** Warning - Explicit and crude language is used in this diary. **
There's a reason we should avoid calling women right-wing sluts. Somehow, Ed Schultz let us down on that one, but he's got a week to think about it. I have no idea what went through Ed's mind during his radio show the other day. Maybe the emotion of the moment got the best of him. Nevertheless, his filter failed and he went there.
Some of you may be thinking that Laura Ingraham is exactly what Ed Schultz called her, but there's a better way to express that opinion. Would anyone be upset if he referred to her as a shill? No, but shill doesn't engender the same amount of verve or titillation. Would anyone have minded if Ed questioned her intelligence? Her motives? No. Would anyone object if he said she was the village idiot for what she believes? Probably not, but I hear the Village Idiot's Association objects to being portrayed in this manner.
Ed got in trouble when he used a sexual slur to describe Laura Ingraham's political ideology. He was just being the shock jock that he is. He was just throwing red meat to the liberal base. What's the harm in that? In Ed's defense, it's true, it is very tempting to "go there". It's hard to resist the snarky, cheap shot; but we are better than that. I'm sorry Ed gave in to the moment and spouted off a regrettable remark. What's remarkable is that he faces consequences for what he said. No conservative talk show host is held to this high a standard. Ed's usually a stand up kind of guy, so it is fair to think that this was a momentary lapse of judgment.
Ask any women at a frank moment and she'll admit to being the target of remarks like this. We know all too well what it's like to have our ideas attacked in sexual terms. Tee a guy off and the next thing you know, you're a "cow" a "dumb tart", or "just a rack". Sometimes, it's bitch or the infamous "C" word. Say the wrong thing and hear, "I have better meat for your mouth" (remember Archie Bunker's "stifle!"). Get mad and, "never mind her, it's her time of the month". Unfortunately, many women are "used to it". Kudos to MSNBC for calling Ed on this, after all, even a blind squirrel can find the occasional nut.
Denigrating women is older than Moses. If a women on the job is disagreeable, the scuttlebutt goes she fucked her way to her job - the story's good, but the truth? Likely, not really. Don't like a woman's opinion? Then go for her looks, "She was somewhat attractive 10-15 years ago, but now I don't see her as attractive at all... even if she kept her mouth shut". (That last was a snippet from a discussion held here some years ago.) More to the point, what does attractiveness have to do with content credibility?
The fact that Laura Ingraham is female is what is being played here. "It's rhetorically stupid even if it is morally right" (from the same discussion). Do we attack Rush or Beck on his manhood? Do we say that he was "cut off" by his wife when they say something particularly asinine? Do we suggest that since their idiocy obviously reflects no thought behind their words that they should make better use of their time by taking out the garbage, washing the car, mowing the lawn or cleaning out the attic? Do we crudely suggest we have better uses for their mouths? No, we usually stop with describing them as jerks, ass wipes and/or pricks (if we're in a bad mood). We call them hypocrites when we're being charitable or refer to them as tools or dildos when we're not. It's just that calling a guy a dildo just doesn't convey the same level of scorn as referring to a woman as a "hoe". Telling a guy to "man up" just doesn't have the same level of insult as suggesting you have "better meat for her mouth". (I once heard a man "offer" to be the tool or dildo for another woman in the office.) It's the same theme; yet, not the same, not as insulting.
We as progressives, are hypocrites when we criticize any woman's statements using sexual terms. We can't call for equal rights between the sexes, then pepper our criticism with sexist slurs. We can't dismiss the sex and attractiveness attacks because regardless of the "Well, a man could be having sex too" retorts (which certainly could be true), because there is no parity. Simplistically (therefore not entirely accurate), men are trained and rewarded to hunt and have as much sex with as many women as possible, while women are punished and dismissed if they don't limit sex to only their husbands. This "training" starts on the first day of our lives.
Calling Laura Ingraham a political slut (right wing slut) is clearly aimed at Laura Ingraham's gender, not her statements or beliefs; and IMO, are wholly inappropriate. We should be going out of our way to be very clear what the problem is - not sex or attractiveness - but the content, hypocrisy or the presence of personal conflicts of interest. (In this case, it was hypocrisy.)
What's really sad here is that I'm defending Laura Ingraham, a woman who spouts ideologies that I find so wrong on so many levels. She blames women for a myriad of societal woes. She perpetuates the myths of the feminine mystique that leads to this type of twaddle. She gives cover to people who utter sexist claptrap and she is clueless as to how destructive she is toward women. I would have referred to her as a hypocrite and specified where she was two-faced. I would have pointed out how she's paid to say what she does by the people she serves, but I wouldn't call her a right wing slut. There are some things you say and some things you think; and there are some things you shouldn't ever think of saying. "Right wing slut" is in the last category.
Language is pejorative, connotative, denotative, racist and sexist. Language is a double edged weapon that can abuse and hurt, or build, soothe and promote. Ed should have remembered he has more class than that remark - before he said it. We didn't need this distraction.