Why was a female journalist fired for talking about Trump the same way he talks about women?

Yesterday, Politico journalist Julia Ioffe tweeted something that was on many of our minds: “Either Trump is fucking his daughter or he’s shirking nepotism laws. Which is worse?”

The now-deleted tweet came in response to news that Ivanka Trump will likely be taking the White House office typically reserved for the First Lady. One can only imagine that Ioffe, who has yet to respond to a request for comment, didn’t think much of the tweet. And, honestly, why would she? In the wake of a campaign filled with sexist, racist, misogynist and otherwise generally disgusting lingo, an f-bomb and the assertion that our president-elect might be involved in an incestuous relationship with his daughter honestly doesn’t seem that crazy or that out line. In fact, you’ve probably heard similar jokes before.

What Ioffe tweeted isn’t any worse than much of what Trump himself has said about women — his own daughter included. Remember that in 2006, Trump famously proclaimed, “I’ve said that if Ivanka weren’t my daughter perhaps I’d be dating her.” If that’s not an invitation for people to think the worst about their father-daughter relationship, I’m not sure what is.

It’s also far more tactful than many of the Trump family incest jokes that have been made by everyone from Bill Maher to Trevor Noah to random dudes on Twitter.

What’s more, the crux of the tweet — which people have largely chosen to ignore — is the nepotism accusation. Anyone who has honestly been watching the events of the past few weeks as Trump makes his disturbing transition to the White House with Ivanka and her husband in tow every step of the way knows that nepotism is a big problem that’s only getting bigger. That was likely the point Ioffe was trying to make, not that she genuinely believes Trump is having sex with his daughter.

So why, then, was she immediately fired from Politico? (It’s worth nothing that she had already announced her departure for the Atlantic, who have said they will proceed with hiring her.) Why is she in the middle of a Twitter firestorm, and why are her words — which, fine, aren’t exactly PG but are, again, no worse than what we’ve heard regularly for much of this election — being widely slammed “obscene” and “tasteless”?

It seems there are two issues are play here: first and foremost, Ioffe is a woman, and people generally don’t expect women (save for comedians and other figures known for being crass) to speak in such a cutting and crude way. We expect to hear men speak about women in similar terms — that, apparently, is just good old fashioned “locker room talk” — but as soon as a woman stoops to the same level, it’s offensive. It’s as if our society somehow expects “more” of women, while simultaneously treating us as though we are less.

What Ioffe said is no more obscene or tasteless than the things Trump himself says about women literally all the time, and he, somehow, still managed to get elected to the highest office in the land. And, again, it’s definitely no more obscene or tasteless than the things scores of male comedians and fellow Twitter users have said. There’s even a semi-popular hashtag called #TrumpIncest.

To be fair, the other reason for the outrage is that she’s a journalist. In an email from Politico editor-in-chief John Harris to his staff later published by Washington Post contributor Erik Wemple, he explains Ioffe’s dismissal thusly: “Gratuitous opinion has no place, anywhere, at any time — not on your Facebook feed, your Twitter feed or any place else. It has absolutely zero value for our readers and should have zero place in our work.”

One has to wonder, however, whether or not the tweet would have even been addressed by the higher-ups at Politico were it not the firestorm created by Twitter’s pro-Trump community, many of whom were likely incensed to hear anyone — but especially an attractive young woman — speak in such terms about their leader. Like many social media scandals, it seems like the issue for Ioffe’s employer is less that she said something controversial and more that people found out about it and got upset and they felt the need to do something to quell the outrage.

Journalists of all kinds tweet, write and speak about their opinions all the time. What Ioffe said wasn’t discriminatory or hateful or even without factual basis — it was simply an assessment of the fact that Trump’s relationship with his daughter is fucking weird. It’s fucking weird for her to be sitting in on meeting with foreign diplomats, it’s fucking weird for her to be taking an office in the White House and it’s fucking weird that Trump talks about her like a sex object.

A lot of people agree on these points. What’s unfortunate is that the person who came out and articulated them in 140 characters — not an easy feat — happened to be a young woman. What’s even more unfortunate is that the people who should stand behind her have not.

The message that this whole debacle sends is not a good one. If we — as women, as young people, as minorities, as Americans, and yeah, even as journalists — can’t joke about the disgusting and slimy actions of a person in power using the same kind of rhetoric that he uses regularly for fear of losing our jobs, then the next four years are going to be even tougher and more fucked up than we thought.