OK, show of hands: how many of you have ever uttered the sentences: "Don't be such an old woman", "stop being such a girl" or any variation on that theme? I know I have - especially when talking to men. And yet, I'm fully aware that saying stuff like that does no favours to anyone. All it's doing is reinforcing the idea that men are somehow inherently superior and that calling someone a female is somehow an insult, and every time I hear it escape my mouth, I regret it instantly.
Well, now there's a new insult for us all to add to our arsenal! At the weekend, Christopher Hitchens told Andrew Sullivan, conservative blogger extraordinaire (and gay person),to stop "being such a lesbian and get on with it".
I wasn't aware that lesbians were famed for their dilly dallying, but apparently they are. Either that, or it's yet another way to slag off/bitch about/[insert yet another female-based derogatory term of your choice] a man by comparing him to a woman.
The Guardian has the full story. Meanwhile, there's a great piece about Misogyny on MSNBC in the US (the news show that Hitchens was on when he called Sullivan a lesbian) over on the Media Matters website.
Related: Christopher Hitchens: funny women tend to be "hefty or dykey or Jewish" | Christopher Hitchens, celebrity atheist