Queer Misogyny- Page 2

[NYadgal]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 2:14am

It may be legal.

It's not acceptable.

But, we've gotten off track from the original message...

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 2:16am

The very use of the C word (if used literally) as a slur is misogynistic in that it uses a part of the woman's anatomy to describe something bad or nasty. However, it has lost it's true meaning to a lot of people. It has become just another cuss word with a very harsh sound, phonetically. I don't see people getting up in arms about calling someone a "son of a bitch." That is also a misogynistic phrase that has lost it's true meaning and become just another derogative thing to call someone you don't like. What about "Dick" or "Cock-sucker"? What about "asshole"? shouldn't that offend everyone?

I have used all of the above phrases and words. There are certain situations that call for a certain word. That is part of the "art" of cussing. I have used the C word for both men and women and I don't consider myself to be the least bit misogynistic. However, as with all colorful language, there is a time and place for it.

I am also aware that the fact that I don't have one might make me a little less sensitive to its usage and therefore would never use it in the presence of someone who I know would take offense.

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 2:16am

Well, it is a misogynist term, NYadgal.
Updated On: 5/12/06 at 02:16 AM

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 2:19am

Nom, would you have "tossed him off the bus" if he had called her a bitch?

[NYadgal]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 2:19am

It is, nom.

But I don't want to narrow the discussion around the use of a word.

It's a much more important topic.

Updated On: 5/12/06 at 02:19 AM

[etoile]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 2:22am

"I have often felt a relation to this very subject and the way Corine2 has been treated on this very message board in some threads."

WTF? Perhaps that because some of the least misogynist gay men on this board realize how misogyny is an often unaddressed problem in the FEMALE community and are repulsed by this person's own behavior. That would be my theory.

You know, this really is a very small community.

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 2:23am

I agree, NYadgal.

(To respond to Sueleen, the term "bitch," which is also a plain English word to denote a female dog, is not a word that would get my dander up so much as the other. It's also used as a verb to complain and has come to be used as a term referring to anyone who complains or does something nasty. It's not in the same category for me as the "c" word.)

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 2:30am

Yea, I missed that Corine reference. Why does not liking one woman mean you are a misogynist?

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 2:32am

It is the kind and type of postings that have appeared in those threads.

I also do not like the fixation on attacking her.

She is not perfect, but no else is either.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 2:36am

[etoile]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 2:37am

So is misogyny acceptable if a woman is making comments about herself?

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 2:40am

Back to the topic of "Queer Misogyny."

You may have the subject for another thread there, etoile.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 2:48am

No, debating the c word is a great part of this discussion because I imagine people (myself and Sueleen, who I absolutely agree with your post on the VARIOUS cuss words) have been thought of as being misogynist when, in fact, they were not.

Words are merely sounds---intention and motivation are the things that should matter. And, if I choose to include the c word in my vocabulary, I do so without misogynist intentions. I NEVER think in terms of gender in a derogatory sense. You can never say that I have ever done so.

And, again, I so agree with Sueleen's post--it's ok to call someone a d*** or an a**h***, but not a c*** or a t***? I'm sorry, but I don't support double standards.

Having said all that, I do reaffirm the notion of respecting others by trying not to use a word that would offend.

[etoile]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 2:53am

My comments are just following through with what you were stating in your examples. What some may perceive on this board as queer misogyny may actually be repulsion, not towards women, but rather towards someone's own comments.

Again, this is a very small community.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 2:54am

And isn't twat used in British vocabulary almost as much as bitch is used here?

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 2:54am

Some words are loaded, JRB.

They carry connotations and even a feeling associated with them (a writer is especially sensitive to that usually.)

My comments were not directed toward you as a person at all, JRB.

But they are directed towards the words themselves, because I believe words are more than sounds. Words have associations, history and meanings. It is important to remember this and sense this about words.

Even the Bible starts with in the beginning there was the word.

I'm afraid I have to leave now as the sandman calls me to shut-eye...

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 3:02am

Well, I never claimed to be a professor of the English language, knowing all the meanings and histories of words. I don't think that makes me any less of anything--a writer, a person, whatever label.

I think a perfect example would be the n word. Look at how that word has become something new--used by people of all races in a new slang way. I won't use that word. I am not comfortable with that word. But, used in the correct context and intentions, I can see how others would choose to use it in that manner. It's the racism that bothers me, the meaning used at that time--not the consonants and vowels coming out of the mouth.

The c word has baggage for some. For others it does not. But this thread is concerned with the motivations and ideas communicated by misogynist queers. And some of us have grown up being taught that word in a completely non-misogynist manner. I can only guess that I actually learned that word as in use by women given who raised me.

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 6:01am

A perspective. I believe that, for many gay men, especially younger ones (late teens/early 20s) who are just out, these guys are fighting to feel included into a small circle, perhaps for the first time in their lives. ONe way to fit into a circle is to remove yourself from others, one of those being the sex for whom you have no feelings, despite what society tells you. Therefore, you marginalize the straight woman and come to terms with who you yourself are.
I'm not offering it up as an excuse just as a possibility why some people act this way from my own personal experience.

Another story: I have an acquaintance who absolutely abhors the c word. She freaks out into a pure steroid rage when she hears someone say it, lecturing them on the evils of that word and how offensive it is. Moments later, when she sees something silly or stupid, out comes the phrase, "That's so gay."
Double standard much?

Final thought: I believe, as some others have said, that it comes down to context. I realize we've placed this word sort of on the highest pedestal of curse words but, at the end of the day, it's simply a curse word like all the rest and I'd like to know why it, also above all others, is somehow worse than the other words mentioned before.
If you're going to cast one curse word out as an evil, sexist, misogynist word, then cast them all out as evil and sexist and don't say one.

[Color and Light]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 6:04am

I guess I should feel bad for using the term c***-knuckle on a day-to-day basis. But I agree with bwaysinger: "If you're going to cast one curse word out as an evil, sexist, misogynist word, then cast them all out as evil and sexist and don't say one."

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 8:10am

oh, a couple more things.
Intriguingly, grafittied on the window of my subway car this morning: "Sn*tch taint."
Interesting, I thought, given I had just seen this thread before hopping onto the train for work.

Secondly, I wanted to add something: Like n***er and f**got before it, I know some women who are going around reclaiming words like c**t, among others, for themselves.

As Nom says, words have power, but we have more and, much like this thread title itself even suggests (anyone think Queer was coined as a term of endearment for homosexuals in the beginning? Nope. It was reclaimed), one way of gaining power over those words is to lay claim to them.

[NYadgal]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 8:51am

...so let's get off the narrow topic of 'words' and discuss what the original post referred to: attitudes and behavior.


(edited to add: for the record, I never said the c-word was the only word that was unacceptable. I brought it up as an example of misogynistic behavior, which is the topic of this thread. Derogatory terms are never acceptable, in my opinion.)

Updated On: 5/12/06 at 08:51 AM

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 8:55am

Oh, but Addy, I think it's important to mention, too, which is why I brought up the girls I know who are going around reclaiming those words.
Reclaiming the words, reclaiming the attitudes and associations with them...

[NYadgal]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 9:01am

Reclaiming words which are misogynistic? I know of no women who do that.

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 9:11am

Addy, even the term "chick" was often used to belittle grown women, at least where I'm from. In some ways, I even take the way the Dixie Chicks use that word in their band's name to be taking it back.

[iflitifloat]

Posted: 5/12/06 at 9:29am

I am one of the women who find the C-word offensive in most instances, probably because it is one of the last of the derogatory terms to still pack a wallop. It is generally used when someone wants to really make a point, and it carries with it a particular distain for women, no matter who uses it.

I personally think that it falls into the same territory as n*, faggot, and other WORDS that carry a lot of baggage. I have never used either, and never will...even in jest. It doesn't matter that blacks have turned "n*" into a term of endearment, or that some gays may toss "faggot" around casually with each other. I am neither black nor gay. They aren't *my* words to use, and it doesn't matter how actively I've supported civil or gay rights. It's a matter of respect.

And the argument can be made that even if men think women are being overly-sensitive or schizophrenic about the use of the C-word, it should be good enough that women you know and respect tell you that they find it offensive because of what it means in the big picture to them.

BWW is a community with a large gay population. The straight women who post here are, for the most part, as supportive of gay rights and respectful of gay sensitivities and sensibilities as you are likely to find anywhere. Why is it unreasonable to expect the same consideration when it comes to women's issues.

I am sure that in the post-Vagina Monologues world, some women *are* reclaiming the word. No one *I* know, but still... But the fact remains that if there IS such a phenomenon occurring, it is for women to use and desensitize it.

I, for one, find it somewhat irritating to be told that there is no problem with the C-word, women are silly for reacting to it, and that you have the right to use it. Of course, you have the RIGHT to use it. But that's really not the point, is it?