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Author Archives: Linnea Ostlund and Jenny Wilson

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Opinion: Behave yourself, woman

By Linnea Ostlund and Jenny Wilson | Thu 4th June 2015 - 7:00 pm

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.

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Posted in Op-eds | Tagged alex salmond and sexism | 47 Comments

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