That the Tories and Unionist establishment would attempt to land a sexist smear on Alex Salmond for calling a woman a, err, woman, is unsurprising. That they are joined by a number of ludicrous feminists is unsurprising too.
It is probably the case that it is a more frequent use in Scotland and Northern England than in Southern England to add “man” or “woman” after an injunction, but anywhere from Grantham northwards “Behave yourself, man!” or “Behave yourself, woman!” is a perfectly unexceptional expression. That the use of “woman” in this sense is sexist is absolute nonsense. “Behave yourself, human” would not be a normal expression. The idea that Salmond calling Soubry “demented” was in some way anti-woman is even more ludicrous. Women have no monopoly on demented behaviour. In fact it is a rather anti-feminist idea that women should be protected from robust verbal exchanges when men should not.
None of which will stop the feminist nutters from having a go at Salmond. Feminism appears unique in breeding acolytes who have no notion whatsoever of wider social questions. They are therefore perfect tools for the establishment to turn against anybody who threatens authority. The feminist stampede to condemn Julian Assange on the basis of quite ludicrous charges orchestrated by CIA asset Anna Ardin is one example where feminists delight the hearts of the powerful. Their turning on Tommy Sheridan was another. Now they fly at Alex Salmond. They are, men or women, stupid, and the most useful of idiots to the forces of wealth, power and privilege.
The utterances of the woman were silly and the utterances of the press are stupid
Gloria Steinem got her start working for the CIA.
The plutocrats liked it when so many women joined the labor force in the 1970’s and 1980’s, as it enabled them to lower labor costs.
Lysias
An identical labour costs argument is used against immigrants. I have no problem at all with women working.
For a long time, feminism has just been a tool of politicians, because it has great potential to create mob mentality. It is a shame, because there are kernels of goodness in it. But those who call themselves feminists today are usually crackpots or teenagers jumping on some bandwagon because religion no longer suffices. They truly are victims. The feminism that was good-intentioned was a pitiful failure, because woman are still treated as children and dependants in the UK, only fit for raising children and cleaning kitchens. The bloody minded politicians who coopted it must be laughing hysterically.
Using language as an Orwellian tool of psychological abuse is just standard fare these days. Look at how Bruce Jenner’s transformation into a (poor) facsimile of an actual woman has exposed the deep schism between the very large number of subscribers to extreme political correctness and those who just want to call things as they really are. They are always looking for ways to confect outrage in order to justify their desire to bully people.
Jemand
04/06/2015 7:39pm
Batten down the hatches, and brace yourself for the storm.
J
For goodness sake take it for what it is, we all knew Eck would be demonised on his return to The Pit.
Just suck it up as he does…Eck is playing the long game and I think that he is pretty bloody good at it.
They hate him in there…he must be doing something right!
The overwhelming evolutionary propensity for most, if not all, species to demonstrate gender dimorphism, makes the notions of ‘equality’ and ‘sexism’ to be tools of subversion.
Evolution, the mechanism for all life on earth, is a contradiction to feminism; hence feminism is a death cult.
Craig
Do you consider David Cameron’s “calm down dear” in the HoC (to Angela Eagle)to have been sexist?
All words can be politically correct or not depending on context and intention.
I don’t have any doubts that in this case the word “woman” was intended to be patronising.
I can imagine the howling that would have gone if the same remark had been directed at a regular contributor here. Looking at the context Salmond before his remark was telling Soubry to set a good example – perhaps the same remark could be applied to Salmons as well.
Fred, give it a rest, man.
You’re in danger of ruining your (poor) case by being absurd. “Calm down, dear”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/inside-david-camerons-kitchen-prime-5388012
That the Tories and Unionist establishment would attempt to land a sexist smear on Alex Salmond for calling a woman a, err, woman, is unsurprising. That they are joined by a number of ludicrous feminists is unsurprising too.
Alex Salmond has been the subject of a number of smears over the years. Ming Campbell, Alex Massie and co smeared him just a few days ago in the immediate aftermath of Charles Kennedy’s death (to be fair to Massie he later apologised). It turned out Salmond mentioned Kennedy’s attitude to the No campaign because he was asked a direct question about it by a journalist. But it did not stop Campbell and the rest joining in with their smears. Same old same old.
Resident Dissident
“I can imagine the howling that would have gone if the same remark had been directed at a regular contributor here.”
___________________
Very true, RD.
But don’t forget that the “regular contributors” on here are noble, sensitive souls.
Not like those vulgar politicians at all. 🙂
O/T Jeremy Corbyn throws his hat in the ring for the leadership. Not sure if this has been posted before.
http://www.itv.com/news/london/update/2015-06-03/islington-mp-jeremy-corbyn-announces-labour-leadership-bid/
J
French telecoms operator Orange is planning to sever its ties with Israeli telecoms company Partner.
Bibi is really cross. He is demanding intervention by Hollande.
‘On 6 May, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), a Paris-based NGO, said: “Partner is building infrastructure on confiscated Palestinian land and offers services to settlers and the Israeli army.”
Orange CEO Stephane Richard said the company wanted to be trusted by Arab countries
Jewish settlements on occupied territory are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this. Neither Israel nor Partner commented on the FIDH report.’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-33013390
“Alex Salmond has been the subject of a number of smears over the years.”
Perhaps this is something to do with him and his advisors (including the not so nice Nicola would be my guess) also initiating not a few on their own behalf – trying to work out which came first, the chicken or the egg, is probably a rather pointless activity. All part of the charm of Scottish politics I’m afraid.
If the woman had been a leftie instead of a Tory, I wonder if the reaction here would have been different?
The woman contributor receiving mention here doesn’t seem to set a good example to newcomers like PostmanofScotland aka The-postman-always-knocks-twelve-times, either. As a result he hogs this space from 3pm onwards for several hours cutting-and-pasting the daily rags furiously, without any indication or credit to the actual source.
I reckon Fred is right that Salmond was being a little patronising, but I wonder if he (and others) will also agree that the woman’s remark was uncalled for, downright stupid so she deservedly got put in her place. To that extent, irrelevant if the recipient here was a man or woman.
Just to offer some perspective while Craig is batting with Edinburgh City Council and pesky feminists:
http://www.rferl.org/content/qishloq-ovozi-uzbekistan-yelena-urlaeva/27053554.html
The more this is shouted about the more chance there is of putting some pressure on Karimov and his supporters to do something about it. I don’t know if Craig ever met this very brave lady.
I know Elena quite well. A very brave woman, she has suffered repeated imprisonment, persecution, beatings and persecution for decades. She features in Murder in Samarkand.
Apart from saying that the trolls come in like performing sea lions clapping their flippers all together, there will be no response to their attempt to goad tonight.
It’s nothing personal with the feminists. This is a standard item in the CIA toolkit: strike along a plane of cleavage orthogonal to conflict with the state. Divide et impera. You can watch Abby Cohen trying to incite first homophobia, then antisemitism, then misogyny, whatever works, anything to get the Scottish people fighting among themselves. At the British level vilification of nationalists serves the same purpose. It’s an uphill battle because the sowers of discord have to be awfully strident to divert people from the loathing and revulsion that British subjects feel for this cocked-up dying state.
Come on girls and boys. Alex Salmond is lucky he doesn’t have to go for a regular smear like Tony Blair to see if he’s caught something from his Zio-clients.
It’s one thing to allow women to work. It’s quite another to foster a cultural climate which devalues the role of the housewife and mother and thereby pressures women to join the workforce.
I think the problem is that the use of the term ‘feminism’ has now become as vague and meaningless as ‘liberalism’ and – as some feminist theorists have argued – perhaps what we have are ‘feminisms’ as opposed to one singular school of thought. Anyone can call themselves a feminist and use or abuse it to mean whatever they want. What we tend to see a lot of amongst mainstream politics and the populist press is actually pseudo feminism that has very little thought put into it but is claimed as feminism because the protagonist/s feel that label makes it seem somehow edgy, racy and even sexy.
A prime example of this would be when Nadine Dorries, together with pseudo-feminist elements of the tabloid press condemned trade unions for allegedly trying to ban women from wearing high heels in the workplace. What actually happened was that the TUC was actually sticking up for the rights and health and safety of women workers whom in some workplaces are actually forced to wear uncomfortable and unhealthy high heeled shoes as part of their everyday workplace dress code, leading to long-term damage to their feet in the process. However, ironically this was drowned out by a clamour of right-wing, pseudo-feminist faux populist ‘outrage’ which deliberately misreported this story and put such an anti-union spin on it as to make it seem like male union leaders were trying to tell women what to wear!
Those genuinely interested in gender theory and those who believe that the deconstruction of patriarchal gender norms is of benefit to society, would certainly not see referring to someone as a woman or a man in such a context as having anything to do with sexism. Moreover, bearing in mind that there are people who are intersex and those who are now started to identify outside of the fe/male gender binary and that they are also traditionally oppressed by a patriarchal society it could be argued that the term feminism itself is insufficient as a word for those who believe and promote absolute gender equality as it actually erases the existence of, and the issues that non-binary gender identifying people also face, in a male-dominated patriarchy that similarly rates them as second class citizens.
Sorry, if this comes across as a bit confusing, but what I’m trying to say is that it could be argued that women are not the only gender who are oppressed, side-lined and marginalised in a patriarchy. Also, it can be argued that the patriarchy oppressed men too – as some men are more powerful than others…and when it comes to equality you have to factor in things like class, race, disability, sexuality and transsexuality if you are going to tackle the whole picture of how the system oppresses certain groups of people. Gender theory cannot be viewed in isolation to everything else – which is what I feel some feminists make the mistake of assuming, leading to tunnel vision. Historically, a dominant white Anglo-Saxon nominally ‘Christian’ male power elite has actually de-masculinised other groups of males – particularly those enslaved and exploited in imperial conquests, for instance…
Esmerelda Beria:
“It’s nothing personal with the feminists. This is a standard item in the CIA toolkit: strike along a plane of cleavage orthogonal to conflict with the state. Divide et impera. You can watch Abby Cohen trying to incite first homophobia, then antisemitism, then misogyny, whatever works, anything to get the Scottish people fighting among themselves ”
ouch! oh dear! truth hurts, woman, if you are a woman not Dame Barry Humphries.
Ps. I’m by no means saying that women have it better than men because the facts are that even though women make up the 51 per cent majority of the population, there are more public schoolboys in the Houses of Parliament than women. There is also the ever widening 17 per cent gender pay gap to consider, along with the fact that a much higher standard of behaviour and appearance is expected of a woman than a man, not because this will get us taken as equally seriously as men but because we still very much live in a society where a woman’s worth is judged on how well (or not) men (and other women) objectify her. However, what a serious feminist (for want of a better, more adequate word) would recognise (unlike these pseudos that we see so often) is that the patriarchal society is toxic masculinity which ultimately imprisons and harms men and indeed other genders, too.
@Giyane: “Esmerelda Beria:
“It’s nothing personal with the feminists. This is a standard item in the CIA toolkit: strike along a plane of cleavage orthogonal to conflict with the state. Divide et impera. You can watch Abby Cohen trying to incite first homophobia, then antisemitism, then misogyny, whatever works, anything to get the Scottish people fighting among themselves ”
ouch! oh dear! truth hurts, woman, if you are a woman not Dame Barry Humphries.”
Darn! I’ve been rumbled. I am of course a CIA operative commando who’s been parachuted into this blog to destabilise Scotland and as everyone knows as an American Republican I am always trying to stick up for gays, lesbians, trans* people, Arabs, Jews – even the Scottish ones;)
…and of course, as a member of the US Republican Party it goes without saying that I am a rampant Stalinist like Comrade Beria!