Mildly gendered slurs

[selki]

"Pearl-clutching"  came up recently relevant to WorldCon (a panel moderator ran over his panel with a monologue supposedly about SJW pearl-clutchers), and reminded me that I've been meaning to write about it as a gendered slur for some time now.  Generally it's women who wear pearls, and women who are accused of getting "hysterical" (another

Comments

[nou]

Is “wanking” really that gendered? What word would you use for a woman doing it?

[vvalkyri]

You beat me to the query

[selki]

Answered nou at http://selki.livejournal.com/209493.html?thread=908373#t908373

[selki]

I think of it as gendered, specifically to do with male apparatus. That's the connotation my friend had for it, and for what it's worth http://www.dictionary.com/browse/wanking and the hand gesture for it described at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanker also implies male. It's fine with me if it reads as gender-neutral to anyone else, though!

I guess for women I default to "masturbating" ... for slang, maybe "rubbing off".

[selki]

Someone else wrote about the gendered aspect of pearl-clutching, and mentions that Truesdale also mentioned getting the vapors. http://marktiedemann.com/wordpress/?p=3028