The Most Sexist Cliches in Tina Brown's Monica Lewinsky Column

Allie Jones

Former Newsweek editor Tina Brown has finally weighed in on Monica Lewinsky's Vanity Fair essay, and her take is pretty much what you'd expect. Since 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 they are:

The photo used to illustrate Brown's column

  • "Treacherous thatched-roof-haired drag-queen" — how Brown describes Linda Tripp

  • "Cackling, fact-lacking hack" — how Brown describes Lucianne Goldberg

  • "hyena pack " — how Brown describes the "feminist lobby" 

  • "come-hither" — how Brown describes Lewinsky's Vanity Fair photo

  • "seductive sofa pose" — how Brown describes the way Lewinsky sits 

  • "what did Monica expect for flashing that thong at another woman’s husband?" — how Brown asks a question 

Brown also wonders whether or not Lewinsky may have avoided "hell" if she'd just had an iPhone in 1998, and calls Kenneth Starr a "mealy-mouthed Pharisee." The whole column is worth a read — it's actually less about Lewinsky and more about Brown's own professional struggles. ("No one would have believed that that only 13 years later ... the two mighty news magazines would become a shadow and a corpse ...") Unfortunately, Brown's dated, cliche-ridden language actually makes the shadow/corpse thing pretty believable. 

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This article was originally published at http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/05/the-most-sexist-cliches-in-tina-browns-monica-lewinsky-column/362021/

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