Ethical question - Misogyny on these boards

[Celesta]

Context is important, and, as Ally pointed out, intent is important.

[caz]

Hi Ally, Nats, Judy, All,

I have not come across the offending posts yet (and the link didn't work for some reason) but surely context is everything. It should be obvious whether the w word is used in preference to the p word in order to try and cause offence on a 2008 message board, or for effect in a book written in the days when authors/publishers thought that kind of thing worked and was acceptable.

I have used the w word myself, when imagining the ripper's thoughts, for instance, and I would be rather miffed if the PC police tore me off a strip for doing so and accused me of causing offence to women. No woman would need to feel offended by my use of the w word in this context (and certainly not if she doesn't see herself as a w in any case ).

Actually, I find the current trend of arguing against the victims being vulnerable to their killer because they were offering what men have been prepared to pay for since the dawn of time quite insulting to their memories. It's as if there is so much dirt attached to being identified as an 'unfortunate' in 1888 Whitechapel that the victims have to be artificially elevated above the real thing to what is considered to be an acceptably 'wholesome' level. They'll be going out to give thrice weekly bible readings next, to men whose wives refuse to open the good book at home more than once a month. At least the Victorians knew that a spade was a spade, and that a 'laundress' wasn't always a laundress, even if they loved their euphemisms too much to do without them.

I'm not sure we are progressing much unless we recognise that serial killers prey on the weaknesses inherent in certain groups, whether it be elderly patients (Shipman); hitchhikers, lodgers and close relatives (the Wests); or women struggling with addictions and/or debts who take cash from strange men in return for sexual favours (Wright).

Love,

Caz
X

[Ally]

Heya Judy,

I'll look forward to it, we were actually just discussing my tiara collection on the podcast yesterday and how the whole crown thing got started at the conferences.

Glad to see you are around and kicking still.

[Ally]

Nats,

No linguistic PC is pretty much all bollocks. You don't change people's attitudes, mindsets or beliefs by attempting to tell them what words are appropriate and which are not. If the only thing that changes is what words are acceptable, then nothing changes beyond the surface. As I have said before, people who bristle at the idea of a stupid person being called retarded think absolutely nothing of calling the umpire blind when he misses a play. They ascribe an aspersion to an entire category of people in the former statement for purely subjective reasons that they fail to assign in the latter category. Why? Blindness and retardation are both disabling categories, but people have no problem using the former in daily conversation to describe inability to see and see nothing pejorative about it. This doesn't translate to them disliking or having a hatred or disrespect to actual blind people. But people think if you say retarded, this translates to negative comments about retarded people. Why?

The same can be said of the prostitute/whore argument. Prostitutes and whores are the same thing. They are people who sell themselves for money. But because the word "whore" has over time started to be used outside its specific context and has taken on pejorative casts and used to insult people who are not literally whores, now it's "bad" to use it to describe people who actually are that. If you call a real whore a whore, it's bad because some people call not-real-whores whores. It's "better" to use prostitute. Except now of course, people are starting to use prostitute pejoratively (i.e. prossie or whatever it was) and it will only be a matter of time before you've got to call them something else.

I use words that correctly describe the condition or state or occupation of the person to which they are intended. I am not going to worry about politically correct BS and find some convoluted way of saying what I want to say because it might have a negative connotation for some group of people. Sorry, that's BS.

If I said "All retarded people are wastes of oxygen and should be killed in utero" that would be me insulting retarded people and something that could rightly be seen as offensive to retarded people. If I say someone's retarded, I am saying what they are: mentally slow. Whoops, I mean challenged.

[revpetero]

PC isnt all bollocks though,Ally.It is "supposed" to be about old fashioned "courtesy",a way of avoiding hurting other people in order to feel superior to them isnt it?

Ideally but does it ever work. They will produce a long list of what you can't say anymore (which gives it more acceptability in the minds of idiots). To this they then create a new list of words that are politically correct and these then take on the same derogatory meanings when used out of context by morons.

If less attention was paid to the subject and people just ignored or turned cheeks to people who only have one form of argument then they would go away (Well hopefully).

Peter

I think they've scheduled the book burning for the morning of day 3, right after calisthenics.

"calisthenics"

Will Dan be in charge of the morning exercise regimen ???




Colin

[needler]

THIS one got me!

Hiya Ally....hope you're keeping well and I've another wand for you. This one REALLY works!

I just found your misogyny thread....you can tell how long it's been since I wandered around here......and I'm amazed that there are three pages of this foolishness. I can't believe this tempest in a teacup. Ally, Natalie and Sasha seem to be managing quite well, so why are some others all atwitter about this? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I THINK "prostitute" is a legal definition; of so, and if it is derogatory, the perhaps we should RE-define other legal terms........"murder"......nah! "Rape"......what the hell else can you call it?

To all who are concerned about "name calling", etc, PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT IF YOU TREAT SOMEONE ON THESE BOARDS WITH DISRESPECT OR MAKE MISOGYNISTIC REMARKS, THE JUSTICE WILL BE SWIFT, and it WON'T come from the PC police. You'll get it in the neck from we who can recognise the difference between a rude, denigrating remark and a comment with no harm intended. Ally and I will be leading the pack, and many others will be with us.....men and women.

Get over it, and go worry about global warming and how you're going to pay your bills next month.

Cheers to all, and especially to you, Ally; I've been a TERRIBLE correspondent lately, but will post wand forthwith!

Judy

[Natalie Severn]

PC isnt all bollocks though,Ally.It is "supposed" to be about old fashioned "courtesy",a way of avoiding hurting other people in order to feel superior to them isnt it?

[Ally]

Don't bother trying to keep up with the PC bull. It's a waste of time. It has gotten to the ridiculous point. For example the great "retarded" debate. You are now no longer even supposed to call the retarded retarded because it's an insult. However, if you call the non-retarded retarded, it's still an insult to retarded people, even though they don't go by that name anymore according to the PC police. You are now supposed to call them "challenged". So what are kids now calling each other when they want to call each other retarded? You guessed it: "god, you are so challenged" And of course when that becomes offensive, the poor retarded/challenged people are going to have to figure out yet another name to call themselves!

[Natalie Severn]

I think they've scheduled the book burning for the morning of day 3, right after calisthenics. You'll be missed.

JM

very funny ha ha



so can we take it you are all for books about murdered women being marketed as smut?

[JSchmidt]

I think they've scheduled the book burning for the morning of day 3, right after calisthenics. You'll be missed.

JM

Now that is skimming Godwin's Law.

Re Septic Blue:
25 years between now and then. Do you happen to have a more recent example?

The constant change in the political correct vocabulary makes it pretty hard for me to keep up with, especially as some of the connotations are lost on me as a non native speaker of English. I always fear that I might offend someone by accident.


The whole thread made me actually wonder if I did use whore or prostitute on the threads. I hope it was the latter.

[jmenges]

I wonder if those attending the conference in Knoxville will be treated to such subtleties !!!

I think they've scheduled the book burning for the morning of day 3, right after calisthenics. You'll be missed.

JM

[Victor]

Well as a disabled person, the word retard is not offensive to me. Nor is Blind, deaf, or spastic. It's a word to describe a behavior or state. So, impasse.

Makes me think of Ian Dury. What an amazing man he was, and sadly missed.

[revpetero]

Well I am just thankful

that fatties like me are left alone

[Natalie Severn]

Well to be frank,I got quite enthusiastic about reading Tom Cullen"s 1965 book ,The Autumn of Terror .This was because he had a theory about Druitt and Toynbee Hall.So I went to the library and they got it from their vault and the first thing I noticed was this type of offensive stuff about "whores" so I took it back ,having only read the first few pages.I looked up the bits in the index that referred to Toynbee and Druitt and that was it.I couldnt stomach any more.I dont doubt it is well researched and maybe the publishers decided thats what people interested in the Whitechapel Murders wanted to hear,and it was they who suggested to Tom Cullen to sex it up a bit---- or rather get it to all sound a bit lurid and obscene or something,but the great majority of people on this site would never use derogatory terms like that about the victims of Jack the Ripper or about anyone else thankfully.