meta-semantics lite, part I
Titling this blog spurred the Social Injustice Hamster in my head to hop on her wheel for a bit. (If you imagined that all these purty pictures would quash my desire to embark upon patriarchally-fueled rants, you were a bit remiss.)
Although the grammatically acceptable form of fire is masculine, rather than feminine, I am choosing to re-appropriate language. Although the gender of nouns (such as in French or Spanish) is seemingly irrelevant, the act of re-claiming language can be symbolically powerful. Even simple changes, such as substituting the generic feminine for the generic masculine, helps to raise awareness of the degree to which words shape our expectations of the world.
Try, for example, to spend an entire day substituting the word “women” for the word “men,” in all instances where you are not specifically referring to men only. Include all possible variations, such as “ladies” for “you guys”, “womankind” for humankind, and “she” for “he and she.”
Although I have studied feminist theory for years, I was surprised by the amount of time and energy it took to resist the mandates of the generic masculine in my speech. The degree to which cultural institutions are steeped in sexism should not continue to astound me, yet, it does.
Gendered linguistics falls into the category of feminist philosophy. The relevance of feminist philosophy is contested. (To be fair, I suppose the relevance of any sort of philosophy is questionable).
Feminism is not a static theory, but a constantly evolving movement for social change. It is impossible to truly identify with the tenets of feminism and sit back doing nothing.
Feminist philosophy may be nestled in the Ivory Tower of Inaccessibility, and it doesn’t feed women who are hungry or grant battered women a safe space in which to live. However, possessing a certain degree of knowledge about the symbolic mechanics by which gender shapes our lives is an important hammer in one’s patriarchy-smashing toolbox. We all perform sexism in small ways each day. Being cognizant of the linguistic roots of misogyny is the first step toward eradicating them.
16/09/2008 at 10:46 pm Permalink
A recent job I interviewed for asked me to submit a writing sample. During the interview, I was asked why I chose to substitute the generic ‘he’ with ’she’ in the sample I provided. I pointed out that it is not strictly wrong to do so and that ’she’ can just as easily refer to ‘one’ or ‘he’ in sentences like “We can determine whether a sophisticated hedonist has succeeded in living a hedonistic life by looking to see how much happiness she has actually achieved.” While they didn’t object too stringently, it was interesting to me that these interviewers even brought it up. I often find generic pronouns lady-fied in academic writing which is quite refreshing. Thanks for this post.
20/09/2008 at 4:05 pm Permalink
That is interesting, and just goes to show how deeply sexism has been socially ingrained in our words and our thoughts. If that was indeed the sentence you used, I have to say I dig the idea of sophisticated she-hedonneses, and would have probably hired you on the spot.