Sluts, bitches & hos: Women, the last bastion of denigration

As we have learned in the last few weeks, making racist, racially charged, or anti-gay comments or slurs is now a punishable, or fireable, offense. Or at the bare minimum will incur the collective wrath of social media, celebrities, bloggers, Liberals, the main stream press, and, on occasion, even Republicans.

But it is still fine to slur, denigrate, demean, or slut-shame women! 

I know, PHEW! Right, bitches? I mean, we wouldn't want Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly to lose his job or be suspended, right*? And what would life be like without rap music?

And lest you think that guys are the only ones getting away with saying awful, humiliating things about women, just check out all the press around Monica Lewinsky this week.

While society has taken steps to ban or punish bullying in other arenas (at school and online), apparently it is still a-okay to denigrate or humiliate, or "slut shame," a woman for something stupid and naive she did, consensually, with a married man who should have known better, at the age of 22.

And you know who are the worst offenders? Women! WTF? Seriously, WTF, ladies?

Shame on us.

I'm not saying that it's okay for women, of any age, to go around seducing, or trying to seduce, married men. It is not. But find me one college age or slightly older female who hasn't lusted after a married professor, rock star, celebrity or famous person, who wouldn't have jumped at the chance to have "sexual relations" with that man.

Indeed, at Hillary's alma mater back in the 1980s, trying to seduce the (often married) male professors was a sport.

We women can be such hypocrites.

And it's not just the Monica Lewinskys who get the abuse (deservedly or not). Any woman who is deemed too flirtatious, too aggressive, too threatening, or too whatever, especially if she is attractive -- even if she hasn't done anything wrong -- is fair game.

We women can't win. You turn down a guy, you're a bitch (according to the guy). You don't turn him down, you're a slut (according to other women).

By the way, of the 201 slang words for women, the majority are derogatory and have to do with sex (and loose morals), while there are only 72 slang terms for a man, the majority of which are not really pejorative, mate.

And while I applaud society cracking down on racists, bigots, and homophobes, I wish sexism and misogyny, vicious anti-female comments and slurs, were greeted with the same ire and intolerance. (Ditto anti-Semitism, but that's another blog post.)

*For the record, former shock jock Donald Imus was not fired from WFAN back in 2007 because he jokingly referred to the Rutgers women's basketball team as "hos." It was because Imus called them "nappy-headed hos," i.e., he used a racial slur. (Just Google "Donald Imus firing." Almost all the articles cite Imus as using a racist or racial slur, not the fact he called the women hos.)

On the NBA, Donald Sterling, and the right to hate

So this week we were again reminded that racism is alive and well in the good ole United States. Is anyone really surprised?

Sure we feign -- or legitimately feel -- moral outrage, or disgust, at the likes of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who thinks black/African-American people would be better off as slaves, and L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling, who doesn't like the idea of his alleged girlfriend, his African-American-Mexican girlfriend, going to basketball games with black guys.

And we should feel outrage, or at least disgust. Hate speech of any kind is abhorrent.

But while there are laws about discrimination in the work place, it is not illegal to say racist, sexist, homophobic, or xenophobic things in private or in the privacy of your home -- though it is a crime in the State of California "to record or eavesdrop on any confidential communication, including a private conversation or telephone call,without the consent of all parties to the conversation."*

To quote billionaire entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban:

I think you’ve got to be very, very careful when you start making blanket statements about what people say and think, as opposed to what they do. It’s a very, very slippery slope.

...[t]here’s no excuse for his [Donald Sterling's] positions. There’s no excuse for what he said. There’s no excuse for anybody to support racism. There’s no place for it in our league, but there’s a very, very, very slippery slope.

If it’s about racism and we’re ready to kick people out of the league... then what about homophobia? What about somebody who doesn’t like a particular religion. What about somebody who’s anti-semitic? What about a xenophobe?

In this country, people are allowed to be morons.

But... if we're taking something somebody said in their home and we're trying to turn it into something that leads to you being forced to divest property in any way, shape or form, that's not the United States of America. I don't want to be part of that.

Cuban also tweeted that he "100% agreed" with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver's decision to ban Donald Sterling for life from associating with the Clippers organization or the NBA and fine him $2.5 million, the maximum fine allowed under the NBA's constitution.

Watching ESPN's live coverage of the Silver/NBA presser and listening to the immediate post-conference media coverage, it seems that many people (i.e., basketball players, coaches, owners, and reporters) were happy with the verdict (though wondered why the NBA hadn't done anything sooner).

Does that mean that the NBA has eradicated racism (and hopefully other forms of hate speech) from basketball? Hardly. But it does send a powerful message, at least to basketball team owners. (Though I worry that the message could be interpreted as, make sure no one records you!)

Now if only the FCC -- or Clear Channel Communications -- would ban Rush Limbaugh from broadcasting and fine him millions of dollars. Ditto all the hate spewers on Fox News. But as any dittohead will tell you, that would be un-American.

UPDATED 4/30/14: If you haven't read Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's great opinion piece re Donald Sterling and racism on Time.com, go read it now.

*Though I doubt V. Stiviano will be arrested.

We're all a little racist, y'all. Does that mean we should be fired?

So as many of you know, this past Friday, the Food Network announced it would not be renewing the contract of its popular Southern chef Paula Deen. The Food Network did not provide a reason, but most people assumed it was due to the revelations that Deen had repeatedly used racial slurs, including the "N word," and told racist jokes in front of and to employees at her restaurants.

Personally, I thought the Food Network should have fired Deen years ago -- for crimes against arteries and the pancreas, or, more specifically, for concealing the fact that she had Type 2 diabetes for four years, due to her incredibly unhealthy lifestyle, which she encouraged millions to emulate, and only revealing the fact that she had Type 2 diabetes and had changed her diet after she had inked a lucrative deal with drugmaker Novo Nordisk. That, to me, and to thousands of other Food Network viewers, ruined any kind of goodwill I had in regard to Paula Deen.

That Paula Deen occasionally told an off-color joke or occasionally used a derogatory word in the company of fellow white Southerners? Not so much.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not condoning racism -- or sexism. But there is a difference between telling the occasional politically incorrect joke (which WE ALL have done) and truly believing that one race or sex or religion is superior or inferior to another.

But even if Paula Deen was proven to be a racist (and I'm not sure how you'd do that), or have racist opinions, is that grounds for being fired? Maybe if you are an elementary school teacher. But the host of a Southern cooking show? (And, btw, the Food Network did not fire Deen. It just decided not to renew her contract at this time. Which means it could re-sign her at any time. Which it may very well do.)

By the way, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if Fox, a network that seems to consider racism, sexism, ignorance, and intolerance job qualifications not disqualifications, gave Paula Deen her own cooking show. Nor would it surprise me if the Food Network re-hired Deen a few months or a year from now. Because as we all know, what's a little racism compared to big ratings, y'all?

THIS JUST IN: Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork producer (and here I thought that was Congress), has just fired Paula Deen as its spokeswoman. The reason? Per a company statement, Smithfield "condemns the use of offensive and discriminatory language and behavior of any kind." (I'll believe that when pigs fly. I think it's just one more company jumping on the politically correct bandwagon.)