Misandry alive and well

Article here. Excerpt:

'I'm caught short by the return of the word "misogynist", thanks to Australian PM Julia Gillard tagging the term on Opposition Leader Tony Abbott. I'd thought it was a quaint old word replaced in common usage 40 years ago by "male chauvinist pig".

After all, why use one word when we can waste three?

It's true the two terms are not strict synonyms, but male chauvinist pig devoured the other's usage because its meaning was very similar, it was stroppier, and it was part of the enraged language of early Women's Lib. To its more extreme first users, male chauvinist pig was a satisfying phrase, made entirely from swear words.

And it rolled redolently from the tongue with an oink-oink here, and a P plosive there.

Pig's plosive, it may be noted, is a consonant which can't be uttered without ejecting a puff of hot air.

Perhaps Ms Gillard thought MCP was no longer strong enough for Mr Abbott. But nor was he merely a sexist. Dear me no, sexists are piffle beside Mr Abbott. This fellow, said Ms Gillard, was the full monty - an old fashioned, satanic, misogynist.'