It’s About Time Someone Called Ivanka A ‘Cunt’

Are we really pretending it’s better for a man to grab women by the pussy than it is for a woman to call another woman a cunt?

Comedian Samantha Bee made headlines this week for calling Ivanka Trump a “feckless cunt” on her TBS show “Full Frontal.” Bee has since apologized, but that hasn’t prevented President Trump from taking to Twitter to demand she be fired.

Since the news broke, conservative and liberal icons alike have condemned Bee’s remarks, saying she took things too far. Considering that Bee’s comments were made in the context of Ivanka’s failure to help families who are being separated from their children at the border, I’d say she went just far enough.

Ivanka is a manipulative, dangerous oligarch who shows off pictures of her own children while turning a blind eye to the devastation her father’s policies are wreaking on the less fortunate. I’m sure she loves her kids, but what makes her love more valuable than the love of brown mothers and children?

If Bee had called Ivanka a bitch, dick, jerk, or asshole, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. It’s the word “cunt” that we’re supposed to be horrified by, not the sentiment itself. “Cunt” is vulgar and anti-feminist, or so the internet tells me.

Let’s be real: The only reason we take the word cunt more seriously than dick is because patriarchal assholes decided the worst thing anyone can be is a vagina. But giving in to this weaponization of our bodies by avoiding the word or, worse yet, referring to it in hushed terms or as the “c word” isn’t feminist. It’s perpetuating the same misogyny that led cunt to bad-word status in the first place.

As a woman on the internet who dares to speak out against rape culture, I’ve been called a cunt more times than I can count. In almost every case, the person calling me a cunt is a man. That weaponization of the word is supposed to be a justification for not using it now, but I call bullshit.

Suddenly, conservative voices simply can’t tolerate the use of “anti-feminist” language by a comedian. I’m touched that so many conservatives are suddenly so interested in feminism — except, of course, they aren’t.

They’re donning the “anti-feminist” outrage because it’s convenient. It suits their narrative. But many of the people decrying Bee now are the same ones who turned a blind eye when President Trump’s supporters used the same word against Hillary Clinton, or when their fanboys drive women off the internet with the same misogynistic tactics on the daily.

Are we really pretending it’s better for a man to grab women by the pussy than it is for a woman to call another woman a cunt?

I’m sick and tired of the left chewing itself up in the quest for perfection. When they go low, low, lower than any of us ever thought possible, it’s not our job to go high. We don’t have to engage in respectability politics; we do not have to be saints. We’re allowed to be angry and to express our anger. We’re allowed to call a feckless cunt a “feckless cunt.”

And if you can’t tell the difference between Roseanne getting fired for a decade of racist comments and Bee calling a public figure a cunt, you’re probably being purposely obtuse. But in case you really don’t see the difference, let me spell it out for you: Women can call other women cunts. No white woman can call a black woman an ape. Full stop.

What we should all be upset about is our president demanding the firing of a public citizen. For all the cries of “freedom of speech” that have nothing to do with the First Amendment, this time it’s actually in jeopardy. This time, the government is actively trying to censor a private citizen. This is your moment, freedom of speech advocates, but all I hear is pseudo-feminism and concern trolls.

So let me be crystal clear. Ivanka Trump got what she deserved. The only mistake Bee made was apologizing.

Jody Allard is a former techie-turned-freelance-writer living in Seattle. She can be reached through her website, on Twitter or via her Facebook page.

Other Links: