For a movement that likes to humor itself on bold manly militarism and its tough-guy John Wayneshness, the extremist right sure does have a thin skin. After spending months of cutting benefits for the middle class, specifically among firefighters and other first responders hailed as heroes after 9-11 when it was so politically expedient, and harping on those dastardly government employees, we have a good old-fashioned right-wing freakout in full panic mode in response to this by a union official:
Hoffa riled up Fox News and the right wing Monday with a Labor Day speech in Detroit in which he called Republican members of Congress “sons of bitches” and said union workers are ready to “go to war” with the tea party next year and “take out” Republicans at the ballot box.
That’s right, the SoB reference hurt the Teaparty’s feefees. Now they’re desperately trying to tow the media along as they work a connection to Obama in hope of turning it into an insult made by him at them. At which point fainting couches and smelling salts will be required. From which they’ll courageously rise to refer to anyone who disagrees with their plan to steal everything the middle-class has earned in the last century on behalf of the Paris Hilton class in the most vile terms possible.
If they can’t handle being called SOBs at a political rally, kinda makes you wonder how they’d handle being, you know, actually shot at by menacing brown-skinned terrorists.
Hoffa’s ‘take them out at the ballot box’ was, in my view, way less incendiary than Palin’s ‘don’t retreat, reload’ and Hoffa didn’t include a map with targets.
The teabaggers are already at war with unions and have used dirty tricks (WI) and smear tactics in many places. What they don’t want is a fired up opponent and that’s what Hoffa aims to give them.
Besides, they are the ones who like to remind people they have guns.
Even better, FoxNews tried to make it look like Hoffa was threatening physical harm by leaving out the “ballot box” part of the “take them out” line. Classic.
“bitch” and “son of a bitch” are only insulting if one accepts the idea that women are subhuman. When Hoffa uses “son of a bitch” as an insult, he perpetuates the idea that it is insulting to be associated with females. When you defend his use of “son of a bitch” as an insult, you are blindly accepting and perpetuating the same assumptions, though you don’t realize it.
When you or Hoffa accept their sexist assumptions in order to insult them, you accept their anti-woman agenda.
There is long list of valid critiques of Republican ideology and policy. But to fall back to using sexism to insult them is to send the message that perpetuating sexism is more important than criticizing their policies or ideologies, even if you intend a different message. If either you or Hoffa think carefully about this, you will realize you don’t want to send that message.
To use “bitch” to insult Republicans is no better than to use “monkey” to insult Obama. Don’t be like your enemies.
From the article:
Says the spokesperson of a party named for an event that happened 238 years ago.
@llewelly
Until I really became aware of feminism (sometime in highschool) I had always equated ‘bitch’ with ‘dog’, especially when used in the phrase SoB, as you are not calling THEM ‘bitches’, you are calling their mother’s bitches and accusing their fathers of bestiality. The phrase still strikes me as not so much sexist, in trying to demean someone as being of a ‘lesser’ gender, but in questioning their lineage and upbringing.
If he had just out and out called them ‘bitches’, I wouldn’t disagree with your point.
sithrazer | September 6, 2011 at 10:20 pm :
“dog” is not specifically feminine. “bitch” is. If having a dog in one’s lineage was the insulting part, “son of a dog” would be at least as common an insult. There is no reason to prefer a gendered word in an insult, unless the gender of the word adds force to the insult.