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Answer by Laura Hale, female:
There are a couple of media companies and nonprofits that focus on media fairness or discrimination, as well as universities and academic papers that have provided comprehensive lists of sexist words when applied to female politicians. I’m going to borrow from this a bit and try to contextualize this, and hope I answer the question. One issue with finding examples is there is so much discussion of this topic that it buries a lot of examples, and I refuse to dive that deeply into right-wing American news sites.
Ever heard of balls? These are male testicles. If you’ve got balls, you’ve got guts, moxie, courage, nerve, bravery, self-assurance, confidence, determination, stamina, spunk. You’re not afraid to take a stand. When you see “balls” being used in or around Hillary Clinton, you’re often seeing a subtle form of gendered and sexist language. I mean, how often do you hear a talking head saying of a politician of any gender, “He’s really got a set ovaries. I don’t know any other politician that has the courage to do that.” Having ovaries is not used the same way, and it defines courage as a masculine only attribute based on biological characteristics—or, at least, it suggests that.
This graph shows this phrase is not uncommon on blogs and in news articles that reference her. “Balls” one tends to appear more in quotes and in regards to men competing against Hillary. This article helpfully quotes two guys who like Trump because he has balls. Hillary on the other hand destroyed the world, according to the people quoted.
Another problematic word that is used in a gender-negative way for women is aggressive. It sits alongside pushy in terms of being sexist and gendered. Men tend to get more favorable, positive words: He’s ruthless, he’s cutthroat and relentless. She’s aggressive and pushy. And on blogs, both are used related to Clinton with some regularity. This Wall Street Journal post helpfully points out that “Clinton operatives have said she faces a backlash from Sanders supporters and other core Democratic voters if she gets too aggressive in her attacks.” Why? Because aggression is bad in women. An NBC News post says, “Asked if Clinton is getting more aggressive, Sanders responded with a long, drawn out, ‘Yes.’ Why? “It could be that the inevitable candidate for the Democratic nomination may not be so inevitable today,” he said. It then goes on to refer to aggression as attacks. Clinton is aggressive and attacking. Again, culturally, these are not seen as positive traits in women. Women have gotten fired for being pushy and aggressive. Men don’t.
Bimbo and bitch are another pair of problematic words. Bitch is an insult aimed at women and almost always insulting them for being willing to stand up for themselves, or by guys who feel threatened by women. When a woman doesn’t do what a misogynistic guy wants, the misogynistic guy often refers to her as a bitch. Bimbo tends to be used for women exclusively and imply that she’s not all there and sexually lose. The bimbo is the dumb woman who sleeps with any man who moves, like Bill Clinton. Neither are complimentary. Men are sometimes called bimbo, but at a much, much, much lower rate. Bitch is almost never used for guys. When people bitch, they are complaining, and it is again a feminine attribute. Real men don’t bitch out other men.
This graph gives an idea about this, though I’d bet lots of those Bernie bimbo and bitch references you see peaking above Hillary are not actually referring to him. Lots of this though refers to Bill Clinton’s “bimbos” for both. It’s kind of sexist to be blaming Hillary for who Bill sleeps with. And no one is really searching for bitch Bernie Sanders, according to Google Trends. Both words are used frequently by conservative media.
Though in defense of Sanders here, he is getting subjected to right-wing use of gendered words to insult his masculinity. Breitbart does so with, “Instead, he talks about the urgency of ‘normalizing relations with Iran,’ with a dose of the same passive-aggressive bitching about Tehran’s support for terrorism that he uses to remind his voters about Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speaking fees.” Hillary Clinton isn’t alone here, because lots of the media are using gendered or sexist terms to describe men, to basically insult them for acting like women. Catfight is an example of this. Men brawl. Women take out their longer fingernails, scratch each other’s eyes out, and catfight. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump both catfight during the debates. The media has described Hillary and Bill has having catfights with Bill’s bimbos.
Another word the media uses that can be sexist in context is female, especially when the other word being used is man: “Clinton will be the first female president.” I can’t recall ever seeing people describing Obama as the “first black male president.” This one occurs a lot by men. Also, Mrs. when Mr. is not used. Glenn Reynolds at USA Today is one example of this. Reynolds refers to Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama, but never Mr. Sanders.
There are a lot more, but those are the more immediate references that come to mind for general words that are problematic in terms of being used to describe women.
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