Sneak the misogyny in at the end
This is quite a good campaign video…until the end.
What’s at the end?
Har har. Let’s shit on women. Har har.
Tip Jar
This is quite a good campaign video…until the end.
What’s at the end?
Har har. Let’s shit on women. Har har.
This is where our national politics is: a high school boys’ locker room.
Dammit.
If I were living over there, I’d want a campaign video telling me what the candidate is planning to do for the country; not one which pokes fun at the incumbent at the expense of half the population.
I’m with Nellius, it’s juvenile. Pretty low threshold for what counts for art there, Lincoln Project.
It’s not juvenile, it’s sexist and misogynist (both). Imagine the banner said “He’s not a whiny n*gger.” Lots of grown men call women bitches (and cunts and slags and whores and all the rest of it.) I wish it were merely juvenile.
It’s definitely sexist and misogynist, but it’s also juvenile. Simply pointing out the differences in Trump’s and Biden’s physical differences (and without the woman bashing tag at the end) would have been a little less juvenile, but it seems to be the way political war is waged these days (with no small thanks to Trump). Maybe somewhat creative, but art? No way. What if Biden was in a wheelchair and Trump made an ad with him trotting up some stairs next to Biden being rolled up a ramp? It’s juvenile. :)
Sure, it’s juvenile, but I think it’s a whole lot more important to point out that it’s sexist, because the Lincoln Project would never dream of doing the same thing if the epithet were racist or homophobic. They wouldn’t end with “He’s not a whiny faggot,” but insulting women is just fine. Obviously that needs pointing out, because it happened.
Don’t get me wrong, I still do and say juvenile things too, it keeps me young. But I don’t call it art. ;)
Yes, there’s a kind of unawarness about how calling women (or men for that matter, and in this case) derogatory sexist things. Calling a man ‘bitch’ usually connotates he’s a subordinate, which implies rather misogynistically that women are subordinate. It’s foul and offensive, no doubt.
So this is what we are facing in the USA — two doddering incoherent white sexist men trying to out-macho each other to be elected POTUS. And I am not going to take heat on the doddering part, the ageism garbage has been thrown at real women long enough, let two men be splattered with it for once.
The young men (and women, I guess) supporting this sexist garbage and these gruesome men are even more cringe-inducing. May as well tell the BLM bunch to pack it up and go home. There is not going to be any progress on racism in the USA when we can’t even stop back-sliding on the sexism every time we turn around.
I don’t use the word myself, but men often use it to describe other men that are whining and complaining. I think it’s more related to the verb form (ie, “quit your…”), and the usage of that doesn’t generally seem sexist to me.
But I could be completely wrong and maybe people do intend it as an insult suggesting men are acting like women.
Regardless, I agree that it was stupid to use in that ad.
Come on, Skeletor, ‘quit your bitching’ doesn’t seem sexist? Even leaving aside the fact that that isn’t what the ad says, what the fuck do you think ‘quit your bitching’ means if you don’t think it’s generally sexist?
Woah! Did I just hallucinate a comment from Skeletor?
southwest88,
FWIW, The Lincoln Project is a group of Republicans and ex-Republicans (including Kellyanne Conway’s husband George) who are dedicated to defeating Trump. So this at least isn’t Biden’s doing.
Which is not to say that Biden isn’t sexist, or that liberal/lefties wouldn’t say this sort of thing.
It’s pretty much in the vernacular to say ‘bitching’, but it still implies female, like ‘being a –‘ or ‘doing as a –‘ so therefore still sexist. It might be more dog whistley (pardon the pun), but the root word is still there, and has the same implications. Men are still offended at being called womanly, it’s an old paternalism thing and intended as an insult, as witnessed in the above sexist advert.
AoS – No, I started to reply to it and then got so disgusted at the prospect of Skeletor’s refusal to respond to replies plus the fucking obtuseness that I deleted it instead, but now that it’s someone else replying I put it back.
Oh, it’s Skelly, cue the Final Jeopardy music. ;)
Ohhh right, the Lincoln Project is Republicans – I’d forgotten that. I didn’t think it was Biden but did assume it was Dems.
I hate this kind of crap. Don’t be a whiny bitch who’s whiny and bitchy and weak and petulant like girrrrrrrrls, ew gross. But hey shut up about that and talk about trans women instead.
@#9 SW, I agree, there does seem to be a good amount of decay to both, so doddering is a good descriptor. I sure in the hell would not vote for Biden if he wasn’t the only viable anti-Trump choice. He does seem to trot up to ramps pretty well for an old dude though… ;)
Come to think of it, all they had to do in that advert is to show Biden trotting up to the ramp and negotiating it well, with the rest implied, then Biden 2020 at the end with no misogyist tag. (no, I’m not heading to Hollywood, don’t ask).
Don’t the candidates have to approve the messages at the end? I did find that curiously lacking.
twiliter,
If it’s an official campaign ad they do, but this is from a third party; Biden (presumably) had nothing to do with it.
Maybe we should ignore the unofficial ones. Fake news and all that…
Yeah, I was surprised for a moment seeing the endcap, then remembered who the Lincoln Project is made of, and was like, “Yeah, that figures.” There’s a reason I said I’d be willing to use them as allies against Trump, but not actually trust them to be decent human beings.
Lesson learned. Learned.
It is not actually a Lincoln Project ad either, it is produced by @FindAClearTruth, supposedly a Biden supporter but no official connection or status with the campaign.
Like with training dogs, you can’t just tell the puppy not to bite. For best results, you have to replace your hand with a chew toy so the little one can learn what is okay to chew on.
The problem, pragmatically speaking, is that there isn’t an American English alternative that matches the surface-level semantic content of “whiny bitch” or “quit your bitching”. Using an alternative feels like bowdlerization, and it reads and sounds that way, too. Like saying “fork” rather than “fuck”, or “Godfrey Daniels” instead of “god damn”.
Nullius, I would say that no substitute is necessary in this case. The word isn’t necessary to begin with. For instance: Biden: No Need for Whining Excuses. Something like that.
In most cases where the word bitch is used, there actually are other ways to say what is being said without being sexist. If you are actually referring to a female dog, it is okay to use that word, but for the most part, it is used to insult, and there are usually other ways if you really, really need to throw around insults like a teenager. If you need good choices, I recommend Shakespeare. He had dozens of them, they sound very hi-falutin’, and you can often leave the insultee scratching their head and going “WTF?”, which can be gobs of fun to watch.
If you still lack for possibilities, Don Rickles managed. Try hockey puck.
And I actually like Godfrey Daniels Mother of Pearl!
Whiny brat
Sniveling jellyfish
Spineless plutocrat
Just for starters.
As for “Quit your bitchin’!”, I’ve always liked “Quit yer bellyachin’!”
‘There is not going to be any progress on racism in the USA when we can’t even stop back-sliding on the sexism every time we turn around.’
Just curious to know what you perceive the connection to be–to me they seem like two very different issues.
How about the plain and simple “whiner”?
Joe Biden: Not a whiner.
Or “crybaby.”
I don’t think it’s hard to come up with insults that aren’t misogynistic. Of course, you have to want to try.
@ guest, the connection is the supposed infinite superiority of the white man over all others, and the supposed superiority of all men over all non-white women. Non-white men have supposed superiority over white females in limited circumstances (e.g. in getting the right to vote first, and being voted for; getting promotion) but it very much depends on who is perceived to own the woman concerned.
Guest #29
Just saw your comment and I see tigger_the_wing already tackled a big part of the answer (thank you tigger).
I would add that there are only two sexes and the hierarchy of male ruling over female barely budges even with the dominated class being 50% of the population. So the lesson there is that those who have power are not letting go of it and will find ways to subvert attempts by the dominated group to break free (look at how the trans cult has been a poison pill that almost seems like it was designed to destroy the rights of real women).
Also, sex is immutable in our species while the concept of “race” and “mixed race” vary over time depending on where you live. So, yes, while in some ways I have had white privilege in some instances over black men, there have been plenty of times when I have dealt with men of many “colors” being able to treat me like garbage because they are men and I am a real woman. I have also seen men of many “colors” bonding over their shared contempt and abuse of real women.
Look at how little the men of any race do as far as helping the real women of their own race be truly liberated. Nothing to next to nothing, generally. So, when half the human race can’t get traction to liberation, why should any “race” think it can change the game except by becoming the numerically dominant “race” in an area and then…………well, have they really changed the game or just become the oppressors of others?
The Lincoln Project is never-Trump Republicans trying to lure Trump’s base back to the old mainstream. This ad was not made by Democrats or Progressives. They’re trying to destroy the Party of Trump and get the GOP back.
This is aimed at the deplorables, and it’s a direct hit. It kicks them right in their insecure manhood. Hillary was absolutely right about them. But nobody on the left would do this or like this, and the people who are doing it, or are affected by it, don’t care what we think.
If you have to have a substitute for ‘bitch’, how about ‘cur’? It’s has a classier ring to it, anyway, for the speaker, is largely gender-neutral (at least, I never attached any gender to it, unlike ‘bitch’) while still conveying much of the same contempt. Tag on a suitable adjective–sniveling, whining, cowardly, ill-mannered–and you have a decent insult.
You give the left way too much credit.