"She looks like a right tramp"

[Moranne]

On our local FB group (I know!) somebody has shared a video of a couple dealing drugs outside his front garden. She appears to be weighing out a quantity.
There's been a lot of discussion about logging it with the police, how they're a well-known problem around the area etc. And then somebody has just said, ""She looks like a right tramp".

I'm so frustrated with this comment, the subtext and the message it sends. I want to respond calmly, I don't want to let it go unaddressed, but I can't find the words.

How do you think I should respond?

How long you've been around doesn't really matter.

What? That was obviously in response to someone saying I was a first time poster.

@draughtycatflap

Is this man Tony Bennett?

Thread winner

Yes, but trolls can be long term posters. Or they can be genuine posters who make things up rather than admit they got the wrong end of the stick about something.

Lizzie- indeed 😲

This site has cracked me up tonight, what with this thread and a new comer accidentally wandering in to the fem boards asking for ‘girlie advice’ on whether to not where a bra any more

Brilliant

This site has cracked me up tonight

Well, I’m glad you’ve had a laugh because this thread has got to me tonight. I posted in good faith about something I wanted to act upon, but couldn’t quite get my words right. I feel frustrated that the discussion has been derailed, but worse I fear that those who posted in support will have a little voice of doubt about my authenticity and whether they’ve been trolled.

Just to add my tuppence to the never ending debate. Where I am in the U.K. using the word ‘tramp’ in reference to a female is definitely a synonym for slut, trollop, etc etc. If a man was called a tramp I would think they meant homeless person. Whoever said that it might mean that in the US but not the U.K. has that completely back to front.

This story also sounds like the least made-up thing I’ve ever heard. It’s the most run of the mill, humdrum misogyny we see multiple times a day. It doesn’t even matter if you’re a troll Moranne because you could find somebody actually posting something like that in fb comments in about 3 seconds flat.

It’s you and Notredamn who are making me cringe on this thread, LizzieBlackwell. Actually you’re both giving me the rage-cringe, and in huge quantities. I wish you’d both FOTTFSOFAWYGTFOSM, but it’s a free country and I don’t own MN so I suppose I and anybody else you’re infuriating will just have to tolerate you.

Meanwhile, back at the non-derailed ranch...

To those people saying it’s fine to use misogynistic slurs (AND YES WE HAVE ESTABLISHED THAT THIS WAS A MISOGYNISTIC SLUR) against women if they don’t behave like decent members of society - the thing is that these misogynist comments affect all women and girls, not just the ones they’re used about. These comments affect the culture we all live in, perpetuate it, create it even.

Saying it’s ok to judge a woman for her alleged promiscuity because she’s doing something massively anti-social and criminal (but unrelated to her sexual habits) both reflects and encourages a climate where all women and girls constantly risk being judged for their (perceived) sexual behaviour and/or attractiveness, regardless of the wider context of whatever is being discussed.

It’s saying women deserve to be judged on that basis - women and girls, not men and boys. We all know men and boys are not judged and shamed in this particular way, the age old double standard. It’s misogyny 101.

If you think it’s fine for men to make misogynistic comments about women you deem not worthy of respect, then on some level you actually think misogyny is ok and an acceptable state of affairs. Which is a bloody weird attitude for someone posting on FWR.

@WellIWasInTheNeighbourhoo

Tramp is also a synonym for homeless or vagrant, it may not have been meant sexually.

This is how I would have understood it.

@TalkingtoLangClegintheDark my issue is that we didn't actually establish that.
I completely agree with the rest of your post, I find myself saying exactly what you've just written. All. The. Time.

Like another poster said, FB is packed with misogyny- colour me shocked and surprised. It's disgusting and one of the reasons I'm not on it anymore.

Interesting. To me its connotations are - rough, dirty (as in unwashed), poor, drunk, smelly, pathetic and likely involved in criminal activity. Female only though: I don’t think it is applied to men in the same way.

I suspect its use potentially goes back to the Victorian era when poor working class homeless women - who ‘tramped’ and slept in doss houses or on the streets - were considered lowest of the low and a travesty of ‘womanhood’.

I think its use to suggest sexual promiscuity would be unexpected - I think it is used to suggest a woman is dirty, pathetic, and not sexually attractive at all. A bit like ‘minger’ but with a strong social/class element missing in that term. Not like ‘slag’. (‘Slag’ seems often to be used of attractive women, for instance by incels: I suspect they get turned on by the perceived voracious sexual appetites of the ‘slags’.)

So I’d say it is a gendered insult (reflecting perceived unfemininity in a sexually unattractive poor working class woman) but does not suggest ‘loose morals’ to me.

Also, could you tag the people who have said it's ok please, @TalkingtoLangClegintheDark

That's really interesting, Patricia

@Moranne

This site has cracked me up tonight

Well, I’m glad you’ve had a laugh because this thread has got to me tonight. I posted in good faith about something I wanted to act upon, but couldn’t quite get my words right. I feel frustrated that the discussion has been derailed, but worse I fear that those who posted in support will have a little voice of doubt about my authenticity and whether they’ve been trolled.

No doubts here that you're legit Moranne. I'm sorry your thread got derailed. I must admit I've found it crazy to see people just steadfastly fucking refuse to acknowledge the facts in front of their face. They are impervious to reason, logic, evidence, humour, appeals to their better nature... and now are having a go at trolling you with this nonsense. It's fucking stupid.

What facts, evidence etc?

This story also sounds like the least made-up thing I’ve ever heard. It’s the most run of the mill, humdrum misogyny we see multiple times a day.

Exactly. Really wonder what some people are trying to achieve on this thread. Whatever it is, it's not anything feminist, is it.

TalkingtoLangClegintheDark my issue is that we didn't actually establish that.

Yes. Yes, we did.

It is very clear to most people that tramp when used for a woman is a synonym for slut; and in case it wasn’t clear, in this particular case the man who made the comment clarified that that was exactly what he meant.

How you can still claim that “we didn’t actually establish that” is beyond me.

No doubts here that you're legit Moranne. I'm sorry your thread got derailed. I must admit I've found it crazy to see people just steadfastly fucking refuse to acknowledge the facts in front of their face. They are impervious to reason, logic, evidence, humour, appeals to their better nature... and now are having a go at trolling you with this nonsense. It's fucking stupid.

100%.

Also, could you tag the people who have said it's ok please, @TalkingtoLangClegintheDark**

No I won’t be fucking tagging anyone at the behest of some fucking random on FWR.

You can't tag because it didn't happen :) absolutely no one on the thread, has said once that misogynistic language is fine or ok, as you put it. Not one person.

And no, no we didn't. Most people are saying that they know 'tramp' as the most commonly accepted definition.
The OP claimed that when questioned, the man who used 'tramp' gave an urban dictionary explanation of what he meant rather than just saying, 'I meant a slag/whore/tart'

ODFOD