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this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2024
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Socialism
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I saw a headline today about Trump (in private) calling Kamala Harris a bitch and someone referred to it as a slur (presumably against women). Since there's not an exact equivalent for men, but bastard is usually the "equivalent" male-aimed curse word, I was wondering when we would see someone on beehaw arguing that "bastard" is a slur, but against the children of unmarried parents.
Bastard is only a slur against a person born to unmarried parents if being born to unmarried parents is considered wrong. In older times, this WAS seen as wrong, because sex outside of marriage, and raising a child outside of a traditional family unit, was seen as wrong.
Bastard lost its 'slur' edge a long time ago. Trying to call it a slur is assigning "wrongness" to the state of being born to unmarried parents.
Words change meaning over time. Calling someone "queer" used to be an insult (now it can be used as hate speech but I can also say "Oh my friend Lucy? She's queer." without it being hateful). For that matter, queer didn't always have sexual implications (it meant weird) — I feel like trying to call bastard a slur is the same as trying to say "queer" is a slur against the neurodivergent.
yeah I only use bitch and cunt to insult men these days. or inanimate objects.
interestingly, "vixen" used to be a similar insult to bitch. it's a female fox, nowadays it implies a seductive quality but back in the day it meant the same thing as bitch
Yeah calling a woman a bitch just oozes extra sexism that calling a man that doesn't. That's definitely in slur territory as far as I am concerned.
it's not even so much that it's a slur, it's just fucking lazy. if a woman is being an asshole, tell her she's being an asshole. or a dick
There's still tons of people who will judge you for having children without getting married. A lot of religious groups still consider it a moral failure. And even if it was completely accepted now, it still became an insult in the first place because of that stigma, and you'd still be using it within that historical context. You can't reclaim a slur by continuing to use it as an insult and ignoring where it comes from.
As an example, I've seen pretty many people use slurs for Romani people as a term for getting scammed or cheated. Usually they didn't know the origin of the term, and didn't mean any harm by it. They had heard it being used and assumed it was just another word. But you don't just accept the definition these people have in their heads as an alternate definition, disconnected from the original. It has the meaning it does based on bigoted stereotypes, and by using it they're still spreading that, even if they aren't hateful themselves.
The religious people I know would not use bastard, though. Not in any context. Cursing is a sin to them. To my knowledge bastard has not be used in conjunction with systemic oppression, so the Romani comparison is not quite apt.