I like the term "pearl clutching" because it evokes a sense of false panic and concern over something that a person knows won't really affect them.
But I think I should stop using it because it also evokes an overweight woman in a Marx Brothers' film who hears Groucho say something scandalous and then she grabs her pearls, says something like "I do declare!" and then faints.
Is this a misogynist term? Should I eradicate this from my vocabulary?
I've already stopped using the offensive terms for indigenous people: "Low man on the totem pole"; "off the reservations"; etc. But this one is a little more in the grey area for me. But then maybe I only think that because I like the term so much because of the distinct picture it draws.