“Sarah Palin is a Cunt” (just like you and me)
October 13, 2008
by Sheryl Lee
|The following image appeared on a supporter’s page at Obama’s campaign site. It has since been replaced with something innocuous, but the Google cache remains.
Ben Smith writes:
One of their [the t-shirts'] creators, emailing under the name Rhiannon Volpe, objected to my suggestion that she was a Democrat:
“I personally am a registered Libertarian, supporting Obama this year. Palin is the last woman I want to hold a political office right now. Her lack of common sense, cruel treatment to animals, and just plain ignorance to what we (Americans, and even women) really care about is absolutely frustrating. The point of wearing the shirt to me is just a bold way of saying that she certainly is not liked or one of ‘us.’ To play the gender card is irrelevant, because I am a woman who wears the tshirt anyway.”
She added that McCain had, reportedly, used the word himself, “so is it really that offensive?” And she said none of the people pictured were Democrats.
The t-shirts were available for purchase at Café Press yesterday, but the item has since been removed from their listings.
The four people in the following picture showed up at a Palin fundraiser in Philidelphia on Saturday wearing the t-shirts.
UPDATE: I have reason to believe that this: rhiannon.volpe@gmail.com is Rhiannon-Marie Volpe’s email. According to Ben Smith, she’s one of the shirt’s creators.
If that had been a group of McCain supporters sporting a Barack’s a terrorist or Barack’s a *igger, it would be all over the media.
This is the second day I’ve seen this but only on the blogs.
I pity the women in the lives of those men wearing that t-shirt, I truly do and these people have the audacity to claim that the rest off the world looks askance at America because of George Bush?
I was outraged by these t-shirts and I sent an email to CafePress this morning with copies to media outlets and NOW and ReportSexism@yahoo.com. Let’s see if NOW makes a statement. I wonder if anyone in MSM will report on these vile trash items for sale and the fact that there is a double standard when it comes to a blind eye turned toward Barack Obama supporters’ actions.
I just saw Tammy Bruce on FoxNews and she was fabulous in articulating exactly these points!
Thank you, NewAgenda!
These people don’t even look like they shower with any regularity.
Hoping that people such as these can be brought around to understanding any higher ideal is, unfortunately, a lost cause.
These are some lost people.
People have to WANT to be better. People who would wear t-shirts like these have long ago given up any aspirations to enlightenment or decency.
It’s a great reminder for the ideals of civility and mutual respect.
May I please make a remark without offending anyone??
The comment about “trailer trash” is, well, I spent about 12 years in the manufactured housing industry selling anything from pretty high end two story homes you would never guess were built in a factory to singlewide homes.
People are not trash… and I know we don’t stop and think sometimes about how we speak.
Let me be honest. I have been known to use the “b” word on very rare occasion. I will make every effort to… stop.
I see now that it diminishes a woman as a woman, and therefore all women, and I hadn’t really thought about it in that light.
Grace.
Laura D, thank you pointing out the trailer trash remark. Actually that slipped by me, and I’ve now removed the comment. I agree with you that it’s inappropriate.
Society is dead! When did such offensive behavior and the law of
common decency end? This is not free speech! This is degenerate behavior that at one time would put a person either in jail or in a
mental institution. Vulgarity as extreme as this was not allowed in public! Period. Even in the Sixities where I spent my youth, this kind of public behavior would have been regarded as threatening to women and illegal. Those assembled would have retaliated
on the spot. Tell me, when did the law and the ability of people to distinguish what is acceptable change? I guess, I need your help!
Domestic violence shelters are filled with women trashed by men – some of you have yourselves convinced you can’t fight with the gloves off, literally and figuratively – its not my place to tally the homicide, rape and battery statistics against women in the real world, not in some spiffy blog I won’t.
If a woman uses this kind of vile language against her own kind, I can only conclude that she really hates herself. Well New Agenda, we have a lot of work to do… Thank you for your leadership.
For all we know, these could be agents provocateurs for the McCain campaign!
whether McCain has actually used the word or not, this Rhiannon person using that as her excuse is the product of a second-rate intellect.
Dude, it’s, like, ironic! This is totally edgy. Super modern roofie-generation hipster chicks think it’s sooo fun and empowering to call women cunts! Today’s super cool post-feminists are anxious to show they’re more “fun” than their boring old women’s libber moms and they’re just soo equal or whatever now, they can prove it to their tattooed frat boy friends by calling themselves cunts! Wow, isn’t equality great?
I particularly want to see Anderson Cooper on this. He practically needed a BIB when he was sputtering over that Curious George Obama tee shirt. Where is he on this one? AWOL, just as he was on the bros before hos shirt.
Why do people who would wear shirts like this always LOOK like this? I’m just sayin’……
I think “Post-Modern…” is onto something. Why do some women think that joining in the language of anti-female haters makes them somehow uber feminists?
I’m glad this Rhiannon has achieved her 15 mins of fame. She’ll be so proud telling her grandchildren about it some day. However, she should be informed that it doesn’t take any heightened intelligence or talent or skill to “shock”. She’s the same as the other attention seeking hateful idiots out there.
To those waiting for NOW to denounce…don’t hold your breath.
In tonights last presidential debate, Senator McCain tried to bring up the vulgar T-shirt issue, but Obama rudely interrupted him. I was so disappointed that McCain did not get the words out. Barak Obama is apparently to classless to acknowledge the issue and apologize for his web-sites delinquent behavior. It is exactly what I have come to expect from Barak Obama. But from Joe Biden, Mr. violence against women act, where is the outrage? I have lost all faith in my party. Chris Hedges of the N.Y. Times said it best.
“I place no hope in Obama or the Democratic Party. The democratic party is a pathetic example of liberal bourgeois impotence, hypocracy and complacency. It has been bought off.”
I volunteered for Senator Clinton’s presidential campaign and would have done the same for my Congresswoman Alyson Schwartz. But to see these women campaigning for a man who has zero respect for women absolutely breaks my heart. I will not only be supporting McCain-Palin but I am now determined to pul the full republican lever. My party is no place for a lady!
[...] Senator Obama’s supporters proudly wore shirts printed in giant neon green letters that said, “Sarah Palin is a Cunt”. One female supporter was so proud of this t-shirt that she posted a picture of it on Senator [...]
Perhaps we could set Rhiannon up with Ezra on the other blog?
Itsa match made…somewhere…….
On top of it all, the type of Obama supporters who’d wear that T-shirt are actually *proud* of their rabid vileness.
Every time you think people can get no lower, they prove you wrong. And WOMAN that would wear a t-shirt like that or approve of it is a self-hating nitwit.
And men who would stoop so low, just the right mates for the self-hating nitwits. That would work out well because no “real” man would wear anything so vile and no “real” woman would either. Just nasty little cretins who should be kicked out of the human race.
This is the result of the pornification of the women’s movement and all talk of things such as *waves* which were never real anyway. Such talk only served to make the misogyny more acceptable in ever increasing levels for each successive generation. It was b.s. It was a way to dismiss the legitimate anger at hatred of ones gender to the extent that it has always been taken. We were not to be “too radical” “too angry” “humorless*
Because if you can’t joke about hatred of your gender who are raped, beaten and murdered in their own homes in such high numbers then you really do need to lighten up right *sarcasm*
So now the wave this behavior comes from wants so desperately to be seen as post everything they’re so far out the way out is in to paraphrase a song…it’s b.s. of course and it always was.
I also love the way this young woman says “Americans….EVEN women* She’s behaving like a trained seal.
God help us if these women-hating men, their female enablers, and The One they worship ever assume power.
You know, as offensive as many people find these shirts and as unprofessional and hypocritical as they make them look, they do, in fact, have a right to free speech. I’ve seen plenty of people walking down the street wearing shirts with offensive slogans and words and no one raises a finger then because it’s not a politicized as this.
They have the right to dress that way just as you all have the right to say what you like about them and their clothing choices. The fact that you’ve given them so much attention means they’ve won. They wanted that attention, or else they wouldn’t have worn the shirts.
Instead of ranting on a political blog, wouldn’t it be more prudent and much more effective if we got out there and worked to change the misogynistic culture that breeds this kind of behavior? This one T-shirt is only a by-product of the real problem…in order to change their actions, you have to change their way of thinking and I guarantee that you won’t do that by ranting about their clothing choices.
It is with charity in my heart that I publish the above comment. Stick around, Cait—you might learn something.
Cait,
Since you took the time to write such a lengthy response to this older post, why don’t you tell us your suggestions – we are all ears:
“in order to change their actions, you have to change their way of thinking”
What would you suggest Cait?
But aren’t the T-shirts part of the misogynistic culture? Indeed, I’m positive that they are. The culture of misogyny is an interwoven fabric, and you can start pulling a thread anywhere to begin unraveling it. It strikes me as a bit bizarre to argue that we shouldn’t pull on this one thread, even though it’s staring us right in the face.
Your argument reminds me of people who say feminists shouldn’t complain about sexism in the movies; they should work to change the “culture” — as if the movies weren’t part of the culture.
[...] 1. McCain’s website had pictures of folks modeling their CafePress-fresh “Obama is a nigger” t-shirts. [...]
When I check our spam filter I notice that this post keeps getting picked up by the bot aggregators that some porn sites use.
It’s the ’sexy’ title, I’m sure.
Kamagra…
Is there a way to subscribe? It doesn\’t seem to be working….
[...] Palin. We stood up for Palin while she or her likeness were hung in effigy, knocked unconscious, called the c-word and, raped in words; and when the media questioned Palin’s abilities as a mother, and [...]
[...] is losing its sting and should be “reclaimed?” I think it’s because our liberal friends discovered it during the 2008 [...]
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