For Shana Pearlman, author of The Palin Effect: Money Sex and Class in the New American Politics, sexist online abuse, of the kind directed at Louise Mensch, has to stop, and simply expressing disapproval isn't going to be enough.
Over the past couple of days, Conservative MP Louise Mensch has publicised a series of violent, sexually abusive, misogynist tweets she’s gotten from troglodytes on Twitter who don’t agree with her opinions on the parliamentary report regarding News Corp. Instead of disagreeing with her on the merits of her argument, they call her a “whore,” a “slut,” a “Tory whore”, a “soulless rich whore,” a “rancid” c*** and insist they want to “strangle her” as well as “hit [her] in the face with a hammer.”
This is pretty typical behaviour whenever a woman in public life expresses thoughts or ideas that men disagree with. Then-Senator Hillary Clinton, when she ran for President, had to put up with being called a “she-devil” and “uppity,” compared to Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction by both a sitting Congressman and a National Public Radio editor, and, charmingly, was described by television personality Tucker Carlson as making him want to “involuntarily cross my legs.”
But the real abuse, as Louise Mensch has discovered, comes from the progressive left towards conservative (or Conservative) women. Comedian Louis C.K. described Governor Sarah Palin, bringing her children, including her new baby with Down syndrome, on stage at the 2008 Republican Convention, as “on stage at that f**king convention that just came out of her disgusting f**king c***...her f**king retard-making c***.” Former boxer Mike Tyson, a man with a criminal history of beating up women, said on a nationally syndicated radio show that Palin “needed to get it so hard that [her] lower intestines get wrapped around her esophagus,” which the host of the show found “hilarious.” Comedian Marc Maron said of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann that he’d love to “hate f**k her.” And these are just the famous people – currently on Twitter, Governor Palin is being described as “a female deuchebag and an ignorant enviro whore” and “a fucking” c***.
Men who describe women in this way hate and fear women; they worry about losing their power and status to the opposite sex. But a lot of these men are self-identified progressive men who at least parrot the sentiments of feminism without really meaning them. Abusing women they politically disagree with gives these men a safe outlet to express their sexist feelings, while still allowing them to pretend like they care about and respect women. They don’t. They’re bigots. And we shouldn’t let them get away with it.
The progressive left was right to get upset about Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a “slut,” but is still cheering on people like Louis C.K and Bill Maher, who make sexist remarks a regular feature of their comedy acts. Louis C.K. just won a Webby Award; Bill Maher has said his “Sarah Palin is a c***” routine got the “biggest laughs” in his entire act and “not one person ever expressed disapproval.” These men shouldn’t be getting accolades, they should be run out of town on a rail. But because women go along with this abuse, bigoted men feel like this behaviour is OK.
Louise Mensch has highlighted a major problem for women in public life, and the usual media outlets (Radio 4, The Guardian) have expressed their tut-tuts and disapproval, which is great, but isn’t going to materially change how people behave. Women and men alike have to call out anyone who expresses this kind of sexist abuse, no matter where it comes from. We have to let everyone know that simply isn’t going to be tolerated anymore. If all of us are serious about it, we could create real change that will benefit men and women alike.