Tina Brown Uses Bad Sexist Cliches To Describe Sexist Lewinsky Scandal

If you’ve not had a chance to read Tina Brown’s essay on the Monica Lewinsky scandal, let me try and describe it to you. It has words! And some of them are kind of sexist and gross.

Brown penned an essay about the World’s Ickiest Scandal (which doesn’t even mention Bill Clinton’s name until the fourth paragraph) for Vanity Fair. It’s typical media elitist-navel gazing stuff. Except—The Wrap noticed that Brown seems to like using some language more commonly found in an MRA forum than in the pages of an acclaimed cultural magazine:

Since the Lewinsky scandal the Lewinsky scandal, Brown argues, the media has gotten harsher, meaner, and more humiliating. She then proceeds to attack people using sexist cliches — even while complaining about bad feminists.

Here’s some of the best examples they found:

“Treacherous thatched-roof-haired drag-queen” — how Brown describes Linda Tripp” It’s 2014. “Drag queen” is not a cool way to throw an insult at someone you don’t like. FOR WHATEVER REASON, OK? It’s right up there with calling someone a “fag” because they won’t go bungie jumping with you.
“Cackling, fact-lacking hack” — how Brown describes Lucianne Goldberg HEY THOSE WORDS SOUND KIND OF THE SAME! Cool, cool.
“hyena pack ” — how Brown describes the “feminist lobby” Is it possible for us to rationally criticize other women and their actions or words without comparing them to wild animals? Maybe? Am I shooting in the dark here? Don’t we get enough of this shit? I get it—you don’t agree with the actions of prominent feminists during that time. Fine. That’s a good discussion all of us need to have as feminists and activists. We should always be scrutinizing our history, making sure we took the best course of action or thinking about ways we could have done things differently. That’s how we evolve and keep up with the times, as a social movement. But do you have turn into a commenter on Fox News during sweeps in order to do so? Come on.
“come-hither” — how Brown describes Lewinsky’s Vanity Fair photo and “seductive sofa pose” — how Brown describes the way Lewinsky sits [Here’s the photo. I guess smiling and wearing a dress make you a total goddamn slut or something now. How is that “come-hither????” She looks like a debutante that just took a bring from the Spring Formal to relax and talk with her mom about a new credenza she’s thinking about buying from Crate and Barrel.
“what did Monica expect for flashing that thong at another woman’s husband?”

Oof. Then of course, there is this:

When the feds pressured her to talk that fateful night in the Ritz Carlton bar in Pentagon City, she’d have pulled out her iPhone and called her mom, who’d have told her to say nothing without a lawyer present. She just might have walked away from the hell that followed.

OMG MONICA IF YOU ONLY HAD A CELL PHONE. Your whole life would have gone back to Normal City.