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Democratic representative Ocasio-Cortez rips Republican Congressman Yoho for his sexist slur

July 24, 2020
Vaibavi Jayakumar

Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to the upper House of the US Parliament to accuse Congressman Ted Yoho, for having used sexist slurs against her. This has come to be seen as an extraordinary moment in the United States house of representatives as she took down the “sexist culture of accepting violence in violent language against women”, of which even the country’s president has been accused of.

The BBC reported that Ocasio-Cortez was entering the Congress to vote when Ted Yoho had interjected her along with Texas congressman Roger Williams and had called her “disgusting” and said that “she was out of her freaking mind”. When she had retorted and called him rude, he had called her “a f***ing b***h” before leaving.

Following this, the New York City Democrat made a powerful speech calling this a ‘pattern’ of bad behaviour by men and said, “This issue is not about one incident. It is cultural,” she told lawmakers, calling it a culture “of accepting violence and violent language against women, an entire structure of power that supports that”. “When you do that to any woman, what Mr Yoho did was give permission to other men to do that to his daughters,” she added. “In using that language, in front of the press, he gave permission to use that language against his wife, his daughters, women in his community, and I am here to stand up to say that is not acceptable.”

She added that, she was prepared to let the incident go until Mr Yoho “made excuses” by citing his wife and daughters in a speech on Wednesday, and said, “I am someone’s daughter too. My father, thankfully, is not alive to see how Mr Yoho treated his daughter.”

Ocasio-Cortez, a freshman who has made her mark as one of Congress’s most outspoken progressives, on the House floor on Thursday described the incident.