Friend keeps calling other women whores and I find this offensive

December 19, 2012 12:17 PM

Friend keeps calling other women whores and I find this offensive, but she thinks I'm "censoring" her

When my friend really dislikes someone and that women seems to have slept with more than a number of men my friend would find acceptable, she would slut shame her, and keep referring to her as a whore. I find this really offensive. I'm against calling any women sluts or whores in general. I have talked to her about it and she said she understood, but she still won't stop. When I brought it up again, she said that the word is in the dictionary and she will use it when she wants to, and that I'm censoring her.

I feel like this is so ignorant of her. What are your thoughts?

posted by sedulous to Society & Culture (30 answers total)

It's got nothing to do with "censoring". You told her it was offensive to you, but apparently she doesn't care how you feel about it. She sounds like a jerk.
posted by facetious at 12:19 PM on December 19, 2012 [21 favorites]

Consider your belligerent friend's positive attributes. And if you can't come up with any, stop hanging out. Because there's no way you;re going to change this kind of aggressive behaviour.
posted by GuyZero at 12:20 PM on December 19, 2012 [6 favorites]

You can point out to her that she can say what she likes, but she also has to suffer the consequences - that's part of free speech. And you're not censoring, anyway, since she's perfectly free to use the terms whenever you're not around.

Consequence: When she uses the term around you, say "You know I don't like that. I gotta go. See ya." And leave. Or hang up.

Personally, if I had a friend who kept using terms like that even after I'd explained why I didn't like it, and they were all "Boo hoo stop censoring me," I'd quit being friends with them.
posted by rtha at 12:21 PM on December 19, 2012 [29 favorites]

Communication is all about exchanging ideas and information with other people. You have let your friend know that when she is calling women sluts and whores she is communicating (to you) that she feels a different way about appropriate ways to talk about women than she does. She has also indicated that she is not concerned about your feelings on the matter enough to change her behavior. You have to decide how you feel about that.

Personally, if this were a good friend of mine, that would bother me also and I think I'd either shift to the "When you talk that way about women it makes me not want to continue this conversation with you, goodbye" direction (as I would if a friend said something racist) or I'd just try to quit talking to them about gender issues generally and/or let the friendship fade because life's too short generally speaking. It may be that this friend has other redeeming qualities but she sounds like sort of a jerk in this exchange.
posted by jessamyn at 12:22 PM on December 19, 2012 [3 favorites]

Well, yeah. You are censoring her. Just like she "censors" herself when she doesn't call her boss a whore to her face, or like you "censor" yourself when you don't tell her that she's a judgmental asshole.

You've told her you don't like it. If she doesn't care enough about your opinion to stop doing it, then as others note, find a new friend.
posted by Etrigan at 12:22 PM on December 19, 2012 [13 favorites]

She can use it if she wants to, and you can be pissed off about it if you want to. The only thing you can do is control your own behavior - which means you are going to have to do a "I don't want to hear that and I won't stick around to listen to it" ultimatum followed by hanging up/walking out when she pulls that shit.

That is likely going to end the friendship, to be honest. And it may not be a bad thing, because she doesn't appear to care that she's making you uncomfortable. (And, frankly, I don't hang out with people who slut-shame, period, because that's generally the tip of the iceberg of internalized misogyny and intolerance.)
posted by restless_nomad at 12:22 PM on December 19, 2012 [9 favorites]

"You're censoring me" = "Stop being intolerant of my intolerance," basically. In other words, it's bullshit. Her attitude towards other women, combined with her dismissiveness towards you, suggest to me that you might want to consider how much her friendship really matters to you.
posted by scody at 12:24 PM on December 19, 2012 [6 favorites]

You would be censoring her if you refused to publish her anti-whore article in your newspaper, or if you refused to publish her book on the evils of whores, or if you refused to host her website whoreshaming.com. What you are doing is not censorship. What's actually happening here is that she is being an asshole and you are pointing out that she is being an asshole. She's welcome to use any words that she likes, and you are welcome to use any words that you like, including the words "What you are saying is offensive."

I think the real question is not whether or not you are censoring her, but how you want to handle the situation and your friendship. If you want to maintain the friendship I would suggest continuing to point out that her language is offensive and sexist every time she starts with the whoring.
posted by medusa at 12:25 PM on December 19, 2012 [2 favorites]

"That is SUCH profound bullshit that I can't believe you aren't choking on your words right now. Stop using that sexist, ignorant word. I'm embarassed to be around you when you use it, not to mention concerned that you use it to describe me when I'm not around." (If, you know, you're of the female persuasion too.)
posted by These Birds of a Feather at 12:30 PM on December 19, 2012 [9 favorites]

What everyone else said.

I hate that conflicts like this tend to come down to DTMFA, but it seems that using offensive language is really important to her even when you're among those offended by it. And it's not just offensive language but a whole attitude.

I think that having explained this already, you can only say "cut it out" and leave the room if she continues. I agree that this will probably result in the end of the friendship.

So I guess you have to decide whether you can put up with this or risk ending the friendship. Man, I hate being put in positions like that.
posted by tel3path at 12:30 PM on December 19, 2012

When I brought it up again, she said that the word is in the dictionary and she will use it when she wants to, and that I'm censoring her.

"I've been thinking about what you said, that [the word] is in the dictionary and you'll use it if you want. There's another word in the dictionary, and that word is respect. You want me to respect your desire to say terrible things about other people over and over, so I hope you'll respect my desire not to hang around with you when you're talking like that."

See where it goes from there, and rest assured: if you break up the friendship, she'll be calling you by that name in no time, so what kind of a friend is she?
posted by davejay at 12:45 PM on December 19, 2012 [7 favorites]

You could point out that "shut the fuck up" is also in the dictionary, I guess. Or you could just find a better class of friend.
posted by elizardbits at 12:47 PM on December 19, 2012 [11 favorites]

The correct answer here is "right, and that's why you say it to their face too. Oh no, wait, you only call people whores behind their backs. That makes me feel so good about what you might say about me when I'm not around. I'm going home."
posted by fshgrl at 12:51 PM on December 19, 2012 [7 favorites]

Your friend is being a childish little shit. The best you can do is say, "Hey, could you maybe just not call women sluts or whores around me? It's kind of like nails on a chalkboard to me." By making it about what she does around you, it's your best chance of framing it as avoiding upsetting someone she's supposed to respect and consider a friend, as opposed to whatever bullshit about censorship.

If using a few words is more important to her than upsetting a friend then maybe your life could start having a bit less room in it for her, because fuck that.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 12:53 PM on December 19, 2012 [4 favorites]

Every time she calls someone a whore, call her a bitch. "You know I don't like it when you slut shame. Quit being a bitch."
posted by notsnot at 12:54 PM on December 19, 2012 [2 favorites]

Yes, the word 'whore' is in the dictionary: it means a prostitute, someone who provides sexual services for money. Unless your friend is referring to someone who is providing sexual services FOR MONEY, then she is clearly misusing the word: disapproving of someone else's lifestyle and/or her own jealousy doesn't qualify. Your friend also doesn't seem to clearly understand the defination of 'censor'..... perhaps you could get her a dictionary for Christmas, and flag both words for her.

What I'd ask your friend is, how is it any of her business WHO other women are sleeping with?!? Perhaps your friend needs to look up a few more words.... terms like 'low class', 'tasteless', 'insensitive', 'insulting' and 'rude' would be a good place for her to start.

As for your friendship with this woman, well, it depends on how good of a friend she is otherwise: does her friendship outweigh her awful behavior? You've asked her to stop the insults in your presence; she apparently considers her ability to foulmouth other people worth more.
posted by easily confused at 12:58 PM on December 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

"Censoring" her language without changing her mindset won't accomplish much-- trust me, she'll find a way to make her ugly point without "bad words". Second, I've found that some friendships need to be gossip-free in order to thrive. Do not mention women she dislikes, and firmly steer the conversation in another direction when she tries to go there. There are not very many good reasons to discuss, acknowledge, or insinuate things about another person's sex life behind their back, so I suggest that both of you stop if that's something you do frequently.
posted by acidic at 1:04 PM on December 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

My two cents was going to be similar to Easily confused's comment. Also this: the n-word is in the dictionary, but hopefully she feels it appropriate censorship to remove that from her vocabulary.

I like the idea of giving her a dictionary, and closely evaluating your friendship. I would explain the way she talks really makes you question her mindset about women and morals, in general.
posted by Eicats at 1:07 PM on December 19, 2012

She's welcome to say it, and you're welcome to think it's offensive, opt to not hang out with her, and tell her that's the reason why. People who freely say this sort of thing and insult/judge others tend to be pretty negative and unhappy in general, so I can't imagine she'd be someone it'd be fun to hang out with.
posted by mochapickle at 1:30 PM on December 19, 2012

"Faggot is in the dictionary too but I'm certainly not going to hang out with someone who spits that term. Yeah?"
posted by DarlingBri at 1:33 PM on December 19, 2012 [5 favorites]

I'm with you, that's just not cool.

"I've told you repeatedly that I'm offended when you call other women whores. Please don't say that around me any more, I mean it."

If she starts to give you some crap about it just say, "I'm not going to compromise on this. I'm offended. No matter how you justify it I'm not going to see it any other way. Do it again and I'm leaving." Then leave.

In the near future, take your own car when meeting up with her so you can turn on your heel and go if you have to.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 1:36 PM on December 19, 2012 [4 favorites]

In ancient times, when people really disliked each other, they would go at each other with knives, jabbing for vulnerable spots to destroy their enemy quickly. In modern days, this is illegal, so instead we attack each other's sense of self, jabbing at emotional vulnerabilities and weak spots. In that regard, human nature never changes.

I guess one important thing to clarify here is the context. These women are her enemies, so presumably they have hurt her maliciously and she is entitled to retaliate, either from vengeance or self-preservation (or both). From her perspective, it could be that she does not even genuinely care about their sexual ethics - possibly she is simply attacking her enemies in the most efficient way possible, ie, the one that she feels will inflict maximum social and emotional damage. If she is calling them whores to their faces, her complaint about your "censorship" might stem from her feeling that she is being attacked by those people and you are limiting her capacity to inflict reciprocal harm - effectively binding her hands in a social status knife-fight. On the other hand, if she is just talking about them to you, in private, I see nothing that she could gain from such behavior, and she is disrespecting your feelings by continuing to express such sentiments against your wishes. What is the context in which she refers to these other women that way? That makes a whole lot of difference in terms of her potential motivations.

I suggest talking to your friend in private and asking her if she really feels that sleeping with a lot of people is something a woman should be ashamed of, or if she is simply trying to attack those specific people through their sexuality. Ask her whether she would call you a slut if you were to sleep with a lot of people. This may help her get some perspective on how her slut-shaming is a broad attack that inflicts collateral damage on innocent people whom she has no malice towards. (On the other hand, if she tells you that she would call you a slut as well, you might want to consider ditching this friendship.)
posted by wolfdreams01 at 1:47 PM on December 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

From her perspective, it could be that she does not even genuinely care about their sexual ethics - possibly she is simply attacking her enemies in the most efficient way possible, ie, the one that she feels will inflict maximum social and emotional damage.

This is an even less flattering interpretation, because then she's using you as a witness to their "shame" in order to make the attack effective. (And I really, really doubt this is happening to anyone's face.) I don't hang out with casual misogynists, but I feel bad for women who have to live with that kind of internalized hate. I do not feel bad at all for people who actively try to attack others using me as a weapon, and I stay far, far away from them at all costs.
posted by restless_nomad at 2:01 PM on December 19, 2012 [4 favorites]

Your friend probably doesn't understand the whole historic-misogyny linguistic issue of the word, and probably isn't going to; but if I valued the friendship at all, I would at least try to clarify the definition and open her mind a little when she uses it.

A whore is, by definition, a person who sells sex for money; it can be extrapolated to include (A) a person who uses sex for personal gain through dishonest means (a gold-digger, a serial cheater) or, (B) more troublesome, someone who simply has a lot of partners and/or has sex without being married or committed or whatever the user's moral values indicate that a nice woman would do.

If she's using it to mean the latter, you can have the "would you say that about me?" or "why is it your business?" or simply the "don't say that around me or I'll leave" chats.

If she is using it for the former (i.e. someone who cheated on her, or whom she sees as "using" people that she cares about in a sexual sense) then it's trickier because as the above poster pointed out, there is a sense of vengeance and self-preservation involved there, and she might feel like you're implicitly taking the other woman's side by arguing with her. I admit I have called the woman my boyfriend cheated on me with a whore, though I never use the word otherwise.

This woman had cheated on her last 5 boyfriends, and openly admitted to feeling jealous if a friend's husband was more into her friend (his wife) than herself. If I were her friend, I would feel bad for her, distance myself, and leave it at that. But as the recipient of one of her actings-out, I felt justified in spitting fire. And bad language.

So this is the long way of saying I would talk to the friend and if it's casual, mean-spirited usage, take the above posters' advice; if it's more personal, then be a bit more gentle.
posted by celtalitha at 2:05 PM on December 19, 2012 [2 favorites]

Note: I'm not in any way trying to justify the use of a misogynistic label. I majored in linguistics, I well understand the wrong of it, and that there are far better ways to phrase "this person is a selfish destructive bad presence." I'm just offering a side thought.
posted by celtalitha at 2:07 PM on December 19, 2012

She's dug in her heels on this, and no further arguing is going to help matters. If I were you, I'd have a short stock response, something like "that's an ugly thing to say." If she replies with "I can say whatever I want to," come back with "Of course you can. That's still an ugly thing to say."

You're not going to change her. From how you describe her, she seems like the kind of person who easily dislikes people and, I'm guessing, will use any attribute of theirs as an excuse to rag on them. Like if someone talks too much they're "annoying," but if they don't talk enough they're "antisocial," etc. She may outgrow this, she may not. (If she's older than her twenties, I wouldn't hold out hope.) If this is an accurate assessment of your friend, stop listening to her complain about others, regardless of their gender or the specific language she uses, and don't complain about people yourself. Change the subject to something non-gossipy.

Ultimately you may have to gracefully but deliberately drift apart from this friendship.
posted by Metroid Baby at 2:11 PM on December 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

Ultimately you may have to gracefully but deliberately drift apart from this friendship.

I agree with Metroid Baby. She does something that bothers you. You brought it up, and she said she would continue to do that thing that bothers you. She's told you who she is, and how important you are to her.

I'm not saying DTMFA, because a noisy exit is going to just put you in her sights. Just gradually fade away.

If you are unwilling to drop her as a friend, just tell her you are making a New Year's resolution not to make, or listen to, gossip. And all attempts at slut-shaming fall pretty firmly into the "gossip" category.
posted by ambrosia at 2:25 PM on December 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

I think you're working against some ancient monkey programming here. As social animals, we've got some old, kludgy subsystems that are very attuned to social hierarchy. Her thinking probably goes something like

I want to be high status because it makes me feel good

These other girls are competing with me for status

These other girls are a threat to me

I can either raise my own status or lower theirs

In stereotypical western culture, women having multiple sexual partners is a 'bad thing', because western culture is fucking dumb sometimes

These women have enough partners for me to level cultural judgement against them and decrease their value

Therefore, whores QED.


It's not really logical, but it's probably coming from center of insecurity/attention seeking, where she sees any girl equally or more attractive as she is as a threat. When you try to pick at this knot, you're not able to separate the slut-shaming from the whole social hierarchy knot.

She'll probably mellow out with time as she hopefully realizes how hollow a victory clawing for social status all the time is.
posted by spatula at 6:02 PM on December 19, 2012 [2 favorites]

You can sometimes make some headway in a conversation like this by making it about, like, Aiding And Comforting The Enemy.

"Look, there are people out there who believe x really atrocious falsehood about women, and want to do y awful thing to us as a result. When you say 'she's a whore,' what those assholes hear is 'I'm on your side, I support your goals, you and your sexual politics are welcome here.' Is that the message you want to send?"

Nobody wants to admit to being personally misogynistic (or racist, or homophobic, or etc.) but sometimes you can get someone to acknowledge that yeah, okay, other people can be total bigoted assholes and we wouldn't want to give any of those jerks the wrong idea.
posted by and so but then, we at 6:57 PM on December 19, 2012

I use the 'c' word a LOT, and a friend who particularly dislikes it just calls me on it when I do it.

"You know I don't like that".
"f3lix" + *disappointed face*.
"ARGH! Please stop that!"

It's difficult to change patterns of speech and behaviour, but she calls me on it every single time I do slip up around her, and the result has been:-

a) I use it less around her, and am trying for not at all - because I respect and like her and want her to continue seeing me. I don't agree with her problems with the word, but I don't have to - she doesn't like it, and like any other behaviour someone else finds unpleasant / uncomfortable, I'll try to moderate/stop it around them.
b) I've realised how much I say it and it perturbs me - it's definitely made me reflect on my use of language and whether it's always appropriate / necessary. I have noticed that when someone who doesn't swear drops a minor swearword, the reaction is a collective *gasp* from the audience, whereas my constant peppering of conversation with f-bombs barely raises an eyebrow.
c) It's made me think about whether I have inadvertently offended people before - in most circles I hang out with, this is fairly acceptable talk, but I wonder now if I've previously upset people, and they've just voted with their feet rather than raising the issue. This makes me sad, but it's also a good learning point.

So, basically, help your friend out - make her think about her (at best) lazy language patterns, and (at worst) dodgy anti-women politics - by saying something EVERY SINGLE TIME she crosses the line. You don't have to educate her and you don't have to friend-dump her (unless you want to) - she is entitled to think what she likes, and you are entitled to respond to that. She is "censoring" you, by stopping you from expressing your feelings of discomfort, which is entirely unreasonable. If freedom of speech is so important to her, she should be glad that you are exercising yours! ;)
posted by f3l1x at 3:52 AM on December 20, 2012 [1 favorite]