The Week in Patriarchy
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
AOC represents the future of America: women who refuse to be silenced
Arwa Mahdawi
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez elegantly eviscerated Republican congressman Ted Yoho on the House floor this week
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Ocasio-Cortez speaks about ‘culture of violence against women’ after Republican’s insults – video
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Bitches get things done
Hello? Police? I’d like to report a murder. On Thursday Republican congressman Ted Yoho was elegantly eviscerated by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the House floor. In just under 10 minutes, the New York congresswoman made Yoho look like the yahoo he is, and delivered a searing indictment of structural sexism. Do watch the full speech if you haven’t already – it’s a masterclass in responding to misogyny.
Some quick context: on Monday Yoho confronted AOC on the steps of the US Capitol, calling the congresswoman “disgusting” for talking about how poverty can drive crime. As the pair parted, Yoho called Ocasio-Cortez a “fucking bitch”.
While Yoho’s insults were overheard by a reporter, he insists he never made them. On Wednesday, Yoho told the House that he apologized for the abruptness of the conversation he’d had with his “colleague from New York” (he didn’t even give Ocasio-Cortez the courtesy of addressing her by name) but that the words attributed to him had been misconstrued. Yoho also noted that he has been “married for 45 years” and has two daughters so was “cognizant” of his language. As we all know, it is impossible for married men with daughters to be sexist. Just look at Harvey Weinstein and Brett Kavanaugh. Just look at Donald Trump!
Some media reports characterized Yoho’s sneering speech as an “apology”. It very clearly wasn’t: it was an assertion of power that followed a familiar pattern. First came the gaslighting, the insistence his behaviour had been “misconstrued.” Then came the self-righteous justification. “I cannot apologize for my passion,” he declared with a smirk on his face. The subtext to his little speech: What are you going to do?
As Ocasio-Cortez noted on Thursday, at first she wasn’t going to do anything. After wryly tweeting “b*tches get stuff done” on Tuesday, she was ready to be done with the situation. You get used to dehumanizing behaviour when you’re a woman, you get desensitized to it. You don’t report abuse or harassment because nobody is going to take you seriously. You ignore the guy shouting obscenities at you on the street because you’re afraid for your personal safety. You ignore sexist comments from a colleague because you’re worried about your professional security. This is one of the most insidious things about patriarchy – it takes the fight out of you. You let things go.
But, after Yoho’s non-apology, Ocasio-Cortez decided not to let this go. As she explained in her speech, she’s encountered language like Yoho’s a million times before. “[T]his is not new, and that is the problem. This issue is not about one incident. It is cultural. It is a culture … accepting of violence and violent language against women, and an entire structure of power that supports that.” She went on to criticize Yoho for using his daughters as a shield; “I am someone’s daughter too.”
It wasn’t just the content of Ocasio-Cortez’s speech that was powerful, it was the way she delivered it. There was a carefully controlled fury in her voice that every woman will be familiar with. “I cannot apologize for my passion,” Yoho declared; as a man he doesn’t have to. When Brett Kavanaugh threw a temper tantrum in front of the Senate judiciary committee, Donald Trump Jr praised his “tone.” Men like Kavanaugh and Yoho are not penalized for their “passion”; they’re not penalized for showing their emotion. Women are. Show too much emotion and you’re “hysterical”, you’re “crazy”, you’re a “nasty woman”. And so you learn to control your fury, to modulate your emotion. You learn to apologize for your passion.
But no matter how measured you are, no matter how reasonable, it’s never enough. A New York Times article about Ocasio-Cortez’s speech cynically noted the congresswoman “excels at using her detractors to amplify her own political brand”. Instead of analyzing the cultural norms that allow men like Yoho to belittle women with impunity, it cast Ocasio-Cortez as a disruptive opportunist. A woman standing up for her dignity is reduced to “brand-building”. The article is a perfect example of what Ocasio-Cortez was referring to when she talked about Yoho’s actions being supported by an “entire structure of power”.
That structure of power, it’s important to note, encompasses race and gender. The only thing that irritates men like Yoho more than an outspoken woman is an outspoken woman who also has the temerity not to be white. “I cannot apologize for my passion or for loving my God, my family and my country,” Yoho told the House. The subtext of that, of course, is that women like Ocasio-Cortez do not belong in “his” country. As Ocasio-Cortez pointed out in her speech, it’s a sentiment she hears a lot: “The president of the United States last year told me to go home to another country, with the implication that I don’t even belong in America.”
Guess what? Ocasio-Cortez isn’t going anywhere. She represents the future of America: women who refuse to be silenced, refuse to “know their place”, and refuse to apologize for their passion.
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Topics
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
The Week in Patriarchy
US politics
Democrats
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