J.K. Rowling: "I'm sick of 'liberal' men whose mask slips everytime a woman displeases them

[still_one]

JK Rowling just gave an epic lesson on sexism to a man who called Theresa May a ‘whore’

"Author J.K. Rowling came down hard on a man she previously admired for calling English Prime Minister Theresa May a “whore,” excoriating him for allying himself with men who can’t stand any woman who “displeases” them.

Without identifying the man, who the Harry Potter author described as someone “I thought was smart and funny,” Rowling launched into a tweetstorm calling out the overt sexism."

J.K. Rowling ✔@jk_rowling
If you can’t disagree with a woman without reaching for all those filthy old insults, screw you and your politics. 2/14


J.K. Rowling?Verified account
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I’m sick of ‘liberal’ men whose mask slips every time a woman displeases them, who reach immediately for crude and humiliating words 3/14

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/06/jk-rowling-just-gave-an-epic-lesson-on-sexism-to-man-who-called-theresa-may-a-whore/

[tblue37]

1. Your hyperactive autocorrect changed "every time" in your subject line to "overtime." nt

[still_one]

2. Thank-you, I will correct

[bettyellen]

3. And to me that's connected to the tone deaf responses about Maher...

If he was merely a comedian doing that schtick in a club it's one thing. But he's held up as a model liberal with a politically influential show? Nope. His anti PC crap is stale in the current environment where racism and sexism are rampant.


In the 90's, it was a different, more hopeful time. In the age of Trump his SJW bashing is part of the fucking problem.

[ismnotwasm]

4. + infinity

[shenmue]

5. Yes

[bettyellen]

8. *takes a bow* someone just explained to me that they thought he people complaining hadn't

Experienced racism themselves?!? So they want to silence allies becasue why? Do any of these people realize they're part of a coilition of a majority of women and POC. I'm sorry, they need to get behind us, in every sense. We're leading the damned resistance and they don't get to shout orders when they don't show up in equal numbers. No.

[ecstatic]

39. +1000! Millions of Americans feel under attack right now, thanks

to Trump and his newly empowered minions. Those type of "jokes" feel like a pile on in the current environment we're in.

[bettyellen]

40. And Maher doesn't want to acknowledge WE are the resistance and WE are leading....

[irisblue]

6. Yep. nt

[Raster]

7. The entire tweetstorm deserves repeating...

Just unfollowed a man whom I thought was smart and funny, because he called Theresa May a whore. 1/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

If you can’t disagree with a woman without reaching for all those filthy old insults, screw you and your politics. 2/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

I’m sick of ‘liberal’ men whose mask slips every time a woman displeases them, who reach immediately for crude and humiliating words 3/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

associated with femaleness, act like old-school misogynists and then preen themselves as though they’ve been brave. 4/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

When you do this, Mr Liberal Cool Guy, you ally yourself, wittingly or not, with the men who send women violent pornographic images 5/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

and rape threats, who try by every means possible to intimidate women out of politics and public spaces, both real and digital. 6/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

‘Cunt’, ‘whore’ and, naturally, rape. We’re too ugly to rape, or we need raping, or we need raping and killing. 7/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

Every woman I know who has dared express an opinion publically has endured this kind of abuse at least once, 8/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

rooted in an apparent determination to humiliate or intimidate her on the basis that she is female. 9/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

If you want to know how much fouler it gets if you also happen to be black or gay, ask Diane Abbot or Ruth Davidson. 10/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

I don’t care whether we’re talking about Theresa May or Nicola Sturgeon or Kate Hooey or Yvette Cooper or Hillary Clinton: 11/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

femaleness is not a design flaw. If your immediate response to a woman who displeases you 12/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

is to call her a synonym for her vulva, or compare her to a prostitute, then drop the pretence and own it: you’re not a liberal. 13/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

You’re a few short steps away from some guy hiding behind a cartoon frog. 14/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

[LeftyMom]

10. I want to cross stitch that with a nice border and hang it on the wall.

That's magnificent.

[LittleGirl]

35. LOL, that's funny. cheers eom

[still_one]

11. Thanks Raster

[Raster]

14. Thank you for the OP and starting the thread.

[brush]

27. Or Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren who were both silenced in what we now know is just...

another ol' boys club — the United States Senate.

[LittleGirl]

36. Bingo! eom

[demmiblue]

37. That was a thing of beauty. n/t

[Hekate]

41. Gods, she's good. I like Jo Rowling more and more all the time.

[Wawannabe]

46. 46 and talkin back too!

Thanks for the whole tweet thread.
...Well played JK.

I am at the age where I am gonna call out any fucker that goes there with me.
Gonna hit em low and hard. Then kick em when they fall!

Have some "make'n up" to do!

[NastyRiffraff]

47. Wow

She said it all. She's absolutely, completely, fully, utterly right. Love her AND her books.

[Hortensis]

9. What's with calling them "liberal"? Is she an anti-liberal

leftist? I agree with zero tolerance for men, and women, calling any woman who displeases them a whore. And agree that some liberal men--in much smaller numbers--copy this common behavior.

But I strongly question her specifically for characterizing this as behavior of liberals. If she were one wouldn't she herself be fed up decades ago with all the lies about liberals?

[still_one]

12. She put liberal in quotes: 'liberal'. To me that indicates that they identify as liberals, but

have values less than progressive

[Hortensis]

18. She's insulting them because they're only liberal and no

farther left?

Let's face it, all liberals are progressive, but not all who call themselves "progressives" in the U.S. are liberals by a long shot. They call themselves that to deny commonality with liberals, of whose attitudes toward cooperation to achieve widespread majority goals (in a republic!!) and policy choices they disapprove.

If she's just fed up with men who identify as liberals but don't always act 100% like it where gender issues are concerned, holding them to a much higher standard than conservatives or reactionaries of any stripe, I can understand it, but she definitely needs to be more specific.

Again, if she's liberal herself she should be beyond tired of the constant attempts from all sides to lie about what we are, to pretend we are not THE reason liberal democracies and progressive methods of government exist at all.

Liberalism is why conservatives in representative, liberal western democracies have to lie. They simply can't tell the truth about what they want and what we want.

[Saviolo]

20. No, she's cutting this particular man out of her social media.

He identifies as a liberal, but also uses sexist and demeaning language towards a woman that he happens to agree with. We hold our allies to a high standard because we don't have standards for the other side. We know they're repulsive and terrible. When they live up to it, we expect it.

I think it's a good thing to hold our allies to a higher standard. I recently posted a thread that linked a blog post entitled "Dear Allies: Please Stop Using Gay as an Insult."

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029010750

To which someone shortly afterwards posted: "Dear Allies: Use WHATEVER WORKS."

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029012573

which was a full-throated defence of allies being allowed to use homophobic language if it gets under Trump's skin.

I mean, you can believe what you want, but women, POC, and LGBTQ people sort of expect allies to be allies. When they use language that demeans or attacks, it makes it hard to really see who the real allies are.

[stevenleser]

25. No, she's not, her last 5-6 tweets make that clear.

I don’t care whether we’re talking about Theresa May or Nicola Sturgeon or Kate Hooey or Yvette Cooper or Hillary Clinton: 11/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

femaleness is not a design flaw. If your immediate response to a woman who displeases you 12/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

is to call her a synonym for her vulva, or compare her to a prostitute, then drop the pretence and own it: you’re not a liberal. 13/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

You’re a few short steps away from some guy hiding behind a cartoon frog. 14/14

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 9, 2017

[Hortensis]

26. I'm afraid they do not. I do agree those behaving

this way may be just "a few short steps away from some guy hiding behind a cartoon frog." But liberals are far more than a few short steps away.

[alarimer]

34. Because some so-called liberal men are not really liberal when it comes to women.

They pretend to be, for whatever reason, but scratch the surface and they are really sexist. This has been a complaint of progressive politics for decades, generations even. The 60's protest movement was not very inclusive when it came to women's rights. Women pretty much had to make those gains on their own. And it has issues now, with race and gender still. Or at least parts of it do.

It is here, too. You've seen the arguments over words like this before on this website. And liberals can have seriously retrograde attitudes on a lot of things. Like "latte liberals" who don't want low-income housing in their neighborhood because it will ruin property values.

This is the "no true Scotsman" logical fallacy: that no true liberal could possibly be sexist (or racist, or whatever).

[Beartracks]

44. In quotes, "liberal" should be read as...

...."so-called liberal" or "purportedly liberal, but not really liberal"

=================

[zentrum]

13. It's strange because

....I've often called men who trade legislation for money, "whores". So the term can be used for corrupt men too. It's come to have a slightly different meaning in modern times.

But I really take her point and agree--the word was created hundreds of years ago to denigrate women. So I'll stop using it altogether, though I have applied it to men like Trump, or Kushner.

[still_one]

15. The context is made very clear in her tweets, and the link

[zentrum]

22. Agreed. I'm not

...taking issue with her tweet at all.

[cally]

16. Thank you once again J.K. Rowling

Women who dare to express an opinion face this. I'm struck by the condescension displayed to Senator Kampala Harris by federal employees. I've never seen a Senator treated with such condescension. What she had to have faced over the years to get to where she is. Her poise is remarkable.

[cwydro]

17. Good for her!

I've seen sexist name calling right here on DU.

It needs to be called out. Always.

[zentrum]

24. I've also seen

...lots of ageism here too.

[cwydro]

43. Yes.

Sadly that seems to be accepted.

[CousinIT]

19. So am I. And there is a boatload of them out there.

Women beware.

[DesertRat]

21. She's being making a lot of important points lately

She's a good follow on Twitter. Thanks for posting!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

23. "Femaleness is not a design flaw."

Truer words were never tweeted.

[klook]

38. Highlight of this excellent philippic

I love J.K. We are lucky to have her in these dark times.

[SunSeeker]

28. Thank you Ms. Rowling!!

[oberliner]

29. It is always offensive to use the word "whore" in relation to a female politician?

Is it also always offensive to use that word in relation to a male politician?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

30. When we see equal proportion of male pols being called gigolos & sluts we'll reconsider terms.

Until then it is best to lay off reflexively calling women politicians whores.

[oberliner]

33. Agreed

Thank you for that response.

[stevenleser]

31. Yes to your first question, no to your second. I don't know why this is complicated.

Using a noose taped to a sign as a protest against a black politician is not the same thing as a noose taped to a sign as a protest against a white politician.

It has to do with the historical bigoted symbolism of the words or actions.

[oberliner]

32. Thank you

It's not complicated. I appreciate the response.

[IronLionZion]

45. There are plenty of gender neutral insults for female Republicans

But Trump is still a bawbag to Scottish people.

Politicians of both genders can be assholes, since everyone has one. And jerks, fuckwits, creeps, sleazeballs, dirtbags, scumbags, low-lifes, crooks, liars,

Can women be douchebags? The bag itself has nothing to do with anatomy.

Some great Scottish insults https://www.buzzfeed.com/hilarywardle/custard-flavoured-jobby?utm_term=.piQ9YLxdmq#.brMXKorMmO