There is a bit of a debate ranging in the parts of the blogosphere over a the use of the term big girl to describe a male senator from Kansas. The break down is this- the guy that wrote it is a gay democrat and defends his use of the word because it's part of the gay vernacular. When confronted with the fact that people find it offensive- he thinks that there are bigger problems in the world and we should concentrate on those instead of fighting over the use of sexist insults.
What he doesn't get, and what his defenders don't get is that this is the basic fight. Everything else is just gravy. You either think that each individual person should be judged on their own merit, or you believe that there are special groups that are more deserving of consideration than others. While you may not consciously subscribe to the second group- every time you disparage someone based on their sex or race or who they have sex with, or every time you use a group based on their sex or race or who they have sex with to insult someone- you are showing yourself to be someone who thinks that people do not all have the same basic human value.
Next time you go to throw an insult at someone- think about what you are really trying to say. Are you trying to call someone a coward- try spineless, gutless wonder or milquetoast (one of my faves) instead of calling them a pussy. Want to call someone weak- how about jelly fish, sad sac, or big baby instead of calling them a girl.
Or you can just use generic insults with modifiers. Two of my personal favorites are asswipe and fuckwad. I think belching fuckwad works great for someone with a big mouth and no sense. Itchy asswipe is good for people who are just annoying.
4 comments:
I don't think anyone's "defending" anyone else. It's just that most people don't want to waste the energy lecturing some low level journalist (he's obviously a novice writer) over a tacky but relatively benign word choice like "big girl". The fact that he even had to defend himself is pretty lame.
Free Speech is messy. And sometimes people, accidentally or otherwise, make some bad choices. When you attack such minor infractions you can cause young writers to censor themselves needlessly which hurts the culture more than it helps.
Maybe Yglesias was going for subtle irony, playing "big girl" off of the fact that he's a gay man. I think he missed the mark, whatever he was going for, but that's no reason to jump on the guy.
I know that it seems like a small thing to those of you with a penis- but had he said instead that Senator so and so is acting like a tar baby everyone would understand that it was bad. If he had just apologized and moved on I could understand it as a slip up- but he didn't.
This is not a question of free speech- you are free to say anything you want but without getting arrested- free speech does not mean you get to offend half your audience and then act like an asswipe when they call you on it. Young writers need to learn that even if it's a painful lesson.
I think you're right actually. And the blogosphere(of which I am new to) is the right forum to discuss the matter.
It took me a little while to get a proper sense of "big girl" as a sexist word (carzy as that sounds), I think, because I don't associate it with adult language. It makes me picture elementary school boys having a fight on the playground.
I read the authors explaination of the gay usage of big girl and it just didn't hold water. That was a knee jerk excuse he was using to cover his tracks. Now I'm wondering what moved him to use it?
Nothing starts a fight faster between guys than those emasculating names. The sting never leaves them. Are there names that can make women throw down amongst themselves?
Oh yeah- the names in the title of this post can be fighting words for girls- along with slut and whore. Though I happen to have a fondness for them and wouldn't take any of them as badly as they are intended.
If someone called me a coward though- I'd knock their teeth out.
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