Here we go...this may settle the whole "shrill" matter.

[Bicoastal]

"Shrill" has two definitions, a LITERAL definition and a FIGURATIVE definition.

The first one, referring to a high-pitched noise, seems to be the most discussed definition here. There's no need to talk too much about it, as it's the use of the word everyone seems familiar with.

However, when we say a speech, essay, or blog is rather shrill, we don't mean literally that the author has a high-pitched voice. We mean that the urgency of the language mirrors the intensity of a yell or a siren, two sounds that immediately suggest panic. (There's a term for linguistically substituting one of the human senses for another, like when we say a tie is LOUD, or someone turns to you SHARPLY, but I forget what it is.) It's important to note that "shrill" can and is used to talk about written words as well as spoken words; bloggers are particularly singled out for shrillness. But again, you don't have to scream to be considered shrill--you just have to say panicky, strident things, such as "The Liberal Democrats have created a 'Politically Correct' police state, and if we don't act soon, they'll push our country straight over the cliff and into fascism, then anarchy." Say this sentence in a urgent but measured tone, and congratulations, you've just used what can be considered "shrill language" without raising your voice. (Although it's even more apropos if someone is doing both.)

In this second regard, shrill is a unisex adjective and can be used to describe anyone's intense language or dialog--despite the gender of the speaker or author. "Shrill criticism" is a phrase often encountered in male-dominated politics, as is "shrill opposition," "shrill debate" or, yes, a speech that "sounded shrill." But it has nothing to do with demeaning anyone as womanly or un-macho--it means that the politicians in question were using language that was the verbal equivalent of a scream. Don't take my word for it--Google two words, "schaivo" and "shrill" and see how often this phrase was used in 2005 to describe the House Republicans and Religious Right on this issue. Anyone who claims to have never before encountered this use of the word likely doesn't read enough political material or is just looking for a fight.

Here's the truce I propose--any time the phrase could NOT be used for any candidate other than Hillary is sexist. Any time it could be used for anyone in the race, it's perfectly acceptable.

Examples:

"In a loud, shrill voice, Clinton harangued Obama on his past drug use much in the way an angry parent would address a wayward child." This is clearly sexist--it's singling out Clinton for her voice, which is of course higher than a man's, and applying the LITERAL connotations of the word. No other candidate could be described in such patently demeaning terms.

"Hillary Clinton's speech was a strong one, although once again she sounded a bit shrill on national security, reiterating the need to keep suspected terrorists under careful surveillance." This is NOT sexist--it's referring to the language she's using to describe her stance on the issue, not her tone of voice. You could substitute "Rudy Giuliani" in place of her name, and the sentence would read the same.

Does this makes sense? I don't claim to be an expert on the English language, but I do use it as part of my job. Feel free to come up with some reasons why I'm totally wrong.

[TwilightZone]

1. As I noted in your other thread, it's simply a matter of intent and context.

Some of the people who use shrill to describe Hillary quite assuredly intend it to be gender-identifying.

[hlthe2b]

2. Yes... just as "cackle" and the other slew of misogynistic

terms... I'm not supporting Senator Clinton at this point for reasons relating to her positions. When people focus on her tone of voice, her laugh, her looks--using these types of derogatory terms that are most often used when referring to a woman that has somehow offended the speaker, this is SEXIST and it is WRONG.

[TwilightZone]

3. Agreed.

I have yet to select a candidate, but the constant stream of this garbage - not to mention the constant defense of it by some DUers - is getting pretty tiresome.

There is simply no doubt that the terms are being used with a sexist intent. The words themselves are not inherently sexist, but the context and intent makes them so.

As someone in another thread pointed out, "uppity" is not an inherently racist word. However, when used to reference Obama or another African-American, it most certainly is.

[Bicoastal]

4. Sure...

...but I think we shouldn't refrain from using it if and when it's appropriate--or immediately assume that people who DO use it in a context involving Hillary are sexist.

[KittyWampus]

20. how can a term that is not used exclusively for one sex be gender identifying? It CAN'Tt

so why anyone makes shit up is beyond me.

[K Gardner]

5. Good job, excellent post.. thanks :-) n/t

[iamahaingttta]

6. I find Sen. Clinton's cackle to be quite shrill.

I don't care if anyone thinks I'm sexist for saying that.

[MethuenProgressive]

7. Shrill isn't sexist - unless you use it that way.

Justifying sexism by splitting hairs? Pathetic.

[Bicoastal]

9. I'm in agreement with you--it ISN'T sexist unless used that way.

But what you're trying to say is that every time the word is used to describe Hillary Clinton, it's automatically sexist?

That makes no sense. Context is EVERYthing.

[KittyWampus]

21. There's no way to make shrill sexist. It's not. It's NEGATIVE. But not sexist. The contortions

and mental gymnastics used to try and paint it as sexist are kind of pathetic.

It is NOT specific to women.

I gave plenty of examples off the first three pages of google where it was used for men and groups.

It took three pages to get to a woman.

IMO, this is just a small number of DU'ers who need to prove they're 'more liberal than thou'.

[TwilightZone]

23. Curiously, the only people I've noticed making that claim...

aren't Hillary supporters. My, what a coincidence.

I'm not even a Hillary supporter (I'm undecided at the moment), but I find it disturbing that people are willing to readily defend sexist behavior simply for political convenience.

[Enrique]

8. I see it exactly opposite from that

your first example, the literal use of the word, I see as being no problem, but also as not being the issue. Does anyone even use it that way about Hillary? Her voice isn't even particularly shrill, literally speaking.

The second example, which you say is the non-sexist one, is where the problem is, imo. How did that person come to the judgement that she sounded "a bit shrill?" Would they have come to the same judgement if they were talking about a man, or would they have judged him to sound "strong?" The use of the word suggests that they might have thought she sounded too strong for a woman. It conjures up an image of a shrieking harpy.

[Bicoastal]

10. Here, this took me a while to compile.

"At the South Carolina GOP debate the other night, Rudy Giuliani's shrill response to Texas Congressman Ron Paul over the war in Iraq made me wonder if America's Mayor wasn't going to break down and cry right there."

"I will be voting for Democratic, but McCain isn't’t exploiting it any more than any candidate talks about their personal accomplishments. McCain served honorably and withstood torture…he backed up his tough talk with action. Furthermore, while he did criticize Hillary, he wasn’t nearly has shrill as Giuliani or any of the others."

"The emphasis by McCain in the closing days of the campaign on Bush's negative advertising (including independent expenditures financed by Texas billionaire Sam Wyly) was ineffective. McCain came over as shrill, climaxing a series of tactical blunders over the past two weeks."

"There's no doubt that they got students talking. Right after the film, Lindzen, who has criticized Gore's "shrill alarmism," sent the students into an uproar when he stood on the stage and said, "Al Gore lied to you. Everything you have just seen is propaganda."

"Since no one thinks Keyes has a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the Republican presidential nomination, neither Mitt Romney nor Rudy Giuliani even bothered to challenge him when he launched his shrill attacks against them."

"Governor Romney's shrill cries of outrage against the Turnpike Authority follow a well-established Republican routine: Protect corporations, attack rivals, and sow fear to distract people."

"Socialism by any other name is still socialism -- whether it is advocated by shrill zealots like Kucinich or by other Democrats whose words are smoother."

"Edwards was shrill and personal in his attacks against the Senator which is nothing new."

"As Chuck Todd, the editor of National Journal's Hotline, marvels, "Howard Dean says it, and it's shrill; Edwards says the exact same thing, and you melt."

"Bush's shrill derision of liberalism seems to be a sign of political desperation these days. What would the nation have done without the New Deal during the Great Depression?"

These are Googled articles from the Left, Right, and Center, and taken from newspapers, blogs, and anonymous posts. I won't deny that Hillary's name came up an AWFUL lot--but while we should remain sensitive to the word's use, I also think we should refrain from verbal totalitarianism. Sometimes the word's appropriate in context, sometimes it isn't.

[Enrique]

12. the only one of those that is sexist is the one about Rudy

but seriously... thanks for taking the time to compile that list.

[noamnety]

15. And in all of those examples

they are using shrill to denote what, exactly?

You laid out that when it's used to describe the pitch of a voice (literal) it's sexist. You have a remarkable ability to divorce yourself from it's metaphorical meaning (sounding like a woman) even when you yourself say it's used to mean sounding like a shrill (high pitched screaming) voice.

That's like saying calling a woman a c*** is sexist if you actually mean the body part, but if you use it against a man as a metaphor, there's nothing sexist about it.

Please.

:eyes:

[Bicoastal]

19. ONCE A-FUCKING GAIN...

Shrill has 2 meanings.

When used to describe a speech or political rhetoric it means the equivalent of "strident" "urgent" and "sharply insistent on being heard." I think you'll find that every example I gave meets that criteria. Nowhere do these descriptions focus on the actual TONE of the person's voice--just on their rhetoric.

Now you can argue with me that shrill, like, I don't know, "womanly," descended from a phrase that is only reserved for women. But that's NOT TRUE! People have been using the word for centures to apply to men, women, animals, anything that makes a high sound. So you can't argue that when we talk about "shrill rhetoric," we mean "womanly rhetoric"--it just doesn't follow. Yes, Hillary's voice and personality gets called "shrill" by people who want to disparage her, but her rhetoric and opinions are often (but not always) called "shrill" by people who note her tendency to become strident when talking about Iraq, Iran, etc. We should be careful how we use that word about her, but like I noted, EVERY politician's rhetoric gets called shrill eventually, and it often has absolutely nothing to do with gender or gender politics.

As for c***, it's a prefectly legit historic word. Chaucer and his contemporaries used it more or less clinically. Now today, it's taboo, although Brits and Irishmen use it to mean someone who's an idiot--like "jerk," and "dork," both of which have been used to describe male genitalia at some point or another. You SEE how many knots you end up tying yourself into when you say "that word can only mean one thing to anybody--and that is something offensive!"

Context, history, analysis, no assumptions. That's how language and words should be viewed.

[noamnety]

11. Reasons why you are totally wrong.

As I said in the other thread, the figurative use of the word ties in gendered stereotypes associated with people (women) who have shrill voices.

When it's used against men, it demeans them by associating them with negative qualities attributed to women in our culture. If you want to say someone is impassioned and focused, you say that. If you want to give it a negative spin, you associate those same qualities with words we use to describe women. Hysterical, emotional, nagging. Shrill.

Your attempt to demonstrate that it can't be sexist because we use it routinely against men is not logically sound because we routinely insult men in this culture by using sexist slurs that demean women.

[Bicoastal]

13. NO. Shrill is just as frequently used NOT to demean men as "womanly."

Like I said, google "Schiavo shrill" and you'll find plenty of quotes used to decribe the GOP and religous right during that controversy. Now explain to me how that adjective was used to portray the Republicans as somehow feminine. You won't be able to do it--because "shrill" in this context means "strident," "urgent," or to use the thesaurus definition, "being sharply insistent on being heard."

When "shrill" is applied to LANGUAGE or SPEECHES, not to specific SOUNDS or VOICES, it takes on a different meaning, and one that often has little to do with demeaning a male as a "hysterical, emtional, and nagging" woman. Which, by the way, are adjectives that I certainly don't just reserve for women.

[noamnety]

17. maybe this will clarify things

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3845855&mesg_id=3846237

[Perry Logan]

14. "Obama defended himself in a guttural voice..."

[cali]

16. nope. doesn't make sense. Think angels on pins. think

fine hairs split. The best comment I've seen about this here is the one saying you don't use "uppity" in reference to a black person and using "shrill" in this context- regarding a woman presidential candidate- is much the same. It's not a perfect comparison, but it works.

[Bicoastal]

18. No, it's a very imperfect comparison.

Uppity has been used for years as an obviously demeaning slur on African Americans. I think the female equivalent is probably "bitchy," and you can bet that that'll always be sexist when referring to Clinton, no question.

What would the black equivalent of shrill be? (God, I'm starting to get so sick of that word.) Probably articulate--because to describe Black people in this way gets you in trouble now, even though in a colorblind society, you could call anyone articulate and not get remanded for it--just like, in a society with no gender inequality, the word "shrill" wouldn't warrant a second look. But because the word is prejudiced and biased and sexist, we DO have to split hairs and examine each case carefully, not making any assumptions, to read the intent of the writer or speaker.

You know, there's SO much more confusion with using words than anyone suspects. In every word we use, one must take into account:

*What you actually FEEL about said issue
*What you want to actually SAY about said issue
*What you actually DO end up saying about said issue
*How people HEAR what you say about said issue
*How people INTERPRET what you say about said issue
*And how people WANT to interpret what you say about said issue.

It's not always cut and dry, is what I'm saying. And we all get into trouble from time to time because of it. If you can believe that Joe Biden wasn't thinking like a racist when he called Obama "articulate," you can certainly accept that not everyone who calls Hillary Clinton's speeches "shrill" thinks she's a bitch.

[ClarkUSA]

22. FACT: Rich said THE CLINTON CAMPAIGN WAS SHRILL, NOT HILLARY

Funny how Hillaryworlders NEVER EVER complain that Krugman is being sexist when he refers to Hillary as Mrs. Clinton, eh?

Playing the "sexism" card will not prevent millions of Rich's readers from agreeing with his assessment. :-)

[Caseman]

24. Agreed.

I find it stupid, stupid, stupid that they would even start connecting these common words to sexism. If you think they are sexist, then that just shows where your mind is at. Hillary Clinton's laugh is a cackle, that's the word to desribe it. It's basically an onomatopoeia, nothing more, nothing less. If you think it's sexist, then you're being ridiculously over-defensive.

[DrFunkenstein]

25. Whatever You Call It, Her Laughter Is Hollow and Mirthless

And downright creepy. Biden probably has the best laughter of the bunch, followed by Obama.

As far as the language of shrill, it connotes a stridency that lacks warmth and empathy. Which sounds about right to me.