What do you think?

Under your logic if a country is invaded the citizens should just put up with it rather than stand up against it because it perpetuates the invasion...

 

Yeh I don't think people should go around calling people names, thats definately verbal abuse. Like I said before basically I think it comes down to the situation and how the word is meant- if its used in a derogatory way then thats not on but if someone is joking and the other person is in on the joke then its fine. I mean you can't go around calling a woman a bitch just because you think its ok because shes likely to be offended.

 

Once again there is a big difference between adolescent immaturity and cultures of people using their language to alienate and degrade people based on their gender or race. Do you really think white folks cared if the word ****** bothered black people or not before they started using it? Hell, most white people wouldn't even talk to black people, they used the word amongst themselves, teaching it to their children, and perpetuating it for decades. It wasn't until black people started standing up for their rights that the word lost it's stronghold. THis is everything opposite of your solution.

 

BTW, I think it would piss you off just a little if someone went up to your mom or your sister or girlfriend and called her "you stupid worthless bitch of a horse ****!" just like you called me. And if it wouldn't you obviously have little respect for those people yourself.

Words are NOT just words. Words are how humans communicate and relate to eachother.

 

By the way, jester "****** rig does not mean lazy.It pertains to fixing something,eg=car,lawnmoer,door ,whatever without the proper tools and/or parts.It's actually a nod to igenuity.Just thought I'd clear that up.

 

damn it, i have to agree with Sera on this one. Bitch is gender specific. When i tell my brother not to be a bitch, i'm saying dont be such a chick.

However, context is important. If some girl scratches my car and i call her a dumb bitch, i dont think it's verbal abuse. If i come home and call my wife a bitch or **** for no reason then i think i'm guilty of verbal abuse.

 

I dont know the legality of it at all, first off, but this is how i see it:

verbal abuse is repeated and unjusitified. If someone damages you(or your possession), a verbal rebuke is not out of line. Now, if i live with a woman for 20 years and call her a bitch everyday, putting her in a state of fear and deep degredation, then i think that is abuse.

scratcho: p.s. i've never heard 'nig rig' used as a nod to ingenuity but as a jab at someone's shoddy job of fixing something(i.e. a piece of plywood over a hole in the wall).

 

No, I also said abuse is repeated. An off the cuff remark out of passion isnt abuse, IMO.

 

Both examples can result in jail time depending on a cop/judge/Jury buying the story.

Round here 'nr' is used in different ways......including the two quoted above.


Makes me right Proud to read no bitchin bout the simple word 'honky'...













































...gotta go meet some Folks at Bubba's - a honky tonk down the Road.

 

i don't mind being 'a' bitch or 'a' ****
but i won't stand for being called them directly

 

You went too far, Jester. Post number was a direct personal attack.

 

Megara--yeah that too.

 

Abuse can certainly be a One Time thing. It doesn't negate it as abuse. If a girl took something of yours, and you ONLY hit her once, it wouldn't count as "abuse" because you didn't do it every day? Bullshit.

The word Ni**er comes from lazy slave owner's attempts to say "Negro" which is how African American people were referred to. Where I live, no white person is called this name, no matter how "lazy" they are, it means a mean thing to a black person, and IS abuse and an insult.

I had a professor in college who taught a great Ethics Class. He talked about how the Nazis would use language to change people's minds about things, and to degrade people until they were not even thought of as human anymore. Jews were refered to as "Cattle" in writting and in speech. Other types of words were used to desentize others to the abuses of the Jewish people, and to help degrade the Jewish people. Language is very powerful.

Calling someone a "bitch" is different than using the word in a different context. Calling whining "bitching" is less harmful than actually outright calling someone a bitch. The only time I use it, is when I am either trying to parody a certain sterotype (as in the "how many womyn does it take to screw in a lightbulb" joke, which makes fun of those who speak like this) and when I am talking about dog breeding, where Bitch means an unspayed female of pupbearing age.

Calling someone the other word "The C Word" is IMO nasty. I don't use it at all, not to insult or to refer to parts of the body. I can't imagine my dh calling me EITHER of these words, or other gender specifc insults (I don't call him a dick or anything like that.) I respect him in a similar manner. Insulting his mother (by calling him an SOB) isn't acceptable in our house, either.

Hitting ONCE isn't OK. Either is using verbal abuse, "once."

 

We're talking verbal abuse, i made that very, very clear. I agree with you, however, about physical abuse. Violence is only justified to save your life from an imminent threat.

I have the same opinion about ****. Funny thing is, when i went down to New Zealand, **** is used so frequently...it pretty much stunned all the American guys, as we were taught that **** is pretty much the female equivalent to ******.

i agree, hitting is never justified outside of self defense.

However, i would not agree that every use of "bitch" "asshole" "chauvinistic pig" is a form of verbal abuse. Are we going to start sending women to jail for calling a guy a 'chauvanistic pig' after he whistles at her? Surely i shouldn't go to jail because i scream "stupid bitch" at some girl who cuts me off in a car. Now if i look at my wife and yell "You dumb stupid fucking whore" for something like misplacing my keys...then i'd agree.

 

bitch, I don't find terribly offensive. I've been called a bitch a few times in my life and honestly, I take it as more of a compliment than an insult despite it's intent. I was being ballsy and standing up for myself then, it's not something a lot of people are used to

****/whore/slut/etc... yeah, when used as insults they're awful, they suck ass. And they're gender specific for the most part (manwhore or manslut, we have to specify that we're talking about men and not women.

 

The whole concept of verbal abuse is a joke anyway.

 

Bitch is as demeaning to women as the word bastard, ofcourse, there is a reason for this I think. That is , women in the early pre-modern/modern age took on the roles of "moral" upholders of society, they were very religious and the entire religious organizations were made up by women- although the leader was a man, the women were the army. If you want proof of this, go read the history of the organizations like the salvation army and you will see that many women were mobilized to change their societies. Why is this important? - Because women were the moral upholders, some one who goes out of this context slightly was heavily criticized, and these markings are still there today in our society.

 

Jail? No, of course not. You could call her that, it is not against the law, but it is still a bit abusive.

I try to stay away from sexually charged insults. I don't call men "bastards" (usually, sometimes I call GWB this, force of habit) "SOBs" (it's insulting their mamas, who I don't even know) or "Jagoffs" (for some reason, that word bugs me as much as ****, it just is soooo crude and mean) I don't call womyn "Bitches" or "cunts" at all. I may occasionally say, "Oh, God, stop bitching." But I try to use "Piss and moan" instead, it's hard to change what you grew up hearing, but I am trying.

I man I know is having a problem with one of his daughters. He told me, "She's a little bitch." and my jaw just dropped. I dont know, you just don't call your own kids things like that. Maybe that's why he's having such trouble with her, total lack of resepect in their house by ANYONE. I can't even imagine calling one of my daughters a "bitch" or my son a "jagoff." It would be an awful thing to do. And abusive as well.

As for calling the girl who scratched your car a "bitch" and going to jail. Now that I think about it, some vllages have "public abuse" laws, where you actually CAN go to jail for verbally abusing someone in public. I think it is more like a ticket, in most places, but they do take people in. I've seen in on our village Police Blotter in the paper.

 

verbal abuse is someone who claims they love you putting you down. It doesn't matter if it's your husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, father, or mother or anyone else close to you. It doesn't matter what words they use or if it's "joking" or not. It is verbal abuse, and it leaves behind major scars on your self esteem and confidence in yourself. Biggest problem is, you don't see it for what it is until much much later.

Calling someone female genitalia is a sign of the oppression and lower social standing women have in our society (yeah, and people still deny it, so why is it so much worse for a guy to be called a "pussy" than a "dick"?). I don't think it's so bad, in itself, but the reason people use such terms is what is so very horrible.

 

because it denies who you are. It is worse for a woman to be called masculine things(hairy, butch, tom boy) than just a bitch.

So of course being called a pussy is worse than a dick for a guy.

But being called a hairy lipped, butch dyke is worse than a bitch for a woman.

I think it has little to do with the 'lower social standing of women' than it does with stripping a class of people of their identity: male or female.