“How many of you have received demeaning, misogynist abuse or threats from men on the internet?” Samantha Bee asked last night on Full Frontal, in her trademark honeyed-when-delivering-particularly-upsetting-information tone. “I have!”
“If you didn’t raise your hands,” she continues, “read the comments when this video goes up on YouTube. Being a woman on the internet means receiving frequent bouquets of chivalrous offers to tear you in half cunt-first.” This rather strong introduction paves the way for a segment on the recent backlash from a vote within Seattle City Council (that was split along gendered lines) about the potential construction of developer Chris Hansen’s arena by in the Sodo District. (Now far less of a potential: the 5:4 vote pretty much killed it).
As the New York Times had reported, “the resulting backlash was ugly, and swift,” with the women on the council receiving hateful emails, including one urging that they all kill themselves, and others employing a more tepid form of old-fashioned misogyny, telling them they should “go back to the kitchen.” Meanwhile on social media, “stupid feminists” and “I fucking hate those BITCHES” were among the responses by men commingling sports fanaticism and sexism in such an innovative fashion.
“Did they want to build a ballet arena or a Sex and the City-plex or something?” asks Bee, before cutting to the actual reasons the council members decided against the construction of the arena, noting especially how publicly funded sports stadiums can be a huge waste of taxpayer money. (The public cost would have been over $200 million, and the council argued that said money should rather go toward the port and “protecting industrial and maritime jobs.”)
Bee’s hilarious spin on all of this is to then present the council members as a sports team of “sea port loving ladies… savers of shipping jobs.” She then provides player profiles for each of them, with their individual accomplishments listed above the wholly stupid gendered insults leveled at them:
etc. Watch the whole, brilliantly delivered segment below: