Thank you, DanWe all make mistakes, and we all have prejudices we are unaware of until something like this happens. Leaders apologize for their mistakes, learn from them, and move on as better people and more effective leaders.

bloody commentPam,
It wasn’t the use of the word “pussy” that got me.  It was the bleeding comment.  That felt way too over the edge.  I’m glad he apologized and promises to learn something from this.  That’s appropriate.  I’d only seen the “call me a misogynist” tweet and that upset me.  
I think it’s a mistake for people in our community to give anyone a free pass on this stuff.  By saying, “oh that’s military culture” we are just reducing the situation to “boys will be boys.”  Inexcusable and ironic from people who jump on any politician or celebrity who says something anti-gay.
Thank you for raising the issue of sexism, particularly the treatment of women in the military.  
As for Dan Choi, we’ll see.
Cindy Rizzo
PS  Almost every one of us is here on this planet because of a woman who was bleeding every month.

Odd toneThat’s one stiff apology; makes me wonder what happened in that hour.

Let’s remember where Dan Choi comes from.Here’s a YOUNG man who went from the closet and the military to an immersion in the LGBT community.  From that perspective, it doesn’t surprise me that he speaks from the culture he learned before becoming an advocate and activist.  
In those situations, the education that Dan gets from people calling him out will either produce change or resistance.  Will he continue in ignorant misogyny, or will he begin to learn to respect women as people?
The jury’s out until he judges himself worthy of being an ally to the entire community.

Thanks for the apology, Dan…It gives me hope that we CAN actually listen to each other and learn to treat others as we would be treated.

OH PLEASE PAM…COME OFF IT!!!You’re giving him the benefit of the doubt because you agree with his politics.
I did not see a similar sense of understanding on your part toward Valerie Jarett for a FAR LESS inflamatory choice of words in the context of a very positive statement.
This is a double standard at work.

Next?Right on to everything Cindy said, as well as what Keori said on the other post regarding the leadership qualities comments like this call into question. An apology is nice, but it doesn’t confirm there was a realization as to why comments like this are dangerous, particularly in the military community. I hope Choi will take further steps to reach out to his veteran sisters who are also working on repeal and sexism in the military. We would welcome him.
As a lesbian veteran, reading what Choi said reminded me exactly of the demoralizing feeling I experienced when hearing homophobic comments that no one around me seemed to think were a problem. Seeing it defended on the other post was just as bad.
I heard “fag” used every single day I served. It deeply offended me not only because I am gay but even more because the intention was for one man to tell another man they are less than a man and more like a woman, and therefore a “fag”. Fag and pussy were interchangeable. Sexism and homophobia are based in misogyny.
This comment should be treated the exact same as any other racist, transphobic or homophobic comment would. It is disappointing that it seems to treated with kid gloves because it is Dan Choi. It doesn’t hurt any less because it is Dan Choi. It isn’t any less offensive because it is Dan Choi. The comment should stand on its own.
Every time we as a community give one of our own a free pass it weakens our ability to call out those from outside our community. Would it be ok for a anti-repeal activist to call Harry Reid a fag who bleeds from the anus? Would we defend that as an imperfect person or call out the STATEMENT for what it is?
We need a sexism version of this video:
http://www.illdoctrine.com/200…
–
“If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”-Aboriginal activists group, Queensland, 1970s

One one hand, I think you POV is relativein that you see Valerie Jarrett’s (the BFF of “That One”) statements as not as inflammatory because of your own personal affection for who she represents.
Having said that, I generally agree with you…
I have to thinik about Pam’s other list of questions and come back, but, yeah, I do let quite a bit slip in private about a little bit of everything.

ButWhat Jarret said wasn’t being used as an insult. This was using women as a way to insult.

not an excuse, an explanation

I think it’s a mistake for people in our community to give anyone a free pass on this stuff.

I specifically didn’t give him a pass. I mentioned military culture as an explanation, not an excuse.
Frankly, I hear quite a lot of misogyny tossed off in gay male culture not out of malice, but ignorance or what I like to call “the blind spot”. When pointed out, then it’s a teachable moment. Does that stop the use of these words? Probably not in public comments, I doubt it’s eliminated in private for some.
Anyway, about the bleeding thing — at this point in my own health history, I want the damn bleeding thing out of my body because it’s a crappy model. But for women happy with their monthly cycles and ability to procreate, that’s another story.

You’re giving him the benefit of the doubtUm, no. Where do you see that? He needed to apologize and he did. I merely said where my perception was of where his statement came from, not endorsing it at all.
Sometimes I think people like to be contrarian and project what they want in order to stir the pot.

Would you be as willing to “explain” a similar remark from a homophobe?We all make mistakes and say things that are offensive at some point–but I do think that “explaining” something for one of “ours” doesn’t do them any favors…

No, and the reason is obviousA professional homophobe like Tony Perkins does not believe in equality. Dan Choi made a mistake — in public — and apologized for it because he does believe in equality for LGBTs. We all have to deal with the culture of racism, homophobia, misogyny we are raised in. What we do about it in life matters, but to deny we are steeped in all of it and should be forever branded by a comment as opposed to demonstrated actions is misdirected.

Jarrett didn’t INTEND for it to be an insultbut it was an insult.

In that vein…… Choi didn’t intend for his remark to be an insult to women, only to Harry Reid, and he used it becuase, until today, he didn’t know any better.  And I hate that whole “an explanation is an excuse” thing.  No, an explanation is an explanation.  I don’t see how anyone could confuse the two, but I see that all the time.
Anyway, of course Dan Choi doesn’t hate women, but his remark was insulting to women and he fully apologized.  We have no idea if Jarrett hates gays, but her remark was insulting to gays and she half-heartedly went through the motions of apologizing.  The two are comparable, but far from identical.

Actually, Jarrett went so far to saythat she didn’t believe that sexuality was a choice.
Maybe she’s a church going woman or maybe not, but by the same token who are you to judge whether her apology was “half-hearted?”
That’s your opinion, of course, but Jarrett could be just as influenced by that church terminology/background as Choi is influenced by the military.
Here, Choi pulls the Slick Willie card, “I support X,Y, and Z” and thus no one should criticize how I treat women.

It’s a long list of misogynist words…….If I’m not mistaken, a helluva lot of our vocabulary originally came from straight men who were terrified of oral and anal sex (yet they usually craved to receive oral and give anal), and these phrases were later adopted by the girls on the playground.   In the 70′s I only heard THE BOYS saying these things; in the late 80′s onward THE GIRLS were also saying “sucks”, etc.    
QUESTION – What’s so bad about sucking?  
I seriously doubt when boys originally said “That: SUCKS, BLOWS, BITES”, etc., they were refering to anything BUT weenie.   These days I hear “that sucks ass”.  So basically ANY sexual act that is deemed “submissive” is considered an insult, implying that all straight women and gay men (i.e. – those who are ASSUMED to always be SUB), are somehow “less than” THE BOYS.
It was always a BAD THING to be called a “sissy”, “pussy”, “wimp”, and even “girl”.
Now I hear children as young as 7-8 years old say “sucks”, and I wonder why.   Just as “gay” now means “lame”, “pussies” means “wimps”.   I’m not sure I ever liked this devolution.

He’s “pro-ERA” lol.Well that surely does take me back – to before he was born. He must have studied that in one of his history books in school. You can forget about that ERA, Dan, it’s long dead.

Not only did Choi apologize, butseems to have learned from his mistake and will watch his language more closely in the future.  What more do people want?  
If he continues to use such slurs in the future, that’s different.  But for now, accept his apology & move on.  Continuing to “beat him up” over it can be as divisive to our community as his original insult.

Nor did I say that you endorsed…what he said. What I said was that your reaction and willingness to understand him and what he said was significatnly different to your reaction to a less hostile comment from Valerie Jarett.
Never mind that her comments were not being used to insult anyone but was actually trying to be complimentary…you pounced on her for her language choice. You did not try to explain it or see it in anyway other than as an “obvious” example of her attitudes toward LGBT people.
Yet in this case you are willing to explain where he is comming from in a far less judgemental manner. Again, I cannot help but stress that Valerie Jarett was tryiing to be complimentary where as Dan Choi was being intentionally insulting.

What was Pam’s reaction to Valerie Jarrett?I seem to recall that neither she nor Joe Jervis at JoeMyGod reported the “lifestyle choice” comments when they happened.

The only post of Pam’s that I can findthat even mentions Valerie Jarrett’s comments is this one.

Good.At least he made a real “sorry for what I did” apology, and not the “sorry you were offended” sidestep we hear so often.

I *never* thought Lt. Choi was a “hero” in the sense that I expected him never to reproduce oppression in his actions or words. He’s a human being that appears to have a great deal of courage and a great mind for learning (else he would not have been as successful as he was at West Point).
I noticed & was offended by his use of the “p” word. But I was not more surprised nor more hurt by his use of the term than I would have been if I had learned that my next-door neighbor had said it to his kids. Dan Choi is a man of color who is also (gay?/bi? I’m not sure, though my best understanding is gay). He’s been targeted by racism and by heterosexism and has in all likelihood placed these in the center of his analysis of oppression. What is interesting and to his credit, is that he does not only fight against racism & heterosexism. But that is where his experience and his expertise lies. Outside of those two areas, he is unlikely to have the instinctive awareness of what demonizes a person that is often necessary to catch oneself using oppressive language that an oppressive culture tolerates.
I fancy myself a multi-issue anti-oppression & anti-violence activist, but as someone who grew up with white skin, I neither faced the systematic dehumanization that occurs when one is targeted by racism, nor did I grow up with people who did. That means I didn’t develop my own theories of which words were racistly harmful, why & how that I might have were I not white. It also means that I didn’t hear or participate in conversations about racism that targeted close friends/members of my family (because they were all white) and for that reason didn’t learn early from other people’s theories of which words were racistly harmful, why & how.
Dan Choi, then, is a smart guy who is anti-oppression as a political stance, but who says and does oppressive things as a human being raised in a culture that teaches oppression.
It isn’t wrong to call him a hero – so long as we don’t expect him to be of a quality apart from “normal” human beings. If we think of him as a “hero” meaning someone who has qualities that we ourselves are not capable of possessing then that is problematic.
One of the reasons that is problematic is because it leads us to hold him to a higher standard than that to which we hold others. Not only does that create problems in practice, but it also leads to failures of coalitions we should most support.
We should not hold men of color to a lower standard on issues of misogyny (and ableism, and….) but neither should we hold them to a higher standard because “they should know better.” If we do, rest assured that men of color will notice that they catch more hell for the same actions than white men do. Will that encourage or discourage feminist/anti-racist alliances? I think it will create tension between the movements…and i think that disproportionate criticism already does exist in the world. Finally, I think that it is a result of racism just as surely as it is a result of sexism when anti-racist men of color insist on better treatment from white women than they are willing to demand of white men.
I also think this conversation is particularly appropriate, because i believe that it affects how we treat Barack Obama. Don’t get me wrong, he’s acting like he deserves the same amount of credit for saying DADT as he would get for making it end.
If we want Lt. Choi to be a “hero” then we cannot allow ourselves to mean what we have too often meant: he is “for” the liberation of everyone, therefore everyone should be able to rely on him.
He is one man, with one set of skills. Because of his background, he is actually more prone to some mistakes than others. This doesn’t mean that he gets a free pass, but once a comment or two identifies the problem, piling on doesn’t really help. The necessary education of Lt. Choi will come from the people he knows & trusts – just as I learned what I have learned about racism more from people I know and trust than from books & articles.
If being a hero means that Choi gets treated like a villain, perhaps he would be better off being treated as neither.  

Words matterand I’m glad to see that Dan Choi is reconsidering his choice of words/phrasing.  

YeahEveryone makes a mistake, now and then. He acknowledged that it was a mistake, and made no excuses. He apologized. He reflected (all the way back to the ERA). And he’s probably pro women’s suffrage too.
Thank goodness that he’s human and still in the picture.
Had he explained it away and poo-poohed it, then that would be a way different story.

Misogyny in the Gay CommunityI’m SO glad to see this conversation taking place. I cannot say how much I appreciate Pam’s House Blend for providing us a safe space in which to discuss these important issues.
This week, I commented on a blog post at JoeMyGod and stated that I found female-body-centered insults to be offensive. The firestorm of comments that I received was enough to make me cry. I was greeted with personal insults, more disgusting body insults, and statements like this:
“We like having you chicks here. You girls say the cutest things.” All these guys claimed they were just making jokes, it was all in jest, so it was ok. I say that kind of language is never ok.
Dan Choi, upon being educated about the impact of his words, seems to have totally understood the criticism. He apologized and pledged to educate others. That’s good enough for me.
I emailed Joe Jervis to find out if he condoned the kind of sexism in his comment section, and I received no response. I don’t want to start some name-calling hate-athon or anything, but I think that it’s important that we hold accountable ALL who publicly speak for us.
Dan apologized, let’s accept it. But let’s pledge to educate all the other public representatives of our community as well.

I agreeI have always felt I was discriminated for being a woman before I was discriminated against for being gay.
For anyone to use “pussy” , other female body parts or female characteristics as a put down it is misogynistic.  Words have meaning no matter what the tone of voice is behind them.

Pussy“The human female genitalia in slang”
“Pejoratively, cowardicing or weakness as an insult in general”
pussy = woman
woman = weak
“Misogyny is manifested in many different ways, from jokes to pornography to violence to the self-contempt women may be taught to feel for their own bodies.”
_________________________________________
Michael Flood
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M…
defines misogyny as the hatred of women and notes:
“Though most common in men, misogyny also exists in and is practiced by women against other women or even themselves.”
_____________________________________________________
Dan Choi needs to educate himself on what a feminist IS,
not just apologise.but we DO need to hold him accountable for his words, otherwise we can’t hold all these OTHER people accountable….and,
there ARE women in the military too…
brave, strong ones, no doubt.
Dan is probably the tip of the iceberg on this type of thing,but he needs to get his act together,
if there is supposed to be a unified left, this ain’t it…..i don’t seek to vilify him.
he just needs to *”man up” to this.
_________________________________________
*’”man up”
“isn’t just being used to package machismo as a commodity. Its spectrum of meanings runs from “Don’t be a sissy; toughen up” all the way to “Do the right thing; be a mensch,” to use the Yiddishism for an honorable or upright person.’
lol.
“man good woman bad”.
hmmm….tree not so pretty…..

What if?Would people be as mum if he said Harry Reid “n****r rigged” repeal? Would people accept the explanation that he was in the military? (the military is where I learned that term). Would Pam respond “That won’t get him a job as a Beltway mouthpiece, lol.”
This isn’t just about what Choi said. It is also about the response the community had. As a lesbian veteran I feel a lack of support from both Choi based on what he said and the gay/repeal community due to the lack of critique.
I refuse to lower the standards of what is wrong just because it is someone on “my” side.
And no, simply “watching” his language in the future isn’t the relief I was seeking. I would love to see Dan take the time to understand why it was offensive to when he goes back to the military he doesn’t perpetuate sexism, which is the real situation I am worried about.
In response to Harry Jackson, Dan Choi said “I’ve faced racism in this country, and I’ve faced homophobia in this country,” he proclaims to the camera, “and it feels exactly the same!”
Well, “I’ve faced sexism in this country, and I’ve faced homophobia in this country, and it feels exactly the same!”.
Let’s work together, not against each other.

ThanksThank you Javier, as a lesbian veteran Choi’s statement made me feel invisible. This isn’t about vilification at all, but accountability and growth.

Just a curious question…Does anyone here really think that shaming people really works?
I mean, think about it. South Park and other shows on comedy central, filled with racist, anti-gay, and misogynist jokes.  They are among the highest rated on TV.
People, as a general rule, hate being forced to be “politically correct”, regardless of what form of privilege they have.  They’ll tell you to their face that they don’t like using those words, but then they go home and watch TV that’s filled with it and laugh at it for their amusement.
Black Comedy and other forms of low-brow humor are common.  I really think there are some people who think if you “shame” the American people enough, they will stop enjoying these forms of comedy or people making these form of statements.  The “How Dare You you use that word” or “how dare you have that opinion” shame method does not work.  It turns people off.    

(reality check, Dan…..) jhJD-
i know, right?
how weird to be in a place (armed forces)
that uses one’s body parts as a put down for FAILURE/weakness.
(but it’s all over-”throw like a girl” jumps to mind.)
so how can Dan fight next to someone he see’s as “weak”
and can’t trust with his back?
kinda like the Het/homophobes see HIM?
et tu, Dan Choi……
like i said, united LEFT this ain’t.
& that needs to be educated on as much as homophobia…..
http://www.thespectrumcafe.com…

from NOW:“As was correct, women’s advocates jumped on Lt. Choi for using a misogynist slur. I found his response to be breathtakingly beautiful:
He not only apologized, he committed to “educate others in any capacity I’m afforded in the future.”
In its purest form, this is exactly why feminists call out bad statements. Our role isn’t to play gotcha, give ourselves a high-five and declare someone a Sexist Jerk for Life — our role is to educate”
http://www.now.org/news/blogs/…

Dan Choi responds to using the ‘P’ wordLet’s be real, and honest.  Stop being a bunch of fuddy duddies.  OK?  I love you all, but come on!
I don’t think we should be making a deal at all about Dan’s statement.  Let the politicos make a deal of it if they want.  Dan’s one of us.  And we know he’s not denigrating women.  None of us are perfect.  Did Dan do anything despicable?  Absolutely not!  What’s being done against us day in and day out, and relentlessly, by cowardly heterosexual supremacists and their gay sycophant apologists is what’s despicable.
It’s refreshing to see someone like Dan not putting on a fancy, phony front.  What Dan said is nothing any different than than a friend talking about some jackass, and saying “he was a dick.”  It doesn’t insult me at all that “dick” is being used negatively as a slang word.  It’s just a figure of speech and doesn’t mean that he’s denigrating men.

I assume that you already knowthat for many men, their genitals are a matter of pride and incredibly symbolic of power and dominance, right?  That their egos can be tied up in how well that part of their body measures up and gets the job done, so to speak?  Under that assumption and given our culture’s patriarchal structure, do you really think that the two insults are the same?  Think about when someone is called a ‘dick’; it’s typically when they are being self centered.  Practically a complement, then, and I’ve known plenty of guys that snicker when called that, even as a derogatory insult.  It’s a matter of privilege and perspective.
What Mr. Choi did, possibly without realizing it, is proclaim that his fight could be more narrow than everyone assumed.  By denigrating women with his choice of words he made his fight against the heterosexual supremacists and sycophant apologists one for men only.
Now, I’m thinking at this point that obviously that was not his intent.  Not even close to it.  I believe in my heart that what he said was the result of indoctrination from  military and civilian cultures that proclaim a woman should know her place and serve her man.  But judging by the many comments in the various threads on this controversy, I equally believe it was the result of indoctrination from the gay male community as well that it’s okay to cut loose the less privileged.  My hope and belief at this point is that we will see him use his standing to educate people on the issue, just as he said he would.  
One slip is a chance for self-education and a wonderful opportunity for all of us to discuss how it came to be that someone fighting for sex and gender equality (& therefore against homophobia) would reinforce the existing hierarchy that is based on the same.

I assume that you already knowThanks Sara. No doubt, Dan’s choice of language came from military indocrination.  And no doubt the genocide against us – and practically all of the negative indoctrination that has lead to words in our language that are insulting to certain groups –  have all come from Christian indoctrination.
Christians no more than Muslims can say that we’re picking on them for pointing this out.