Social Question

Dutchess_lll's avatar

When women are verbally attacked why does their sexuality always come under attack too?

Asked by Dutchess_lll (8753points) August 16th, 2020

How long did it take for Kamala to be called a “ho” and it was suggested she slept her way up.

Why???

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43 Answers

RedDeerGuy1's avatar

It is the low hanging fruit. No effort required. A lady friend dropped out of politics from the dirty politics. So unfortunately it works.

SergeantQueen's avatar

@RedDeerGuy1 Yeah pretty much this. It’s an easy way to discredit someone without facts/needing to look into facts.

Also because of stereotypes most likely. I mean, in general for women and sex

SergeantQueen's avatar

Someone could offer a million reasons why a woman is the best pick and someone who just wants to be right would bring up sex just to be a dick. It’s super sexist.
I am not saying men don’t get shit said to them too, but I never hear someone go “That man is only successful because he slept his way there.”

It’s an easy insult but a really shitty one.

Jeruba's avatar

It’s the other side of falsely accusing a man of some sort of sexual impropriety. If they can’t find a compromising fact, they make one up. Dirty fighters don’t care about collateral damage, never mind the cost to someone’s reputation. Enough people will entertain doubts sown by the self-appointed morality police to make this a ploy that never seems to get old.

SergeantQueen's avatar

^^ That is interesting because one is significantly worse than the other.

A false sexual assault allegation is worse

kritiper's avatar

Because it’s who they are. Everything about a woman deals in and around her abilities and instincts to be a mother.

Blackberry's avatar

It reminds me of back in the day, I dont see it much anymore, but when I was younger, it was common for trolls and ignorant people to say “Well some blacks only get a good job because of Affirmative action…”

It’s this wierd prejudice where people think you’re not even capable of a task.

This is why it’s important to ignore ignorant people: they will make excuses for anything.

If Kamala wasn’t successful, people would say all she does is sit at home or something, and if she is successful, its because she had to get it from a man in a dishonest way.

It’s classic sexist trolling by incredibly stupid men.

zenvelo's avatar

It’s the privilege of patriarchy to question a woman;s sexuality, because in patriarchal terms, that is a woman’s raison d’etre.

And by framing the discussion to be about a woman’s sexuality, it takes her qualifications out of the discussion.

JLeslie's avatar

It’s stupid.

It happens to men too. The Democrats have been trying to make a thing out of Trump being a womanizer and some would say he has sexually abused or even raped women, so going after Kamala and saying she is a whore is no surprise. It’s still stupid. It’s totally fabricated. The religious right usually responds well to accusations of it being the girls fault or that women can’t be sexual and men can.

Things like woman sleep to the top and Black people make it to high positions on affirmative action or quotas. It’s all trying to say that person isn’t really as smart or as hard working as their position suggests, but rather they got there through favoritism or loopholes or just on gender or race.

gorillapaws's avatar

@JLeslie _”...some would say [Trump] has sexually abused… women…”

Including Trump himself.

Kamala IS a corporate whore—not in the sexual sense. She’ll sell out her values to whoever’s willing to write the check, including Steve Mnuchin.

She’s a perfect partner for Biden who once said ”I was ready to prostitute myself” (in reference to campaign donations).

As far as the sexual part of the accusation against Harris, it sounds like a cheap dig. That doesn’t mean it won’t land with voters though. I’ve heard it said that a lot of Black men resent that Harris “couldn’t find a black man to marry.” Of course the attitude is wrong, but that doesn’t mean it won’t affect the vote. Harris was among the first to drop out of the Presidential primary, and did not have a lot of support from the black community at the time.

ragingloli's avatar

It is deeply ingrained sexism.
The assumption that women are inherently less intelligent, less capable, than men, and that therefore the only way that any woman could ever rise up the ranks is by trading sexual favours with men.

Dutchess_lll's avatar

Interesting. Especially @Zenvelo’s answer. Men think the only reason for a woman’s existance is so men can have sex with them.

JLeslie's avatar

Probably doesn’t help that “Me Too” in some ways emphasizes women are constantly preyed upon for sex and the returned favor is a grade or a job. Me Too is an important movement, but it can be twisted like anything.

I think @ragingloli said it best to wrap it up into one sentence.

Dutchess_lll's avatar

Oh they were doing it LONG before “Me Too.” They’ve done it since the dawn of time.

JLeslie's avatar

For sure. I wasn’t trying to say Me Too started it.

zenvelo's avatar

@gorillapaws You add an inherently sexist tone to a criticism, and try to temper it with “not in the sexual sense”. But you just smear Harris without showing any quid pro quo, no evidence that Mnuchin’s bank wrote checks of any sort to benefit the then CA AG. And Xavier Becerra has not prosecuted the bank either.

seawulf575's avatar

I think it was a bad example of Kamala Harris sleeping her way to the top. That all started not because she is a woman and they are attacking her sexuality, but because Willie Brown admitted it. They had an affair while he was still married…separated, but married. He even stated that he pulled strings to get her two positions in the government while they were having the affair. Sounds amazingly like sleeping your way to the top. Granted, there will be the ones that want to downplay it and say it didn’t get her all the way to the top. But it certainly did much more than get her foot inside the door.

Dutchess_lll's avatar

Newsflash. They were dating. Grown ups have sex when they are dating. You don’t know that sex had a single thing to do with it or if it was just part of the relatinship.
I’m sure she wasn’t the only politician he pulled strings for and I doubt he slept with all of them.

seawulf575's avatar

@Dutchess_lll Yeah, you kinda do know sex had something to do with it. And his relationship with her was why he helped her get prime spots in the California government. And as you said, relationships often have sex involved. So to try discounting it or trying to mince words is just disingenuous.

chyna's avatar

^Who the hell cares? Trump slept his way around the world. I consider him a whore.

seawulf575's avatar

@chyna When Trump is verbally attacked, why does his sexuality come into it?

Dutchess_lll's avatar

Because he’s a known sexual predator. Kamala Harris isn’t. She’s simply a women.

Jeruba's avatar

Why in the world can’t we just leave alone what happens between consenting adults?

Sexual predation is another matter. It’s a criminal act. That is not what we mean by consenting adults.

Anyway, I really don’t think virgins and celibates are necessarily the best people to run the world. As an alternative, there’s only nonvirgins and noncelibates. Some of them might have complicated personal histories, but so what? So do many of the rest of us. I don’t see spotlessness as a criterion for fitness to govern. We can’t afford to hold out for a saint.

gorillapaws's avatar

@zenvelo “You add an inherently sexist tone to a criticism, and try to temper it with “not in the sexual sense”.”

Biden literally called himself a “prostitute” for doing exactly what I described. I’m using his language. The choice was intentional to emphasize the similarities between them.

@zenvelo “But you just smear Harris without showing any quid pro quo, no evidence that Mnuchin’s bank wrote checks of any sort to benefit the then CA AG.”

Kamala’s Consumer Law Section uncovered evidence of widespread misconduct and recommended prosecution of Mnuchin’s OneWest bank. Including tens of thousands of violations.

“But Harris’s office, without explanation, declined to prosecute the case”

Kamala Harris’ senate campaign was the only Democrat that Mnuchin donated to, also a major OneWest Bank investor, George Soros maxed out his donation to Kamala (source).

You’re right, I don’t have a verified recording of Kamala making an overt agreement. Is that the requirement to claim that her actions reek of corruption?

Look, you’re more than welcome to claim Biden/Kamala is a better option than Trump and make whatever justifications you want to yourself, but you don’t get to gaslight everyone about her or Biden’s records without being corrected. I refuse to let people try to potpourri over the stench of their votes and public records and pretend the evil shit they did didn’t happen. There’s a reason why Wall Street executives celebrated Biden picking her for VP. Kamala is a shapeshifter and will pretend to be whoever she thinks she needs to be to get elected (and keep those checks flowing from big money).

jca2's avatar

@gorillapaws: How long ago is your video from? 40 years ago? I would hate to be beholden to something I said 40 years ago, or even 30 years ago. I’m glad there weren’t videos around then like there are now (in my life).

Dutchess_lll's avatar

Exactly jca2

seawulf575's avatar

@jca2 Sooo….what is the statute of limitations on saying stupid stuff?

gorillapaws's avatar

@jca2 He basically stated his intention to engage in corruption. His record reflects that corruption was ongoing pretty much that entire time, and it’s still continuing.

It’s one thing to say something stupid 30+ years ago, anyone older than 35 has done that. It’s another to then spend your entire career following through on that stupid thing, over and over again.

Dutchess_lll's avatar

Corruption? Prostitution is corruption? I thought it was just sex.

gorillapaws's avatar

@Dutchess_lll Political Prostitute:

”A person who misuses their talents or who sacrifices their self-respect for the sake of personal or financial gain.” (source)

jca2's avatar

@seawulf575: I don’t know but if people are saying Biden looks like an old man now, he certainly looked like a young man in that video.

seawulf575's avatar

@jca2 I have to ask because the comment Trump made about grabbing women by the pussy is 15 years old. That seems to be pertinent. So what exactly is the deadline to say something is too old? Or does it vary depending on if you have a (D) or an® next to your name?

Dutchess_lll's avatar

@gorillapaws
A. Having sex doesn’t take any particular talant. It’s just sex.
B. What if the women doesn’t feel any loss of self tespect? There are men out there who will get laid as often as they possibly can with no loss of self esteem. (Quite the opposite, actually.) Why are women ecpected to lose self esteem and men aren’t? What if she doesn’t feel anything at all? It’s just a job.

I stand by my original comment. It’s just sex and it’s no big deal.

gorillapaws's avatar

@Dutchess_lll This is getting ridiculous.

1. We’re not talking about the use of “prostitution” in the “sex workers” sense of the meaning.
2. A “political prostitute” is a term used to describe someone who sells out their “values” “constituents” etc. in exchange for money/power. It has nothing to do with sex work except it shares the name. This was the sense of the word that Biden was referring to in the clip. That was the sense of the word I intended when I was criticizing Harris for selling out to Mnuchin and his OneWest bank cronies.

You should read about all of the horrible shit that bank did (e.g. evicting a grandma from her home over less than a dollar in change), and then ask yourself what kind of monster would let them get away with that for campaign donations? How fucking black would your soul have to be to betray the people in your state like that?

jca2's avatar

@seawulf575: 9 years from him running for office seems very recent. I take full responsibility for things I said 9 years ago. In my comment above, I made reference to things 30 and 40 years ago.

jca2's avatar

@gorillapaws: Who evicted someone over a dollar? The judge is the one who actually has the power to evict people. Do you have a link?

gorillapaws's avatar

@jca2 ”Who evicted someone over a dollar?”

It was $0.27
Trump’s Treasury Secretary

jca2's avatar

@gorillapaws: Oh, this is @seawulf575‘s boy to defend.

gorillapaws's avatar

@jca2 Exactly. He’s a dirtbag. Trump picked him to run the Treasury. Trump is certainly a monster too.

Can you see why many of us are upset when Harris’ team recommended prosecuting his bank for thousands of violations in CA and she refused to do so, and then got campaign checks from him (the ONLY Dem he donated to) along with other investors of his bank?

I understand you prefer her and Biden to Trump, and I understand why, but I dislike people pretending Harris is some kind of wonderful person. She has made many choices in her career that were morally bankrupt to further her political ambitions (Biden too).

seawulf575's avatar

@jca2 I’ll take this one. @gorillapaws I know you think you had a good one here, but you obviously didn’t dig deeply enough. To start with, Vanity Fair is not a reliable source. They skew everything they can to the left. Anything they can hint at to make Trump or his associates look sleazy is good for them. So I read your article. Did you? And if you did, did you click on the embedded links to find the sources of their lies…er…story? Well I did. If you click on the link under the OSSIE LOFTON comment about being foreclosed on for $0.30, you are taken to a Politico article. Not much better as sources go, but they at least gave more of the details, and not details I think they wanted to let out. The part you apparently missed in your rush to slam Mnuchin is that Ms Lofton was foreclosed on by CIT bank. CIT bank was the name of the OneWest bank Mnuchin worked for…after he sold it. While OneWest started the foreclosure ball rolling, it was sold shortly afterwards and CIT bank took over. But wait! It gets better! After actually digging for, oh, maybe 5 minutes, I found out that Ms Lofton was NOT foreclosed on. So the Vanity Fair piece and the associated Politico article are both bullshit. As was foreseen by anyone that recognizes how skewed the leftie media really is. Here’s the real story:
Mrs Lofton took out a reverse mortgage on her home. The reverse mortgage was from OneWest. At some point, her homeowners insurance lapsed so they had to apply PMI insurance. The cost was $423.30 and they sent her a bill. She sent back a check for $423. They sent her a bill for 30 cents and she sent back a check for 3 cents. That was what started the foreclosure issues. That is bank policy, I’m sure…no insurance means PMI and if you don’t pay the PMI you get foreclosed on. It was not Mnuchin that personally went out and foreclosed on her and I’m willing to bet my next paycheck he wasn’t even aware it was going on. As a member of the board of directors it is highly unlikely he knew nothing about it since board members are not involved in day-to-day operations. Eventually the idiocy of the entire thing was revealed and the foreclosure process was stopped…the case closed.
So while Vanity Fair was partially right, they were also extremely wrong. Typical. Next time do yourself the favor of digging into things like this so you actually get more informed and look less reactionary.

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