*grumble*

[ksmith]

The root story about the apparent jockeying for position between 2 CNBC financial reporters is balanced enough at first glance--although I wonder if age differences would be noted so obviously if men were involved. But the Huffington Post headline stating that "CNBC Insists There's No Catfighting Between Its Anchors" just irritates the hell out of me, and not just because it's a standard HuffPo crank-the emotion-up-just-a-little-more headline. Yes, it's the term "catfighting," that handy denigrating catch-all that I've seen used to refer to disagreements between females of all ages and professions, no matter the roots of the disagreement. Because it's all about the hissing and scratching, which makes a lot of entertaining noise, but really doesn't mean anything. No genuine positions of strength. No heartfelt principles being argued. No ambition or ego. It's just girlfighting, and isn't it all one step above jello wrestling anyway?

Yes, I did expect more from a blog/website run by a woman. Guess I expected too much from Ms Huffington.

Update: And now the headline, which is buried on the Media page, reads: "CNBC Insists Burnett, Bartiromo Get Along." I have a feeling it was edited for space, not because of any sudden dawning that maybe they'd made a really lousy choice of words.

Comments

[slave2tehtink.livejournal.com]

The casual use of denigrating terms to refer to women in any position really irks me, too. Sometimes it makes me wonder if I'm too sensitive, and other times I just see it as symptomatic of a societal tendency to be dismissive of any opinionated woman who doesn't giggle and play dumb when the men come around. I admit there may be a tinge of bitterness there, since I never did get the knack of playing dumb OR giggling vapidly, and 9 years in the male-dominated military will run you up against more patronizing crap than any one person should have to deal with.

In my hey-day on the ship, I whipped out my pack of birth control pills to demonstrate to a guy that I was pissed because he was an asshole, not because I was pre-menstrual (my pill pack showed quite clearly I was dead in the middle of my cycle, thank you SO MUCH Mr. Patronizing Asshole). I did it just because i was tired of every criticism a woman offered being dismissed as her being hormonal, or needing to get laid, or whatever the excuse du jour was to just dismiss her opinion rather than listen to what she was saying.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Sometimes it makes me wonder if I'm too sensitive,

I don't think so. As I posted below, the terms/words are used everywhere, including reporters for mainstream newspapers who I would think would know better. It's this undercurrent of dismissal, subtle and damning. Momma scold. Wifey nag. If they'd just shut up, the real discussions could go on.

[slave2tehtink.livejournal.com]

In one of my favorite books, You Just Don't Understand, by (I think) Deborah Tannen, she notes that even when women don't speak more than men (in a meeting, say) they are perceived as having done so. The stereotypes are just so pervasive, and it honestly makes me despair, sometimes, of ever achieving any sort of equality in this country, let alone the world.

[e-moon60.livejournal.com]

I don't despair but I know it will be a long, hard, struggle which will require generations and generations to complete.

And that shouldn't be surprising. Why WOULD the entire male sex, worldwide, want to give up all its privileges, status, etc. for the benefit of people it has been conditioned to believe are incapable and unworthy? How eager is the average general or admiral to let a civilian plumber plan a military compaign? Few military officers of flag rank think any civilians have what it takes to do a flag officer's job. And--what's going to happen to them if equality comes? Some of them are going to find that they aren't at the top of the heap anymore.

That is exactly the resistance to feminism in this country at the professional level: women *are* taking places that men (in my childhood) assumed were theirs by right...places in medical school and law school and Harvard Business School and so on. Nobody likes being kicked out of their entitlement...whatever it is. Nobody likes to believe that their entitlement has nothing to do with their innate quality, either. It's much easier to think status, money, and opportunity was lost unfairly.

The only long-term victory--by which I mean true equality of opportunity, not squashing everyone in the same mold--will come with decades to centuries of steady, firm, intentional work.

[e-moon60.livejournal.com]

Did you comment on that to Ms. Huffington?

You do bring up an interesting point about other words than direct noun-labels being used to denigrate a gender/race/religion. Certainly "catfighting" is one commonly used of women in conflict, and it's clearly minimization. When men are having exactly the same kind of unimportant little row that people mean when they talk about women having a catfight, it's not called a catfight.

If women are protesting something, their voices (single or multiple) are often described as "shrill" no matter what the real vocal timbre, and women "scream" or "shriek" rather than "yell." A woman dressed in what the observer thinks is inappropriate dress (esp. "revealing") is said to be "parading around" or "parading herself" or "showing herself off"--this even when the observer shouldn't be there observing in the first place, as if any place a woman is, she should be prepared to be observed and criticized.

And there are the nouns for women's gatherings: gabfest and hen party, with the implication that women in a group are just silly hens clucking away about nothing much.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Did you comment on that to Ms. Huffington?

Quick answer--not yet. I need to register with the site to do that, and I won't do that until I get home.

I have noticed the same types of wording/terms used by papers such as the Washington Post. Female politicians nag. They scold. The wife/nanny/bitch dynamic. Do the writers not realize how the use of those words and terms trivializes the subject? Do they not care?

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

The answers to your last two questions are the same:

"Probably not."

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Given that these folks are in the word business, I find that very...sad.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

And I just registered. It will take up to 24 hours to activate, which they probably do in order to keep out the hit 'n' run trolls.

The comments I saw were unfortunately what I expected. Cracks about the women's looks. That they should duke it out in a jello wrestling match. The level of commentary on many of these blogs can be pretty hit and miss, but this lacks anything resembling intelligence.

I don't know why Huffington had garnered a rep as a pundit. Her site lacks and from what I've seen on the air, she isn't extraordinarily erudite or well-spoken.

[e-moon60.livejournal.com]

Some writers use those terms because they think them accurate--they think of women as mommy/nanny/bitch. Some use them because this is how everyone says it and cliches are a journalist's best friend--easily recognizable catch-phrases that grab readers and make it clear what the journalist is reporting. Some to please what they think of as their readership...it's the male readership that counts, after all. Some just don't think about it at all.

Similarly charged words are frequently used for anything a writer disapproves of: opponents "yap" and "whine" and "moan"--reducing opponents (male or female) to naughty puppies.

Protesting the use of such emotionally-charged and biased terms will be called an appeal to "political correctness" and ridiculed for that--not for its truth or untruth. Using such terms makes argument easy--you can avoid the issue at hand by characterizing the opponent's tone as yapping/whining and thus dismiss his/her arguments without having to face them. If you can, in your own mind, reduce your opponent to a naughty puppy or spoiled child, you can dismiss what he/she says--it's all beneath your contempt. (Thus Bush, that first Christmas he was in office, saying smugly that the best thing about being President was that he didn't have to listen to those who disagreed with him. They were just 'nay-sayers'.)