On Monday’s episode of “Full Frontal” on TBS, Samantha Bee shone a spotlight on the sexist e-mails and social media posts that have been aimed at female members of Seattle’s city council who rejected a land proposal that could have potentially brought more professional sports teams to the city.
On May 2, Seattle sports fans were crestfallen to hear that their city council had rejected a proposal from hedge fund manager Chris Hansen to build a new arena in the city’s SoDo district. It was believed that if the arena plans were approved, it could be used to convince the NBA and NHL to consider moving sports teams back to Seattle.
The proposal failed by a 5-4 vote, and the five members who voted against were all women. Since then, the five women have been hit with sexist insults like “go back to the kitchen” and “I f—ing hate those bitches.”
“Being a woman on the Internet means receiving frequent bouquets of chivalrous offers to tear you in half…especially if you have the nerve to run for president, talk about politics on TV, or criticize literally any video game,” Bee joked.
As Bee demonstrated, the five women rejected the proposal on the grounds that the new arena would cost Seattle taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in public money and risk gentrifying an area that Seattle port workers need for cheap housing. She also noted that the city paid off the debt for its previous sports arena, the Kingdome, 15 years after it was imploded.
Bee then gave the five city councilwomen a WNBA-style intro, placing their political and civic achievements alongside claims that they should “climb into an oven” and that “someone should bash her head into a brick wall.”
And if these bitter Sonics fans love basketball so much, maybe they could follow Bee’s suggestion that they “buy a Seattle Storm ticket once in a while.