"Sugar and spice and everything nice" is a nursery rhyme (the answer to the question "What are little girls made of?")
I think her point is that "catty" is a gendered insult, and it is often used when women are not conforming to a gendered stereotype that they should be "sweet" (the "we" there is "people in general").
I don't see any implication that there is anything wrong with being sweet, just that there is something wrong with people in general assuming that all women should be sweet, and using gendered insults to dismiss them when they are not.
A disagreement among male authors would be unlikely to be called "catty" but rather "a dust-up" or "a fight" or something more active or evocative of physical conflict.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-08-22 02:10 am (UTC)"Sugar and spice and everything nice" is a nursery rhyme (the answer to the question "What are little girls made of?")
I think her point is that "catty" is a gendered insult, and it is often used when women are not conforming to a gendered stereotype that they should be "sweet" (the "we" there is "people in general").
I don't see any implication that there is anything wrong with being sweet, just that there is something wrong with people in general assuming that all women should be sweet, and using gendered insults to dismiss them when they are not.
A disagreement among male authors would be unlikely to be called "catty" but rather "a dust-up" or "a fight" or something more active or evocative of physical conflict.