much less than previously.
There is a difference in the way men and women use gendered slurs like this. Men will use it willy-nilly, like it's the worst thing you can say about a (cis) woman. It's so hilariously reductive, as if they expect it to be the most cutting insult you could say. (If I had to choose between a rape threat and being called a cunt, I'd much rather have the latter, ijs.)
Women? In my experience in the US, their use of the word is specific, calculated. It's not a thing you say about a frenemy or an annoying coworker. It's reserved for deep, angry betrayal. And there's usually a racial and class component to it as well, because a woman who I would consider deserving of this epithet weaponizes or at least uses their racial and class privilege to deflect from the harm they've done or let happen. Ivanka Trump posting a picture of her with her baby on Twitter while her father green-lights policies that tear families apart? Yeah, I can see why somebody would call her that.
Further reading
A Brief History of the Word "Cunt" in Popular Music, Bitch Magazine
Cunt, a Declaration of Independence, by Inga Muscio (this was a v formative book for young Alice)
So Samantha Bee called Ivanka Trump a cunt.
I will note that the use of this particular four letter word is very much contextual, as the Brits and other Commonwealth countries don't treat it as the damning insult it is in the US. (I want to think it's because of Shakespeare and his dick/vagina jokes, but it's probably not.)
"Cunt" isn't exactly a word that's part of my common vocabulary, but "bitch" was. It took a long time for me to stop using it as a reflexive insult/slur, something you reach for when somebody cuts you off in traffic or is rude to the cashier. Which is not to say that I don't use it. But I use it much less than previously.
There is a difference in the way men and women use gendered slurs like this. Men will use it willy-nilly, like it's the worst thing you can say about a (cis) woman. It's so hilariously reductive, as if they expect it to be the most cutting insult you could say. (If I had to choose between a rape threat and being called a cunt, I'd much rather have the latter, ijs.)
Women? In my experience in the US, their use of the word is specific, calculated. It's not a thing you say about a frenemy or an annoying coworker. It's reserved for deep, angry betrayal. And there's usually a racial and class component to it as well, because a woman who I would consider deserving of this epithet weaponizes or at least uses their racial and class privilege to deflect from the harm they've done or let happen. Ivanka Trump posting a picture of her with her baby on Twitter while her father green-lights policies that tear families apart? Yeah, I can see why somebody would call her that.
Further reading
A Brief History of the Word "Cunt" in Popular Music, Bitch Magazine
Cunt, a Declaration of Independence, by Inga Muscio (this was a v formative book for young Alice)
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Date: 2018-06-03 11:01 pm (UTC)