On the PGA President's Firing for Calling a Man a Little Girl

Karen Crouse writing for the New York Times:

When [ex-PGA President Ted] Bishop chose to disparage one man, the English golfer Ian Poulter, on Twitter by calling him a “little girl,” he effectively demeaned all women, including his own two daughters and granddaughter.

Golf Channel: Ted Bishops Legacy Forever Altered With Tweet

Read that article title again.  Someone's entire legacy changed by a Tweet.  That must've been some Tweet!

Ted Bishop on his infamous Tweet:

It took Bishop 90 minutes, after checking his phone and seeing reaction from what he had said, to realize he was in trouble.

"Someone had labeled me a sexist and I knew immediately I had a huge problem," said Bishop.

Bishop obviously knows the PC Thought Police drill.  Say something offensive to the "tolerant" PC crowd, get labeled a sexist, racist, homophobe, and so forth and prepare to be destroyed.

So what did Ted Bishop say, exactly?


Here is the Tweet where Bishop reacts to Ian Poulter's recent criticisms of golf legend, Nick Faldo:

"Faldo's record stands by itself. Six majors and all-time RC points. Yours vs. His? Lil Girl."

Here is his follow-up Facebook post:

"Really? Sounds like a little school girl squealing during recess. C'MON MAN!" 

Once Bishop saw the (social) media reaction, he immediately went into remorse mode, apologizing, that is, when the PGA allowed him to which was not until after he was fired.  Here, Bishop erred.  Apologies mean nothing to leftist radicals.  The left does not want apologies, they want scalps. As New York Times Karen Crouse goes on to race-bait add,

Inclusiveness is going to be a problem in the game [of golf] as long as its power brokers remain overwhelmingly male and white.... The women will be fast-tracked for membership, to the consternation of many male members who argued vehemently that they should be subjected to the customary waiting period, which can be as long as a decade. 

The real problem is that the Tweet was sent by a white man.  What's worse, he's an old, wealthy white man, and we all know such men are the root of most social ills.  The quicker they are fired and replaced by Inner Party members, the better.  

So is calling another man a little girl, or saying that he's acting like a little girl, sexist?  To answer that, we first need to know what sexism is and it's hardly ever clear what a leftist means by the term.  Whatever it is, it is supposed to be morally objectionable.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, sexism is defined as

prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.

But prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination per se are not morally objectionable, so the lexical definition is only of so much help.  We discriminate all the time, for instance, when we walk into a room and discriminate between people that are sitting in chairs versus those who are not and decide to sit on a chair like most everyone in the room; stereotyping is often a useful tool as is noted in this post; and if one is not prejudiced against acts of rape one is morally obtuse.  It is more helpful to ask, then, whether Ted Bishop said or did anything unjust in suggesting that another man was acting like a little girl such that he deserved to be fired.

Demeaning someone who does not deserve to be demeaned is at least a mild case of injustice.  It is failing to respect the worth of the individual or the individual's actions. But hardly anyone is arguing that Bishop's comments unjustly demeaned Ian Poulter (and I take no stand on whether his comments to Poulter were warranted).

Above, Crouse says that Bishop's Tweet was demeaning to all women, including (she has the gall to say) his own daughters and granddaughters.  Is calling a man a little girl, demeaning to all women?  No, it is not.  If he would've said in the context of a man getting an F on a college test, "You think like a woman," that would be demeaning to the intelligence of women and an ignorant claim indeed.  But he clearly had in mind the way little girls often act when they talk about other girls and put them down, not to their face, but to whoever is listening.  What is said is perhaps demeaning to those types of girls--or to girls who act like that--but deservedly so.

Sometimes I tell my boys not to act like a girl.  Sometimes I tell my girls not to act like a boy.  There is absolutely nothing demeaning about this.  Nothing.  In fact, I will say this in front of my girls or boys.  None of them want to be thought of as acting like the other qua other gender.  Neither feels disvalued.  My girls are delighted to be girls and my boys are delighted to be boys, and both are delighted to have sisters and brothers (most of the time).  When I tell my boys or girls to stop throwing a fit like a baby, am I demeaning babies?! Am I guilty of ageism?? Are my children now more inclined to disvalue their baby brother, James??  Nonsense.

Bishop again:

"I've asked myself a lot, what would have been a better choice of words than the phrase, ‘little girl.’ If I would have said ‘little boys’ would this have been different?"

Of course it would have!  But it's not because such a statement wouldn't be taken to demean little boys, or all males for that matter.  The problem is that he is an old, white man called another man a girl, and that is out of step with the PC dogma that men should be more like women and women should be whatever they want.

Leftism is by nature totalitarian and there is no end to the "progress" of progressivism.  It is not enough that you obey Big Brother.  You must love him.