![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
So the governor of Alaska is back in the news again (really, has she left since November?), this time because David Letterman made some off-color jokes about her and her family. Palin is demanding an apology on behalf of the women of America (oh, so now you care about us, Governor Palin? /snark).
A friend of mine on Facebook posted a long note that basically said "I expect Letterman to apologize when you apologize for being an idiot and letting your idiot daughter talk about stupid abstinence."
I may or may not be exaggerating the number of times "idiot" was used in his note.
A bunch of people agreed with said friend, but it really didn't sit well with me because...and this is hard for me...I think Sarah Palin is right.
Because my computer is buggy I haven't been able to actually watch Letterman's clip, but from the bits I've been able to read online, there are two jokes that were objectionable: a comment that one of Palin's daughters got pregnant by A-Rod during a Yankee's game, and Palin took time while in New York to buy new clothes to update her "slutty flight attendant" look. Palin's demands for an apology focus on the former joke (Letterman claims the daughter he was joking about was 18 year old Bristol, while it was Palin's 14 year old daughter that actually attended the game, meaning that the joke definitely has icky statutory rape undertones), but really it's the second joke that I have a problem with. Calling a woman a "slut" is about the lowest form of discourse we have in this country and one of those insults that has become so normalized that too many people (including pretty much everyone commenting on my friend's Facebook note) fail to recognize that it is even a disgusting, misogynist insult.
I actually had a rather stimulating debate in the comment thread with another woman about whether it was "worth" getting riled up over the slut remark - we had to agree to disagree because she absolutely thought there was nothing wrong with the joke (and also kept coming back to an argument about how we have to hold female, gay, and non-white comedians to the same standard of discourse we were holding a white guy...I'm not sure where exactly that tangent came from).
But the sort of comment that inspired me to come on here to rant (because I promised that I would stop hijacking the comment thread over there), is repeated calls for Palin to apologize for various remarks she made about Barack Obama during the campaign before it would be appropriate for Letterman to apologize. Like when she said being a small town mayor was like being a community organizer, except for having actual responsibilities.
Okay, I'm in agreement that I thought that was something really dumb to say because clearly I don't think being a community organizer is a bad or worthless thing. But it is on a totally different level of discourse than jokes about her sexuality or her daughters' sexuality because, faulty though Palin's reasoning may have been back during the campaign, it was an attack on Obama's record and past employment. It's the duty of politicians to analyze each other's records and keep each other as honest as they can - no the McCain/Palin camp didn't do a good job of that (in this democrats opinion), but things like the community organizer thread to their attacks was based in some sort of policy. Calling Sarah Palin a slut and talking about her family has absolutely nothing to do with her politics (and there are oh so many political ways to attack Governor Palin).
Basically what my feelings boil down to are 1) Palin doesn't owe anybody an apology for reasonable political beliefs and actions and 2) Even if she did owe an apology for her actions, that doesn't mean Letterman doesn't owe her (and/or all of America's women) an apology.
...And I think I'm done. Good night.
A friend of mine on Facebook posted a long note that basically said "I expect Letterman to apologize when you apologize for being an idiot and letting your idiot daughter talk about stupid abstinence."
I may or may not be exaggerating the number of times "idiot" was used in his note.
A bunch of people agreed with said friend, but it really didn't sit well with me because...and this is hard for me...I think Sarah Palin is right.
Because my computer is buggy I haven't been able to actually watch Letterman's clip, but from the bits I've been able to read online, there are two jokes that were objectionable: a comment that one of Palin's daughters got pregnant by A-Rod during a Yankee's game, and Palin took time while in New York to buy new clothes to update her "slutty flight attendant" look. Palin's demands for an apology focus on the former joke (Letterman claims the daughter he was joking about was 18 year old Bristol, while it was Palin's 14 year old daughter that actually attended the game, meaning that the joke definitely has icky statutory rape undertones), but really it's the second joke that I have a problem with. Calling a woman a "slut" is about the lowest form of discourse we have in this country and one of those insults that has become so normalized that too many people (including pretty much everyone commenting on my friend's Facebook note) fail to recognize that it is even a disgusting, misogynist insult.
I actually had a rather stimulating debate in the comment thread with another woman about whether it was "worth" getting riled up over the slut remark - we had to agree to disagree because she absolutely thought there was nothing wrong with the joke (and also kept coming back to an argument about how we have to hold female, gay, and non-white comedians to the same standard of discourse we were holding a white guy...I'm not sure where exactly that tangent came from).
But the sort of comment that inspired me to come on here to rant (because I promised that I would stop hijacking the comment thread over there), is repeated calls for Palin to apologize for various remarks she made about Barack Obama during the campaign before it would be appropriate for Letterman to apologize. Like when she said being a small town mayor was like being a community organizer, except for having actual responsibilities.
Okay, I'm in agreement that I thought that was something really dumb to say because clearly I don't think being a community organizer is a bad or worthless thing. But it is on a totally different level of discourse than jokes about her sexuality or her daughters' sexuality because, faulty though Palin's reasoning may have been back during the campaign, it was an attack on Obama's record and past employment. It's the duty of politicians to analyze each other's records and keep each other as honest as they can - no the McCain/Palin camp didn't do a good job of that (in this democrats opinion), but things like the community organizer thread to their attacks was based in some sort of policy. Calling Sarah Palin a slut and talking about her family has absolutely nothing to do with her politics (and there are oh so many political ways to attack Governor Palin).
Basically what my feelings boil down to are 1) Palin doesn't owe anybody an apology for reasonable political beliefs and actions and 2) Even if she did owe an apology for her actions, that doesn't mean Letterman doesn't owe her (and/or all of America's women) an apology.
...And I think I'm done. Good night.
(And I really hope the Obama girls are protected in this way. It's horrifying to think of what people are going to say about them. The Bush twins shouldn't have been treated this way, Chelsea Clinton shouldn't...children should be off-limits.)
As for the slut remark, isn't there enough we can hate Sarah Palin for without going into outright falsehoods? Although I do wonder if calling her a slut is roughly equivalent to calling McCain an asshole -- it's not a provable insult, but it's a rough shorthand for "despicable, lowlife person". In the context, Letterman's being trashy, but I wonder if, in just saying "Sarah Palin? That slut!", if we're actually implying she's a slut, or if it's just gender-segregated shorthand... -Rachel
Slut cannot be the same as asshole. Asshole doesn't have sexual connotations, nor is it gendered. If slut, as it is currently used, can't be shorthand for "despicable, lowlife person" because it isn't applied to both genders, so it can only be shorthand for "despicable, lowlife woman."
I don't think "asshole" is a gendered word, but it's an implicitly gendered word -- it's rare to call a woman an asshole. Maybe "dickhead" is a better example -- a word that is an insult, is usually only applied to a man, has a sexual connotation, but is no longer about the sexual. Although I personally don't do this, I think that's the semantic drift of the word. Though in context, Letterman was wrong and being icky.