to think it’s a bit depressing that women still use these terms against other women?

[HazelMember]

I’ve noticed that the harshest, most misogynistic insults on mumsnet I hear are actually coming from women directed at other women. Words like cunt, bitch, cow, etc.

When men are criticised, the language often seems much milder or at least less specifically gendered.

Is it internalised misogyny? Habit? Just how people speak now?

I mean you don’t have to but if someone’s acting a arsehole why not call them out for it.

Better would be if you can’t handle being called an insult don’t act in a way that will get you called one.

If you’re nice you’ll be only called nice things.

inconsiderate and rude people get called names.

Some people really do deserve it. I have so many examples from customer facing roles 🙈

Well, you and YourBreezyBiscuit proving my point about women being the worst offenders.

It's used to shut all women up, regardless of what they're like. And it's very misogynistic

We are a social species, who have been insulting eachother in reaction to poor behaviour since the dawn of time. The disapproval and judgement of others is what makes people behave more acceptably, it's part of socialisation FFS.

No one is trying to shut the polite, courteous women up are they? Only the arseholes who are rude and condescending. Therefore not all women, no.

If you think about it, you probably know the answer to your question. Why do you insult people, if only occasionally? If you say you don't, ever, then I suspect your pants might be on fire.

I'm not sure I've ever heard a woman being called a bustard but virtually every other thread is telling people to leave them.

From what I've seen there appears to be far more women calling men cunts than women..

MN is also a place where a lot of threads have negative contexts so you're going to see the worst of the insults

I’ve never used the words bitch or cow or slag to describe another woman.

Areshole isn’t misogynistic.

So you have insulted people in other ways and understand why people insult eachother then and it's role in social interaction despite claiming no one needs to insult someone else. Cool. I've never seen someone dance around a subject so much!

I would never call a woman a slag or anything else pertaining to promiscuous behaviour or being "easy" I completely agree it is misogynistic because there is no equivalent for men and it is only directed at female behaviour and different standards are held for women.

Birch and cow I don't agree are misogynistic because there are plenty of male equivalent insults used for men too like dog and pig as mentioned earlier. Using animal based insults when a human is behaving in ways associated with that animal is not misogynistic. Just because the animal the woman is being compared to is female doesn't make it automatically misogynistic. If I say a woman is being a cow, or is being "bitchy" you know EXACTLY what behaviour I mean when I've only used a single word. The alternative is to use several sentences to describe what bitchy behaviour is and then say the woman is doing it. It's pointless and a waste of time just like describing the way a man is displaying poor hygiene and being disgusting using several sentences is a waste of time when I can just say he is a pig and people know EXACTLY what I mean.

Lots of people agreed with this approach on this thread but you continue to argue until you're blue in the face that we are all wrong even taking it to the absurd length of claiming insults don't even need to exist! It's honestly ridiculous. Just accept not everyone agrees with you!

I’m not blue in the face. I just disagree with you.

I think its disgusting when it comes from men or women when directed at women.
However I agree some men really deserve the strongest insults possible for their misogyny and it should come from men and women.

No I don't think its sexist. There's an long history of men using language to disparage women. Some men really have done and said things where it's fitting to use those terms for them. Imho.

However being a Vegan I don't use animal names as insults. Animals aren't responsible for the behaviour of humans nor is it comparable or accurate.