Spring Break
Campus C-store controversy
Sara Gwin
Issue date: 3/11/08 Section: Forum
The convenience store attached to Arnold Dining Center - the Country Store - also known as the C-store, has been given the dubious nickname - "the C---."
For those of you blanking on the most offensive word for women (since it's too offensive to be printed), take "o" out of "count."
It has since spawned a Facebook group with over 100 members and one student has taken it upon himself to sell "Slip into he C---…" T-shirts, with the C-word spelled out.
Even more disturbing is the fact that he claims it is not offensive because it isn't directed at women.
Calling the C-store by that term opens up comparison. One member left this doozie of a comment: "I would dip into the c--- each and every night. I ravaged her endless bounty of goodness with regularity, sometimes at 1, even 2, in the morning. Usually I'd bring along at least three friends so we could each have a crack."
Can they honestly say comparing visiting a convenience store to gang-banging isn't offensive?
But with the pervasiveness of sexism in this culture, something like this can be so normalized that what is offensive is more easily seen if it refers to a smaller minority. If the C-store were nicknamed another derogatory term, like the N-word or f--, could they really claim that those aren't offensive?
The C-word is considered one of the most offensive words in the English language, if not the worst. It objectifies women by reducing them down to their body part that has been defined by male usage.
The C-word is uniquely feminine, and only offensive to men because the most insulting names you could call a man are relating him to a female or a gay man (who is determined feminine).
Inga Muscio, author of "C---: A Declaration of Independence," declares there is a whole history of misogyny packed into that one-syllable word.
Jonathon Green's "Cassel's Dictionary of Slang" finds that it has several meanings like: "a woman considered purely as a sex object," copulation with a woman, the mouth ... as a sexual receptacle, the ... rectum as a sexual receptacle," as an adjective - "a general term of abuse," - and as a verb - "to destroy, to defeat."
For those of you blanking on the most offensive word for women (since it's too offensive to be printed), take "o" out of "count."
It has since spawned a Facebook group with over 100 members and one student has taken it upon himself to sell "Slip into he C---…" T-shirts, with the C-word spelled out.
Even more disturbing is the fact that he claims it is not offensive because it isn't directed at women.
Calling the C-store by that term opens up comparison. One member left this doozie of a comment: "I would dip into the c--- each and every night. I ravaged her endless bounty of goodness with regularity, sometimes at 1, even 2, in the morning. Usually I'd bring along at least three friends so we could each have a crack."
Can they honestly say comparing visiting a convenience store to gang-banging isn't offensive?
But with the pervasiveness of sexism in this culture, something like this can be so normalized that what is offensive is more easily seen if it refers to a smaller minority. If the C-store were nicknamed another derogatory term, like the N-word or f--, could they really claim that those aren't offensive?
The C-word is considered one of the most offensive words in the English language, if not the worst. It objectifies women by reducing them down to their body part that has been defined by male usage.
The C-word is uniquely feminine, and only offensive to men because the most insulting names you could call a man are relating him to a female or a gay man (who is determined feminine).
Inga Muscio, author of "C---: A Declaration of Independence," declares there is a whole history of misogyny packed into that one-syllable word.
Jonathon Green's "Cassel's Dictionary of Slang" finds that it has several meanings like: "a woman considered purely as a sex object," copulation with a woman, the mouth ... as a sexual receptacle, the ... rectum as a sexual receptacle," as an adjective - "a general term of abuse," - and as a verb - "to destroy, to defeat."
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