NRA News host Cam Edwards provided a platform for a guest to push a sexist attack against prominent gun safety advocate Shannon Watts in which the guest called Watts a “shrill harridan” and said she “stripped the most basic and threshold abilities of a man” from her husband.
On the October 9 edition of the NRA's radio show Cam & Company, guest and conservative columnist Kurt Schlichter claimed that Watts, who founded gun safety group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, had stripped her husband “of the most basic and threshold abilities of a man; that is to defend his self, his family and his community, by being married to this shrill harridan.” Schlichter was unfavorably comparing Watts to actress Annette Bening's American Beauty character Carolyn Burnham, provoking Edwards' laughter.
KURT SCHLICHTER: Oh my gosh, I got to tell you something. I got to tell you something. I finally figured out who Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action reminds me of.
EDWARDS: Oh?
SCHLICHTER: Annette Bening in American Beauty.
EDWARDS: Wow.
SCHLICHTER: Yeah. Huh? Huh? Yeah.
EDWARDS: Boy, now I am going to have to go back and re-watch -- I don't think I've that movie since it came out.
SCHLICHTER: Oh yeah.
EDWARDS: But yeah, okay, okay.
SCHLICHTER: Yeah, yeah, and her husband has got to be named Lester.
EDWARDS: [Laughter] That's awful.
SCHLICHTER: Stripped of the most basic and threshold abilities of a man; that is to defend his self, his family and his community, by being married to this shrill harridan. She is Annette Bening in American Beauty.
EDWARDS: Talking with Kurt Schlichter, writing at Townhall.
A harridan is defined as “an angry and unpleasant woman,” and can also refer to “a scolding, vicious woman,” “hag,” or “shrew.”
The NRA previously illustrated a sexist article about Watts in its magazine America's 1st Freedom with a graphic that depicted Watts as a stereotypical 1950s housewife:
Over the past several years the NRA has made a concerted effort to recruit women into the male-dominated gun organization. However, the NRA's media arm has frequently undercut those efforts by offering sexist commentary on women.
UPDATE:
On the October 13 edition of NRA News' Cam & Company, host Cam Edwards defended Kurt Schlichter's sexist attack on Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense founder Shannon Watts, saying that the conservative columnist was “joking.”
Edwards addressed Schlichter's comments after concluding a segment where he hosted a guest to discuss her article, “Shannon Watts: Gun Control Nag.” Edwards said that rather than use the phrase “nagging,” he prefers to call Moms Demand Action “the scolds.”
EDWARDS: Meanwhile Media Matters has picked up on Kurt Schlichter's appearance on Friday's program, where he was joking, not that Media Matters, you know, would allow that to happen, where he was referring to -- I think he called, what, the Annette Benning of the gun control movement or something like that and of course now Shannon Watts has replied that Kurt is the worst person ever in the world, which I'm sure has absolutely made Kurt's day. I'm sure Kurt is a very, very happy man, probably use this as an opportunity to try to sell some more copies of The Conservative Insurgency. Does make a good Christmas present.