Jenny
02-03-2005, 09:51 AM
Actually it can be empowering for a man to call you a cunt if you react in a cavalier way and don't shrink or get all bent out of shape about it.
I don't understand this at all - handling yourself with grace and aplomb is, I suppose, always empowering. However the context of this particular discussion is a little more narrow. A man using the word "cunt" will NEVER be using it as a term of empowerment (I know that phrase is stupid, but I beg everyone to let it slide). Like Germaine Greer marching with 60 other women, lifting their skirts up chanting "can you dig it? Cunt is beautiful" is empowering. Eve Ensler getting an audience to chant "Cunt! Cunt! Cunt!" at the Vagina Monologues is empowering. A guy saying "I bet you have a nice cunt" or "show me your cunt" or (god forbid) calling you a cunt is not.
If you call a man a dick, does the situation escalate? Probably not. Why? Because he is above arguing with a woman.
See I would disagree. I think it is because the insult "dick" is not loaded with the social "importance" of the word "cunt". If you called an American guy a "cunt" I think the situation would escalate rather quickly, whether you were a woman or not. Interestingly my family is Scottish - like working class scottish. They use the word "cunt" as just another word for "guy". Like "I work with that cunt over there." I don't exactly know what to make of that.
So it's one thing to say people shouldn't say this or that, and it's another thing when realistically, people will say this or that, and to decide where to go from there.
Well, I'm hardly suggesting illegalizing words I don't like or don't find empowering. And certainly there are people who are simply incredibly ignorant (for example the DJ whose comment started this thread) and those who are a little more deliberate who are free to exercise their right to free expression. All I'm really doing to examining the social currency of these words and terms.
I don't understand this at all - handling yourself with grace and aplomb is, I suppose, always empowering. However the context of this particular discussion is a little more narrow. A man using the word "cunt" will NEVER be using it as a term of empowerment (I know that phrase is stupid, but I beg everyone to let it slide). Like Germaine Greer marching with 60 other women, lifting their skirts up chanting "can you dig it? Cunt is beautiful" is empowering. Eve Ensler getting an audience to chant "Cunt! Cunt! Cunt!" at the Vagina Monologues is empowering. A guy saying "I bet you have a nice cunt" or "show me your cunt" or (god forbid) calling you a cunt is not.
If you call a man a dick, does the situation escalate? Probably not. Why? Because he is above arguing with a woman.
See I would disagree. I think it is because the insult "dick" is not loaded with the social "importance" of the word "cunt". If you called an American guy a "cunt" I think the situation would escalate rather quickly, whether you were a woman or not. Interestingly my family is Scottish - like working class scottish. They use the word "cunt" as just another word for "guy". Like "I work with that cunt over there." I don't exactly know what to make of that.
So it's one thing to say people shouldn't say this or that, and it's another thing when realistically, people will say this or that, and to decide where to go from there.
Well, I'm hardly suggesting illegalizing words I don't like or don't find empowering. And certainly there are people who are simply incredibly ignorant (for example the DJ whose comment started this thread) and those who are a little more deliberate who are free to exercise their right to free expression. All I'm really doing to examining the social currency of these words and terms.