Peggy Drexler is a research psychologist and the author of "Our Fathers, Ourselves: Daughters, Fathers, and the Changing American Family" and "Raising Boys Without Men." She is at work on a book about the failings of feminism. The opinions expressed in this commentary are hers.

(CNN) Many expressed outrage — some genuine, some perhaps as a political pose -- over a bad word Samantha Bee called the President's daughter (and senior adviser) on air. In everyday polite discourse, it was, by most standards, an unacceptable word. And no question, in a week where a celebrity comedian, Roseanne Barr, loses her job over a racist tweet about a former top official in an earlier presidential administration, Bee was at best treading on tricky ground.

Peggy Drexler

But Bee is not Barr — she is not spewing random and racist, anti-Semitic, conspiracy-theory views over years on Twitter, as Barr has, and often in the service of supporting the President's policies. Nor, let's be honest, are we living in a time of particularly polite discourse.

It's important, too, to remember that Bee is a comedian known for delivering a standup monologue which, like that of other comedians, often uses outrageous, boundary-pushing and, to some, offensive comedy to make strong points about politics. In Bee's case, though, and unlike in Barr's, these points are usually made on behalf of those harmed by this President's policies.

Which is why there's a difference between Bee and Barr. Directing a single insult, even a vulgar one, at one person, for reasons of defending the disenfranchised, as Bee did, is one thing; promoting racist beliefs, specifically calling a black person "an ape" in response to, well, nothing, is quite another.

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All of which is why it's a shame that Bee's message has been largely overshadowed by debate over this single word, whether she should have used it, how and if she should be reprimanded and whether her show should be canceled.

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