When Subtle Sexism Attacks: The San Francisco Gate on Elizabeth Warren
At first glance, last month’s San Francisco Gate article about U.S. Senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren seems fairly harmless. However, upon looking a little more closely at the language used to talk about Warren’s involvement with the Occupy movement, we can see that this article is pretty problematic. Author Phil Bornstein describes Warren using quotes from “her enemies” who call her by outdated sexist tropes and uses hyper-gendered language to discuss her intimate involvement in the origins of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
After asking the question many are thinking about lately—what the next steps for the Occupy movement look like—author Phil Bornstein answers,
One hint passed through San Francisco last week, a woman called by her enemies ‘the Mistress of Mayhem’ or ‘the devil incarnate’ and who herself takes some credit for the intellectual midwifing of the OWS movement: Elizabeth Warren, the bare-knuckled Harvard law professor, financial-industry regulation advocate and scourge of Wall Street now running for Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat in Massachusetts.
Let’s just be clear. When it comes to Occupy Wall Street, Elizabeth Warren “created the intellectual foundation for what they do.” Using a word like “midwifing” to describe a woman’s involvement in the creation of one of the most important movements affecting our current political climate seriously diminishes her accomplishments. Finally, we all know that the word “midwifing” would never be used to talk about a male candidate—making this a clear violation of the reversibility test.
When it comes to repeating the sexist term “mistress of mayhem” that Warren’s “enemies” use to describe women, Name It. Change It. just has a few questions: Why? What is the point of perpetuating language that has been crafted to hurt Warren? Whether this is just careless and lazy writing, or a more intentional move to weaken Warren’s stature, it’s just plain sexist.
Published by Kate McCarthy on 01/20/2012