When figures in the media stoop so low as to hurl personal, sexual insults at someone, it’s often because they have nothing of actual substance to criticize. Such is the case with Amy Coney Barrett.
On October 12, the Senate Judiciary Committee began the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Barrett, just 16 days after her nomination by President Trump. Many in the media and in Hollywood saw the event as an opportunity to pounce on the judge – despite her record as a brilliant jurist and champion for women. But that’s not how the media saw it, as they called her a “handmaid” and “monster” who is “full of s***” with a “clown car vagina.”
Some in the media and Hollywood also resorted to calling Barrett a b*tch.
“If I was a senator, I'd read Amy Coney Barrett's statement to her and then only call her ‘white bitch’ for the rest of my questioning,” tweeted Kwanza Osajyefo, the co-creator of a comic series recently acquired by Warner Bros., as he cited a workplace discrimination lawsuit.
In another tweet referring to her two children adopted from Haiti, he added, “your adopted children don't count, white b*tch. Blink twice if she says 'n*****' at home, babies.”
Comedian Dana Gould seemingly joked about Barrett’s faith, saying, “it would be refreshing if one senator stood up and said, ‘Like anyone deeply committed to Catholicism, or any religion for that matter, we rest assured that beneath Judge Barrett’s civil demeanor, this b*tch is bats*** crazy.”
Writer Lauren Hough, who has been published by outlets including The Guardian and HuffPost, also took a swipe at the judge’s body, in a comment that was later cited during the hearings.
“It’s a very weird thing to watch these old creeps congratulate a handmaid on her clown car vagina,” Hough wrote. “You can tell a lot about how a judge will rule by her fertility so I’m glad she’s already proven hers because the cervix check really shouldn’t be done live.”
Others couldn’t take the references to Barrett as a mom during the hearings.
“F*** it,” tweeted writer and abortion activist Danielle Campoamor. “Drink every time any senator, Democrat or Republican, evokes Barrett's identity as a mother.”
She concluded, “See you all in hell.”
Others resorted to calling Barrett a “handmaid.” The reference began after media outlets incorrectly assumed that Barrett’s faith inspired The Handmaid’s Tale, a 1985 dystopian novel and recent Hulu series that imagines a country run by Christian fundamentalists where female “handmaids” are raped and forced to bear children for the upper class. Author Margaret Atwood later confirmed that the story wasn’t based on People of Praise, a self-described charismatic Christian community that has been associated with Barrett. The group once called female leaders “handmaids” – a Biblical reference to the Virgin Mary who calls herself the “handmaid of the Lord.”
But that didn’t stop media figures from incorporating the term now.
Host Zerlina Maxwell tweeted out a photo of Barrett wearing a face mask alongside photos of the “handmaids” from the Hulu series – sex slaves who are masked by their captors as a form of punishment.
“Sorry but this has been on my mind all day,” she tweeted. “Carry on.”
Likewise, filmmaker Michael Moore tweeted a photo of Barrett with her mask – a precaution against the coronavirus – alongside a photo of a masked “handmaid.”
Stefanie Iris Weiss, a writer published by outlets including Elle and Bustle, deemed Barrett a “vicious bigot who wants to control women’s bodies.”
In other words, “she deserves a lot worse than just a Handmaid’s Tale reference,” she decided. “Keep your religion off my body, b*tch.”
Also referencing sexuality and abortion, Salon politics writer Amanda Marcotte typed that “antis,” or pro-life women, “like Barrett don't want to reduce the abortion rate.”
“They want to force women to get pregnant to punish them for having sex,” she stressed.
The insults kept coming, as author Caroline Leavitt called Barrett a “Handmaid's Tale justice,” while L.A. Times Opinion writer Virginia Heffernan used the term “Justice Handmaid.”
Toronto Star columnist Heather Mallick went so far as to declare, “She should be called ‘Judge Amy Father Husband’ because she is named after the men she has obeyed all her life as a Handmaid.”
For his part, Dean Obeidallah, a comedian and columnist for CNN Opinion and the Daily Beast, decided that she was “like a right wing Frankenstein monster created in a GOP lab.”
Comedian Jena Friedman simply tweeted that Barrett is “full of s***” while actress Kylie Sparks hoped that Barrett “steps in dog s*** every day for the rest of her life.”
They forget that accusations can sometimes make the accuser, rather than the accused, appear guilty.