*ahem* I would like to start "reclaiming" some language--"Feminazi"

[Thtwudbeme]

For instance-

I now think of Karen Hughes, Condi Rice, Michelle Malkin (although I actually feel sorry for her...she's really a nasty person to the bone...not really even Conservative), Anne Coulter...etc...as:

"Feminazis"

High powered career women--most not married---who want to play with the ugly men so damned bad that they will screw other women to the wall to get their idea of "power."

Are there any others?

[tanyev]

1. Katherine Harris

[whatever4]

2. Hillary

sorry, but I haven't seen her stand up to much of anything, but rather seems to be keeping her head down. For election? Sure, and if there isn't a country left by the next election Hillary, what then?? Just another sellout.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. Another member of the DU circular firing squad.

[Thtwudbeme]

4. I am not in the Hillary camp....I actually want John Edwards.

nt

[txindy]

7. Excellent points.

All of those are good points. What IS Clinton waiting for, anyway? Besides, the presidential primaries, I mean.

[txindy]

5. That purple bandaid cow at the RNC. Plus, Babs. Can't forget Babs!

[Fleshdancer]

11. Yes, Babs definitely deserves to be on this list

and of course people like Ann Coulter.

[wellstone_democrat]

6. too late for that one

even if you want to "reclaim" it the popular meaning by the person who coined and promoted it is ingrained and your definition would require "defining" it as you use it. The latter issue alone makes it useless as a "turn around" phrase because it really stays the same with the slight nuanced element meaning "uppity women that *I* don't like" rather than simply "uppity women" in the Limbaughian sense---he knew what he was doing with that term: it has the global appeal in allowing the user to apply the finer definition himself while the general definition is easily understood.

But, have fun and good luck, my profession is cultural linguistics so I'm just throwing in my .02 cents on the futility of it all: you will spend more time defending and explaining it that it is worth.

[zanne]

15. It just sounds like something a 12 year-old would say...

Limbaugh really knows his audience.

[wellstone_democrat]

19. yes, and that is why it was so *effective*

I've heard, and undoubtedly most of us have, the claim that "Oh, I don't mean all feminists or all women when *I* say "feminazi" I just mean a certain *type* of woman"

Nice try at a slide through a loaded cultural term whose meaning is always meant to have that "out" built in---which is why culturally it isn't a "candidate for reclamation" Its a simple linguistic truth. What happens when someone calls a woman you admire a "feminazi" under this proposal? You end up arguing the finer points of what *you* think is appropriate for a woman to do and why your narrow definition is OK and not misogynist but that your hearer is.

there are plenty of other words that communicate effectively your distain for Hughes and her ilk without feeding the beast of the general cultural meaning already universally applied to the term which is distinctly misogynist.

[orpupilofnature57]

8. How about mummy dearest, Babs, helping, whelping and yes yelping

ShrubCo needs a certain type of lass.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

9. So you mean

like reclaim it from the usage that defined it as a woman who was such a feminist that she was Nazi-like in her passion for equality?

So this definition kind of takes a right turn from there?

Then I would have to add Barbara Boxer. And Martha Stewart. Both of whom I respect, but I think they fit your definition.

Interesting post and good ideas to ponder!

[Thtwudbeme]

12. Barbara Boxer, Martha Stewart, and Hillary have done nothing but

champion careers for women, other than getting married and having kids.

They do not fit the definition at all!

Thanks for the compliment though...I just had to clarify that point.

[Finder]

10. How dare females participate...

in the political process.

:sarcasm:

[Thtwudbeme]

14. Yes, how dare they. Particularly when the policies they push

harm so many women's chances at jobs, healthcare and education.

[sando]

13. My personal favorite

Phyllis Schafly the woman who can be thanked for tanking the ERA as it was about to be ratified setting back women who actually need equal pay for equal work as single working moms.

[Vanje]

16. How about just, "Nazis"

Its their ideologies , not their genitalia which offend.

[WildClarySage]

18. thank you.

[wellstone_democrat]

21. see mine above for a linguists take on why this is bad

because it is inherently misogynist, was framed that way at conception and that having to parse out specific meaning will not work but only add to the current use. You cannot "turn around" this phrase culturally: its too loaded by its specifically gendered meaning.

[Thtwudbeme]

20. Not to me. Sorry, but women fighting for Conservative vaues are

more upsetting to me than a bunch of mean white men who traditionally have banded together to form groups against people based on gender, race, and religious preference.

[wellstone_democrat]

23. maybe not to you but to everyone else you speak to

they already have a programed meaning that is highly effective. See any of George Lakoff (or Lakoff and Johnson's joint work) on why metaphors work so well culturally. You can decide to turn this around but none of your "hearers" will be mentally turning it around even when you laboriously explain it. You will simply be, culturally speaking, one more woman buying into the original meaning which is anti-woman. Limbaugh and friends also say it is just a "certain type of woman" as well---one with whom you disagree politically and applied to women who dare to be public political actors.

But, good luck with it if you chose to pursue it. Thanks for the example for the 9 am lecture on political rhetoric.

[Fleshdancer]

22. because their policies go against gender equality n/t

[orpupilofnature57]

17. Any woman that defends Kkkarl Rove!

[meti57b]

24. why not use "femifascists"?

Everyone knows they are not "nazis". "Fascists", they definitely are.

[Agnomen]

25. Got my vote for "femifascists"

[Toots]

26. The name is mean-spirited no matter who it is applied to

Why do you wish to call people names? Name calling is for Freepers. Liberals are supposed to be better than that. If you think I am being hypocritical by calling them Freepers remember that is their own term for who they are.

[Moderator]

27. lock

flame bait