The Tender Branson Repository of Sexist/Racist Posts and Pejoratives

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Look, Sanders definitely has a chance.

The witch was once defeated by Obama and Sanders is already building a strong momentum accross the US.

The first thing you non-believing guys need to do, is to switch that button in your heads to "Yes, Bernie CAN defeat her". And then he eventually will. In the next months, more and more Democrats and Indys will see the light at the end of that filthy, bloodless tunnel called "Hillary Clinton" and switch over to the "real guy".

How is this "misogynistic" ?

This comment is only true for Hillary - not for other women. I'm a big champion for women's rights.

It is not misogynistic, as that would mean a post based on a belief that men are superior to women. It is pejorative in that it uses an insulting or disparaging term to describe Hillary. However, the question for Nagas is do you only intend to to put up posts that have pejoratives directed at women or will pejoratives used with men and male candidates go here as well? Why conflate misogyny and pejorative use?

The difference is that this is a specifically gendered pejorative. Nobody would describe Bill Clinton as a "witch".

And, in my experience, "asshole" and "bastard" are traditionally reserved for males. In most cases, need to insult a male, use a male insult, need to insult a female, use a female insult. There are, of course, gender neutral phrases such as "idiot", but those can only take us so far. What's your point?

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Look, Sanders definitely has a chance.

The witch was once defeated by Obama and Sanders is already building a strong momentum accross the US.

The first thing you non-believing guys need to do, is to switch that button in your heads to "Yes, Bernie CAN defeat her". And then he eventually will. In the next months, more and more Democrats and Indys will see the light at the end of that filthy, bloodless tunnel called "Hillary Clinton" and switch over to the "real guy".

How is this "misogynistic" ?

This comment is only true for Hillary - not for other women. I'm a big champion for women's rights.

It is not misogynistic, as that would mean a post based on a belief that men are superior to women. It is pejorative in that it uses an insulting or disparaging term to describe Hillary. However, the question for Nagas is do you only intend to to put up posts that have pejoratives directed at women or will pejoratives used with men and male candidates go here as well? Why conflate misogyny and pejorative use?

The difference is that this is a specifically gendered pejorative. Nobody would describe Bill Clinton as a "witch".

And, in my experience, "asshole" and "bastard" are traditionally reserved for males. In most cases, need to insult a male, use a male insult, need to insult a female, use a female insult. There are, of course, gender neutral phrases such as "idiot", but those can only take us so far. What's your point?

Neither of those terms are gendered.

No, not explicitly. Thus, the phrase "in my experience". Men are sometimes called "bitches", even though the term is explicitly gendered, for God's sake.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

The connotations of witch has always been to smear and stigmatize powerful women, so of course it expresses misogyny.

I really doubt that powerful women, often split by both class and ethnic lines throughout history, have the same insular history as, say, African-Americans, to the point that a word used by 19th century racists still has a connotation similar enough to become almost completely taboo. Even though I'm white, male, and--worst of all--nominally right-wing, I'd like to think of the human mind as capable enough to distinguish between what could be referred to as individual and collective insults. The "n-word" and other racist words are, in a number of cases, used to refer to an entire demographic. The fact that some rednecks make the distinction between "good blacks" and "n-words" is irrelevant, as it derives from the original use of the term. "Witch" does not refer to the whole of the female population. Even if it was some magical buzzword back in the day to oppress women in general, it clearly isn't now. I suppose girls slathering on green makeup and black hats on October 31st ought to be stigmatized as much as blackface.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

What the anti-Trump crowd here has demonstrated is a clear lack of multi-dimensional thinking. They assume a rather linear structure to electoral politics, which is about as pertinent as the "rational consumer" model in macroeconomics.