The Poison of Male Incivility: When a woman dares respond to it, she's seen as "disruptive."

[ehrnst]

But some of the coverage of the impact and resonance of Ocasio-Cortez’s speech perpetuated exactly the gendered power imbalances the speech was meant to challenge. The conflict started by Yoho, to which Ocasio-Cortez was responding, got retold, in the New York Times, as an instance of her aggressive political ambition, rather than as a response to the very forces that have long made political power elusive for women like Ocasio-Cortez, and an assumed norm for men like Ted Yoho.

The Times’ story on the speech bore the headline “A.O.C. Unleashes a Viral Condemnation of Sexism in Congress” and kicked off by noting that Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman in Congress, who arrived there in 2019, “has upended traditions.” It called her speech on Thursday “norm-shattering” and described supporting speeches made by her colleagues — including one in which Pramila Jayapal recalled being referred to as a “young lady” who did not “know a damn thing” by Alaska representative Don Young — as a moment of “cultural upheaval.”

All these words somehow cast Ocasio-Cortez and her female colleagues as the disruptive and chaotic forces unleashed in this scenario, suggesting that they shattered norms in a way that Representative Yoho’s original, profane outburst apparently did not. (Perhaps Yoho’s words weren’t understood as eruptive and norm-shattering because calling women nasty names, in your head or with your friends or on the steps of your workplace, is much more of a norm than most want to acknowledge).

..............................

What is also true and unsaid here is the way in which degradation and dismissal of women — as disgusting, as crazy, but also as Jayapal’s examples remind us, as infantile, incompetent, irrational, and stupid — has been key to the building and maintenance of disproportionately male power in American political, economic, social, and sexual life. And that’s before we get to the ways in which the ubiquity of dehumanizing and aggressive language toward women can have very real violent implications, as the recent murder of Judge Esther Salas’s son by anti-feminist Roy Den Hollander, and so much contemporary mass violence, shows all too often.

How else to clear the field except to render your peers incapable, unlikable, unprofessional? Whether or not men are saying it out loud, via street catcalls or in front of political reporters, the reduction of their would-be female peers — their ideological and electoral adversaries and competitors for power — has helped clear away potential impediment to their own professional trajectories. But white male opportunism, whether in the form of aggressive insult displayed by Yoho this week, or merely accepting the advantages that broad systemic disrespect of others affords them, is rarely examined as the kind of active force that it has always been.

https://www.thecut.com/2020/07/aoc-speech-ted-yoho-new-york-times.html

[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. The Solution? ELECT more women to Congress.

[ehrnst]

2. Yep. We just have to get past the "But that's indentity politics!!!!!" crowd,

who claim that female candidates are prone to saying, "Vote for me, just because I'm a woman, that's enough!"

[2naSalit]

3. Also...

Make them suffer for it.

[yardwork]

4. Most women recognize this dynamic.

Men have the privilege of treating women disrespectfully. When women protest, we are labeled as troublemakers, bitches, uptight, vindictive, castrating, not team players, overreacting, being dramatic, being on the rag, being overly emotional, being overly sensitive, etc etc etc.

[ehrnst]

7. Nancy Pelosi has experienced it particularly harshly from both the far left and the right.

They cannot stand it when a woman doesn't bend to their disapproval, especially one "of an age," and with a track record of success that no one else can claim.

[ismnotwasm]

5. Her response was so epic, so perfect, so measured

That if nothing else secured her place in history, that short speech will.

Of course she’ll be painted as disruptive. This is not new.

But she spoke for one hell of a lot of women that day.

Now Jayapal sat on a stage while Hillary Clinton was made the punchline, Mean girl style. It was fucking ridiculous. As brilliant as she is, I’ve yet to forgive her for it. She’s my Rep. and she Is doing one hell of a good job in Congress, but dismissing the very groundbreakers for women, or laughing at them in service of a male dominated ideology is never a good look.

[ehrnst]

6. +1000. That's worth pointing out. (nt)

Last edited Sat Jul 25, 2020, 06:55 PM - Edit history (1)