"The girls are fighting"
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The news has been full of the Musk-Trump feud. Among the linguistic aspects, there's an interesting amount of explicit or implied gender association — here's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a memic clip widely linked on social media:
From the other end of the political spectrum, check out Nellie Bowles, "The Real Housewives of Pennsylvania Avenue", The Free Press 6/6/2025:
Elon x Trump divorce: It’s the breakup of the year. Elon Musk is turning on Trump, Trump on Elon, and there is no prenup.
Bowles doesn't clearly indicate who's the man and who's the woman, unless this is a same-sex marriage. The title references the "Real Housewives of X" franchise, which featured a lot of woman-on-woman conflict, criticized by Gloria Steinem for "presenting women as rich, pampered, dependent and hateful towards each other."
Meanwhile, Jack Posobiec asserts that this is how men argue, actually:
Some of y'all cant handle 2 high agency males going at it and it really shows
This is direct communication (phallocentric) vs indirect communication (gynocentric)
I understand you aren't used to it
— Jack Poso (@JackPosobiec) June 5, 2025
A lot of the commentary calls it a "catfight" — and then there's discussion about whether that's sexist, as well as a lot of semi-serious suggestions that maybe it shows that men are too emotional to lead…
It reminds me personally less of "Real Housewives" (which I've never watched), and more of pro wrestling "promos" (which I've analyzed as a style of debate).
TA said,
June 6, 2025 @ 10:03 am
Some cultural knowingness from AOC as well, within which the gender association is decidedly more fluid and ironic than the surface suggests. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-girls-are-fighting
jin defang said,
June 6, 2025 @ 10:32 am
OK, the young woman was caught on the fly and made a silly comment. A more accurate characterization would be two alpha males with strong differences of opinion.
BTW, both male and female cats can fight.
Viseguy said,
June 6, 2025 @ 11:09 am
I think not. (We're talking AOC, not MTG.) It was apparently a nod to an established internet meme with clear intent to mock the two feuding principals. I'm 74 and not the target audience for this kind of sarcasm, but I'm pretty confident that it made its point amongst the meme-aware of earlier generations. This does not, of course, include the feuding principals themselves; that would require a modicum of self-awareness on their part, and some minimal sense of irony — both sorely lacking in those individuals, I think it's safe to say. Be all that as it may, as this is what passes for national discourse these days, I'm crawling back under my rock (but planning to re-emerge for the No Kings protests on June 14th).
KevinM said,
June 6, 2025 @ 11:57 am
This is trolling, people. AOC wouldn't think it's an insult to call someone a "girl" (well, not unless they're a mature woman, depending on the context). But she knows that it would nettle Trump. Same reason that SNL cast female comedians as male members (sorry) of Trumpworld (Giuliani, Sean Spicer).
Daniel Deutsch said,
June 6, 2025 @ 11:58 am
But @jin defang, AOC’s point was to emasculate them!
Jonathan Smith said,
June 6, 2025 @ 12:44 pm
given that this pair are so transparently the world's outest betabitches, the open psychological question concerns the Posobiec/Jin profession that they are "high agency phallocentric alpha males" (!!??): "ride-or-die"? "auto-gaslight"? "daddy complex"? other?