Anecdotally, I had a Jewish woman friend for a time who quite enjoyed dropping the word, “cunt”, when the occasion called for it. She had a large collage of friends that spanned every cross section of society. It may have been then that I grew to be more fond of the word as a cutting insult.
I work with a team from the UK and I agree with Riemann. They joke around (sometimes while drunk even!) and somehow have never managed to use cunt around us Americans! But his post is going to be ignored because some people really, really want the ability to call women “cunt” and then argue that it’s okay in the UK despite them being born and bred American misogynists.
FYI…women have repeatedly said on this message board what they think about the word. But many of them have left…coincidence surely.
Roy Moore?
I mean, we can do this all day long because there are more truly awful people than there are cuss words to call them.
The problem is that dehumanizing language dehumanizes. As ITD noted, antisemetic language and thought pumped into the minds of Germans, Austrians and Eastern Europeans dehumanized Jews to such an extent that ordinary people were able to murder them by the millions because they thought that Jews were a bacillus destroying their communities. The use of slurs against women allows a culture of misogyny and violence against women to exist. We can find cuss words that are more specific to the individual and dont denigrate others. IMO.
That’s it, you nailed it. Great post.
I’m not trying to get away with calling women “cunts”. Honestly I am not.
Can I call a Roy Moore a “cunt”? Can I say, “Jen’s being a dick”?
OK. I flinch whenever I see the word “cunt” used as an insult. I very rarely see “kike”, probably because the people I hear and read recognize that it’s nasty; and I don’t want to see it allowed as an insult here. This board is actually the only place I ordinarily see “cunt”. I wish I didn’t see it here. (Not as an insult, anyway. I have no problem with “cunt” used either in discussions of language or by people using it in a non-insulting way for anatomy.)
I object to the first, and would be perfectly willing to see the second go along with it (even presuming, as I think you mean, that they’re being applied to actual Nazis and/or fascists). I don’t think they’re equivalent, because generally men have been expected to be proud of having dicks while women have been expected to be ashamed of having cunts; but I don’t think it’s an unreasonable burden to be expected to come up with non-gendered insults when one wishes to be insulting.
Well, yes, that’s the problem.
Why, on this specific board, do we have to? I genuinely don’t understand the insistence by some on this board that they have to be able to use specific swear words if they want to rant at somebody.
Is “asshole” dehumanizing? Everybody’s got one, after all.
How far are we willing to press this “just be nice” thing?
It’s not that I don’t agree with you. I do in every way that applies to bigotry and misogyny being eliminated from society. It’s not that words don’t matter. They do. But they also have meaning that is flexible and context is part of every meaningful conversation or exchange.
Are you sure that’s not what you’re doing. You seem to be arguing that if a person’s behavior is bad enough, you want to be able to use hate speech. It sounds a lot like people who want to call whites who behave in stereotypically black behavior white N words.
I called you out in the thread about Shodan’s banning for using other sexist language: panties in a wad, pearl clutching, fainting couch; maybe it’s time to examine your attitudes and make adjustments. I’m not calling for those phrases to be banned, but if there is an itch you can only scratch by using hate speech, maybe it’s time to examine that itch.
The culture on the board is changing.
Then we know the place of our disagreement – I think the words you’re talking about, or at least many of them, do fall into the above categories. If you disagree, what gender slurs for women do you believe would fall in those categories? Or do you not believe that there are any?
If you’re going to make a slippery slope argument, you should clarify, which is your position?
(1) There should be no rules, all hate speech should be permitted.
(2) You agree that there should be a line. There is no point of principle in dispute, it’s just a question of a judgment call based on social norms about where the line should be.
You comment on the nuance and subtlety of language, yet somehow fail to appreciate that saying “Roy Moore is a cunt” is not just an insult to Roy Moore, but also carries misogynistic semantic baggage deriving from consensus social norms.
Okay. Not even a little.
I believe that at the time my frame of mind was to be provocative. Not insulting.
I’m not opposed to change. Dropping that word from my posting lexicon will be trivially easy. However, is it your position that change must go unchallenged?
I believe context and intent also matter for the subset of words which we’re speaking about. But I feel I’m fighting a losing battle in trying to maintain that perspective.
(2)
I don’t think they matter any more than they do for ethnic slurs – at least if we’re talking “usage” vs “referencing”. Never okay to call someone a kike; never okay to call someone a whore.
Obviously, I disagree that your frame of mind was to be provocative. I think it was casually sexist, which is a huge problem here on the dope.
Of course change can be challenged, but then we get a shot to challenge your challenge.
I think that’s really it – it’s background sexism. Most people who aren’t denigrated by it don’t even notice it (even many who are may not notice it). Like the background racism of the 40s and 50s (and some of it still today). Most white people just won’t notice the little ways that black people are denigrated by society. And most men won’t notice the little ways that women are denigrated by society. I think this is one of those ways.
When Ricky Jervais calls neighbourhood kids, “Little Hampstead cunts”, do you also insist on the latter interpretation?
If you choose not to believe me, then we must remain in disagreement.
Wouldn’t expect otherwise.