Jon Stewart put to work Republicans for their “gotcha questions” about gender identity that throughout history, “woman” has been defined as “whatever was in men’s wallets that day.” One of his references: the Bible.
The comedian began the season 2 premiere of his Apple TV+ series “The Problem with John” by saying, “We’re in a new era of gender and sex complexity, where people who don’t fit into a simple binary, They should be seen with humanity.” Stewart “Friday Night. He quickly drew attention to his disdain for the Republican Party and progressive agenda. “As we know from history, any moment of progressive visibility will be met with a vicious response,” he said, cutting clips of various right-wing pundits saying “there are two genders.”
The point was clear, as Stewart said, that conservatives define the human race by a simple binary, a black and white understanding: there are men, and there are women. And, Stewart said, “the two will never meet.” until…
Trump is called an alpha male, Elmo is called Pajama Boy and Arnold Schwarzenegger throws the moniker “Girl Man” when referring to someone he believes to be his Has less testosterone than testosterone. “Clearly, masculinity appears to be a dimmer, not an on-off switch. But women are different,” Stewart said. And along with the conservatives came name-calling in the clip, describing the women as “tomboys,” “crazy feminists,” “high-rolling bimbo” and “pretty girly girls.”
“My god, what a cruise line buffet of American gender expression shields. Turns out there’s a lot of non-binary texts going on between binaries,” Stewart said. “But that hasn’t stopped conservatives from deploying their latest weapon in the culture war arsenal: the obvious ‘gotcha question’.”
Marsha Blackburn, a man interviewing tourists on the street and asking Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, everyone has the same question: How do you define the word woman? Ted Cruz can be seen saying in a clip, “For all recorded history, people have known what a woman is.”
“Yes! All recorded history!! It was easy!” A boisterous Stewart joked. “Until, like, a year ago. The answer to what a woman is has always been the same.” Looking down at his notes, Stewart quotes Aristotle with force, ‘…the woman was thus a perversion, but one that occurred in the ordinary course of nature.’ I’m sorry. He is Aristotle. I am apologetic. I didn’t mean that.”
He continued. “I meant, a woman is a person who, once married, has no legal existence!” He shouted, quoting a quote from Coverture Law. “That’s not right,” she said calmly. “No. Throughout history, it’s not a gotcha question, a woman is ’30 shekels,'” he said, quoting Leviticus… “Unless she is a prostitute, a woman is a loaf of bread, ‘ he said, referring to another biblical verse, this time Proverbs.
“Yes,” he said succinctly. “It turns out, for most of recorded history women were defined by what they had in men’s wallets that day.”
You can watch the entire segment in the clip above.
Season 2 of “The Problem with Jon Stewart” is available every Friday with new episodes available with subscription on Apple TV+.
