Reply #29: to my knowledge

[iverglas]

If you alert on a post that calls a woman, any woman, a bitch, it will be deleted.

The policy was finally promulgated a few years ago, I think. ... The rules now say:

"Moderators may also remove any post using insensitive terminology (eg: 'cocksucker,' 'pink tutu,' 'bitch,' 'whore,' 'retard,' etc.)."

As often, I come a little late to this party, but am as astounded and disgusted as always to see women either approving other women being called "bitch" or adopting the label for themselves.

Sadly, the enormous thread on this issue from mmany years ago when I and a couple of others took the administration to task over this and refused to let go is now not accessible anywhere. Women posted their own stories in that thread -- how "bitch" was what they had been called by men who belittled and beat them, and so on.

I have found an old thread that refers to that thread (and I think you can blame me for the screwed up tags that left most of that version underlined) but the thread itself is very unfortunately gone. This one might still be worth reading, though.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=printer_format&om=1617&forum=DCForumID24

At least for anyone who wants to put some thought into their practice.

Except ... crap ... I opened it, went somewhere else, and now it won't open again. So I've lost it too. Crap. No, wait, google finds it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/duforum/DCForumID24/1617.html

There's no way to make it not take up two monitor widths, that I can see. Maybe I'll just copy here something I said there.



you are quite missing the point

<in reply to> This had nothing to do with "bitch" and everything to do with an esoteric use of "flame."

No, that had nothing to do with it. You have completely misunderstood what Skinner said.

What he said was one more variation on the usual tune.

It's fine and dandy to call women (or men; this is a separate but related issue) "bitch". It's a word that Skinner doesn't mind hearing in his living room, and this is his living room, so we can all live with it.

The fact that many women who have heard it in *their* living rooms have heard it directed to them in contexts involving violence, abuse, exploitation, fear, shame, humiliation ... well, that doesn't matter. The fact that the word evokes those subtexts in their -- and many other people's -- minds, that doesn't matter.

A while ago, it was determined that referring to someone as ... how did it go ... a "dead bitch", I believe, was not cool. You see, it's not nice to be disrespectful of the dead. Much worse than being disrespectful, demeaning, insulting, ... to live women.

Now, we get to the issue in the thread you are concerned about. Someone had said "that bitch needs flaming". It is not some unusual meaning of "flaming" you are missing, it is the idiom "that bitch needs ...", which, as Skinner pointed out, is usually completed by "fucking". That is, what a problematic woman needs is to be sexually assaulted. I mean, we don't imagine that the fucking in question is meant to be at her option, I don't think. And even if we did, the implication is that a problematic woman can be "solved" by arranging for her to engage, one way or another, in sexual intercourse. That's all it takes to solve whatever women are ... bitching ... about, generally, you see.

But there is undoubtedly a strong element of the non-consensual about it. Saying "that ____ needs ____ing" is usually a way of referring to what an inanimate or non-human object "needs" -- something to be done to it: the car needs washing, the dog needs washing, your hair needs combing. (I'm reminded of a professor friend of mine who was Russian-born, and was convinced that the dog needed "washed".) When it is used in reference to a person, it is usually suggesting something uninvited.

So there it all is, tied up in a neat package.
That "bitch" -- that individual whose negative qualities are so closely intertwined with her sexual identity that only a word developed and used to describe disagreeable, selfish women will do.
Needs "____ing" -- is a problem that can be solved by doing something to her, something that she plainly richly deserves.

Some of us think that this further example -- on top of the impermissible "dead bitch" reference -- tends to demonstrate that there might just be something wrong with using that word itself. But we're wrong.

Hey. It's all just a matter of taste.

Your excellent taste precludes the use of the word "nigger", for instance. And you have no qualms at all about suggesting that your taste should be made into a universal rule, and no one hereabouts should be permitted to use that word (and whatever those others were), you free speech fanatic you.

Those of us whose taste precludes the use of words that demean and vilify and traumatize women qua women, well, we're just bitchy bitching bitches trying to deny other people their right to express themselves any damn way they want.

And lest you get the wrong impression, Ms. Manners here has about the most colourful vocabulary you'll hear in a day, having been there in the 60s and all that too, and not finding words offensive in themselves. And is most accomplished in the arts of belches and farts. But just doesn't think that words that perpetuate sexist stereotypes and don't just offend a lot of women, but exclude them from the discourse, well, just aren't nice. <I garbled that one, unfortunately. ;) >

But maybe, just soometimes, whether you're a "big boy", or what people are doing around you, or anthing else about *you* just isn't the issue.