MIND YOUR LANGUAGE
It is Sunday morning in lockdown in Melbourne. I am feeling very self- righteous doing my home exercises on my yoga mat in the lounge. The Channel 7 morning show is on with presenters Larry Emdur and Angela Cox.
Larry has always seemed to be a handsome, charming, pleasant kind of man whenever I have watched segments of this show. Sometimes I have it on in the background on a Saturday or Sunday morning while doing other things around home.
This Sunday morning they are advertising the TV reality show, ‘Farmer Wants a Wife’.
They have the five farmers who are participating in the studio, and Larry joins the line up pretending to be a farmer also, just for fun. He has a piece of look-alike straw hanging out of his mouth, to look the part.
Angela asks them each a question as a humorous warm up to the show, due to be aired that night.
The question she asks Larry is this: “If you were a farm tool, what would you be?”
After some thought Larry answers, “I would be a Hoe.”
Larry chortles and laughs at his own joke, obviously thinking his answer is hilarious!
Angela half laughs, looking somewhat embarrassed and says something like “not quite appropriate for this time.”
Clearly Larry still thinks his answer is very funny as he keeps on giggling and laughing.
His meaning is clear ….
Most of us know that the definition of a hoe is this:
“a general insult, usually applied to females.”
Here are some more dictionary definitions ..
a promiscuous female. Diminutive form of “whore.” Also ho, hoebag, hoecake.
hoe and a slut: commonly used to describe bitchy backstabbing whores that sleep around with anything that has a penis and two legs.
A male TV presenter in the spotlight, thinking it is funny to say he wants to be a hoe! I am sure he would be the first to declare that he is not a perpetrator of violence against women. But his behaviour in this instance shows he is unaware ( I am giving him the benefit of the doubt here) of how using the word ‘hoe’ in the context he has used it, contributes yet again to a culture where men continue to degrade and sexually objectify women, which in turn gives many men permission to be physically and sexually violent towards women. Does he not recognise the link?
Please wake up Larry!
