Slurs against women

Usually I just ignore this entire debate, and probably for the lowdown reason that I looooove to use vulgarity and therefore at times I'm sure that's meant that I've used a word that can be taken as a slur against women. (Though, in a way, I doubt it. At the most, I'll call someone a "bitch", but that's usually my friends, male or female, and usually as a total goof.) But I totally appreciate how des femmes is calling out liberal male bloggers on their use of words like "pussy" and "bitch" to mean horrible things like "coward".

My boyfriend is forever buying magazines full of what I jokingly call "guitar porn", because it's just page after page after page of guitars that he won't own, but he can fantasize about. Well, one or two of them will be in his possession, but you get the idea. Anyway, a staple of these magazines is to have half-naked women draped all over the pages. The reason behind this isn't hostile by any means. They just want to sell more magazines to their target audience. But without meaning to, they send the message to female guitar junkies loud and clear--you aren't welcome here.

Now, many a female guitar junkie has grown up in a male-dominated world like the rest of us. She's not immune to the exclusionary message the magazines send, but she love guitars well enough to overlook it. She'll overlook it to look at the guitars, but rest assured, it's noted. And whenever anyone wonders why there aren't more women playing rock, it's eye-rolling time. Might it be the "No Girls Allowed" sign on the front door, you think?

(Seriously, a recent fat guitar porn magazine had Carmen Electra on the cover, who married a musician. I don't know if she can make a single chord. Message: who you fuck is more important than what you do.)

The same thing happens when male bloggers use sniggering anti-woman slurs. The message is loud and clear--they think women are beneath these discussions and hardly part of it. (And then they wonder where the women are.) I particularly got frustrated with this poster at Body and Soul:

As certainly as it is an insult to tell a woman (most women, at least) that she looks "mannish," it's an insult to tell a man that he is a woman, especially when you can couch your insult to suggest that the man is weak.

For fuck's sake, calling a woman "mannish" and a man by a female slur are so different that they are pretty much apples and oranges. For one thing, to call a woman "mannish" is pretty much the height of masculine insulting, and even that's pretty weak. It just means that she is gruff or not so pretty in her dress. Most masculine traits assigned to women are positive. My friends often call me a girly tomboy, or joke that I don't "count" as a girl (as previously stated, my friends are mostly guys), which is vaguely insulting at times but is mostly a compliment. I'm tough; I can hang; I'm like a man. But to call a man a woman is low, and it implies that he is weak and/or stupid. The two are hardly equitable. As des femmes continually points out, to call a man a woman when you mean he is a coward is to say women are cowards. And on that, I would definitely disagree--history will reveal to you the many thousands of women who faced down frightful foes enough to convince you that women are not cowardly by definition.

And if that doesn't convince those who would be inclined to use these words, let me remind you there is a homophobic element at foot, too. A good number of feminized insults are variations on implying that a man is homosexual and casting judgement on that, like using words like "pansy" or "sissy". As Dan Savage has pointed out, sissies are amongst the bravest people in our society, as they just go out and be themselves despite the fact that most people fear or loathe them. In all honesty, to call someone a sissy should be an honor.

Anyway, all these words sound daring but are trite. As Avedon Carol has pointed out, if you want to get under the Shrub's skin, call him a good, old-fashioned wimp. Or coward, if you are in a two-syllable mood. Repeat it loudly and often. It's the sort of authentic schoolyard taunt that will bring the Shrub out of his shell and make him lash out nastily. How could we ask for more?