Ed Schultz Apologizes for Calling Laura Ingraham a “Slut”

Liberal MSNBC host Ed Schultz apologized for calling conservative pundit Laura Ingraham a “slut” on his radio show. In his on air apology Shultz seems genuinely sorry he said what he did, but he doesn’t really get why it was wrong.

To call a woman a “slut” in anger is not wrong because it’s a slur upon her chastity. It’s wrong because it affirms that there’s such a thing as a slut. It’s wrong because it falsely implies that any woman’s worth is ever contingent upon her chastity.

A slut, according to the mythology, is a woman who doesn’t deserve respect. It’s a slur that can be used against any woman, regardless of her sexual history. Shultz’s lapse coincided with the efforts of some feminist activists to take the sting out of the phrase by parodying the whole concept with SlutWalk demonstrations in cities around the world.

Thomas of Yes Means Yes! has the perfect response to Schultz’s apology:

Ed, I’m not worried that my kids will hear bad words on TV.  They’ll hear all the bad words on the playground by third grade anyway.  I can deal with that.  I’m worried that they’ll learn that there is such a thing as “slut,” that they’ll learn that that concept exists in the world, that women can be singled out in a way that has nothing to do with the subject at hand, and nothing to do with the facts, and nothing to do with anything except singling out femininity for attack.  That’s what I don’t want them to hear.  So when you called Laura Ingraham a slut, you called my daughter a slut, and my wife, and my mother, and my sister, and my friends.  You contributed to the way things are — the way they ought not to be.  Ed, I think you’re committed to change, and I believe you know that you did something wrong.  But I want you to grapple with what it was that you did.

[Photo credit: Steve Rhodes, Creative Commons.]