File this entry under, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”\u00c2\u00a0 I won’t be expending a lot of blogspace or words on the election.\u00c2\u00a0 Anyone who knows me can guess where I stand on it, assuming they haven’t heard me already.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 No, you’ll get to dismiss my thoughts on a different topic altogether.<\/p>\n
I need someone else to explain this to me.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve been a vocal supporter of feminism for some time.\u00c2\u00a0 When the ERA was effectively crushed, I was stunned.\u00c2\u00a0 I was in junior high at the time (called “middle school” in my neck of the woods.)\u00c2\u00a0 But no one, not even militant feminists, has ever explained to me why the word “lady” is now an insult.<\/p>\n
The discourse went something like this:\u00c2\u00a0 I refer to someone I admire as a lady.\u00c2\u00a0 Someone jumps on me for it; the perp usually calls me a sexist chauvinist pig.\u00c2\u00a0 I explain I was giving someone a compliment.\u00c2\u00a0 Perp says it’s an insult, not a compliment, that I was demeaning women.\u00c2\u00a0 This is where it all falls apart:<\/p>\n
I ask how the word demeans women.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of explaining that, Perp insists it was cruel, condescending, belittling, humiliating.<\/p>\n
I lose patience and get confrontational.\u00c2\u00a0 I asked about the word.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead I get an emotional audit of the entire area.\u00c2\u00a0 When forced to admit whether he or she is reading minds, naturally Perp denies it.\u00c2\u00a0 The other person scrambles to regain some credibility, issuing excuses and ultimatums.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m picking them apart, trying to separate fact from spin.\u00c2\u00a0 But no explanation or definition of the word.<\/p>\n
And it isn’t just me.\u00c2\u00a0 Many others don’t understand why the word “lady” is no longer acceptable.\u00c2\u00a0 Scroll down a bit and survey the comments with this entry<\/a> of Cam Edwards’ blog.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ll see more than a few people, men and women, scratching their heads on this whole thing.\u00c2\u00a0 Consider it a testament to the confusion and rancor generated by the incoherent belligerence of poorly equipped intellectual warriors, who ransack casual conversations and social discourse like robber barons in the name of their chosen causes.<\/p>\n Yesterday, while smarting from the election, I got back on this issue by an on-air remark by Katherine Lanpher, Al Franken’s co-host on his Air America Radio<\/a> show.\u00c2\u00a0 She nailed him hard about addressing someone as a lady.\u00c2\u00a0 Jesus, here we go again.<\/p>\n