{"id":6977,"date":"2009-02-19T04:36:12","date_gmt":"2009-02-19T09:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=6977"},"modified":"2017-09-16T16:57:35","modified_gmt":"2017-09-16T21:57:35","slug":"violent-metaphors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2009\/02\/19\/violent-metaphors\/","title":{"rendered":"Violent Metaphors"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve always found it troubling when I hear people use the word “Nazi” metaphorically.\u00a0 Terms like “fashion nazi<\/a>,” “food nazi<\/a>,” even\u00a0Seinfeld’s famous “soup nazi” episode<\/a>, seem to trivialize the Holocaust.\u00a0 Of course, we often recognize the hyperbole and that’s part of what is supposed to make it funny.\u00a0 But do we really want to make fun with such an idea?\u00a0\u00a0 Lots of people\u00a0didn’t like it when PETA did it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In any case, I was thinking about similar uses of the word “rape.”\u00a0 The word “rape” seems to be everywhere.\u00a0 People use it not just for its literal meaning, but to describe all manner of unpleasant experiences.\u00a0 For example, in this story<\/a> at bestweekever:<\/p>\n

\"capture8\"<\/p>\n

Do other societies use words like rape and murder metaphorically?\u00a0 Have we always done so?\u00a0 Must we?\u00a0 Or are there alternatives that may be more sensitive to people who lost loved ones in the Holocaust, were raped, or knew someone who was murdered?<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve always found it troubling when I hear people use the word “Nazi” metaphorically.\u00a0 Terms like “fashion nazi,” “food nazi,” even\u00a0Seinfeld’s famous “soup nazi” episode, seem to trivialize the Holocaust.\u00a0 Of course, we often recognize the hyperbole and that’s part of what is supposed to make it funny.\u00a0 But do we really want to make […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[233,23384,2095,2090,1777,133],"class_list":["post-6977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-death","tag-social-construction-discourselanguage","tag-gender-feminismactivism","tag-gender-violence","tag-nation-germany","tag-violence"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6977"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70946,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6977\/revisions\/70946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}