Author Archives: Linnea Ostlund and Jenny Wilson

Opinion: Behave yourself, woman

When we woke up this morning, we saw that Alex Salmond had used some choice words in the House of Commons yesterday during a debate. A marvellous orator he may be, but he also appears to be fond of sexist language.

Salmond told Junior Minister Anna Soubry that she was ‘demented’ and to ‘behave yourself, woman.’ This type of language is unacceptable, and without excuse. Yet many of his supporters are attempting to excuse his behaviour on Twitter, with the main theme being that what he said is not real sexism and that I should perhaps save my ‘outrage’ for real sexism. What is real sexism though? Is it the murder and gender based violence statistics? Is it the gender pay gap? Or is it putting down women through language use? Or perhaps, it is all of the above and more. It is simply a different expression of the same underlying problem.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged and | 47 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Jana
    “ One practical solution would be to make it much easier for primary school teachers to requalify and go to work in our secondary schools” Really? Most p...
  • Michael BG
    Peter Davies, In the report the IPPR suggest that the 2% could start being paid by pensioners from the personal allowance (£12,570) level. From this income ...
  • Michal Simon
    @Sarah Dyke You have highlighted an important problem. Climate change is already hitting farmers in practical ways: wetter winters, flooded fields, longer drou...
  • Andy Daer
    @Matthew Harris, I don't share your fascination with ChatGPT, but when asked about Israeli politicians who've advocated the killing of Palestinian children beca...
  • Ben Mathis
    If the planned reorganisation was so bad - as a Londoner and thus not affected, I can't directly comment - then it's good to see the government reconsider. The ...