Katherine Timpf of National Review Online highlights an example of political correctness gone awry in Massachusetts.
A Massachusetts state lawmaker wants to remove a sign at a door entrance that’s named after Union Army General Joseph Hooker — because the word “hooker” is offensive to women.
That’s right. General Hooker may have fought against the Confederacy, and not for it, but apparently, honoring him is still too offensive.
The sign in question is outside a Massachusetts statehouse and reads “General Hooker Entrance,” because it is near a statue of General Hooker. That seems perfectly reasonable to me, but state representative Michelle DuBois (D., Plymouth) said it’s actually an assault on “women’s dignity.” …
… “Female staffers don’t use that entrance because the sign is offensive to them,” DuBois told local news source WBZ-TV.
Oh, brother. Honestly, I’d argue that what’s really harming women is not this sign but DuBois’s reaction to it. For one thing, using the #MeToo hashtag to share such a stupid complaint diminishes the gravity of the sexual-assault and -harassment offenses that it’s meant to describe. Sexual assault and harassment are serious, pervasive problems, and DuBois’s lumping a sign named after a general in with those issues only motivates people to view #MeToo as a total joke.
