WASHINGTON: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s outrage over a Republican lawmaker’s verbal assault broadened into an extraordinary moment on the floor of House of Representatives as she and other Democrats assailed a sexist culture of accepting violence and violent language against women whose adherents include President Donald Trump.

Rep Ocasio-Cortez, a rising star of the Democratic Party, admonished a Republican Congressman on Thursday who allegedly hurled a sexist slur at her on the steps of the US Capitol. Ocasio-Cortez, 30, said Florida Representative Ted Yoho had “put his finger in my face”.

“He called me disgusting, he called me crazy, he called me out of my mind,” she said during a nearly 10-minute speech on the floor of the House of Representatives. “In front of reporters, Representative Yoho called me — and I quote — a ‘f… bitch’,” she said.

A day after rejecting an offer of contrition from Rep Yoho for his language, Ocasio-Cortez and more than a dozen colleagues cast the incident as all-too-common behaviour by men, including Trump and other Republicans.

“This issue is not about one incident. It is cultural,” said Ocasio-Cortez, calling it a culture of accepting violence and violent language against women, an entire structure of power that supports that.

Episode followed a colleague’s admonishment of a Republican lawmaker who ‘hurled a sexist slur’ at her on the steps of US Capitol

The remarkable outpouring, with female lawmakers saying they had routinely encountered such treatment, came in an election year in which polls show women leaning decisively against Trump, who has a history of mocking women.

“I personally have experienced a lifetime of insults, racism and sexism,” said Rep Barbara Lee. “And believe me, this did not stop after being elected to public office.”

Trump was captured in a 2005 tape boasting about physically abusing women, and his disparagement of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has included calling her crazy.

In an apparent reference to that tape, which drew attention during the 2016 presidential campaign, Ocasio-Cortez said “men accost women with a sense of impunity every day, including when individuals who hold the highest office in this land admit, admit to hurting women”.

She also recalled that last year, Trump said she and three colleagues on the “squad of progressive Democratic women of colour should go back” to their home countries even though all but one were born in the US and all were American citizens.

The lawmakers joining Ocasio-Cortez represented a wide range of the chamber’s Democrats, underscoring their unity over an issue that is at once core to the party and capable of energising its voters.

Those speaking up included the three other squad members Reps Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

No Republicans spoke on the House floor.

Ocasio-Cortez said on the House floor Yoho’s references to his wife and daughters as he explained his actions during brief remarks actually underscored the problem.

“Having a daughter does not make a man decent. Having a wife does not make a decent man. Treating people with dignity and respect makes a decent man,” she said.

She added that a “decent man apologises not to save face, not to win a vote. He apologises, and genuinely, to repair and acknowledge the harm done, so that we can all move on”.

Her voice trembled slightly as she said that her father, “thankfully”, was no longer alive to see Yoho’s treatment of her. But she said her mother saw it, “And I am here because I have to show my parents that I am their daughter, and that they did not raise me to accept abuse from men”.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2020