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Author
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Topic: Discussions of language: feminist nitpicking?
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kuri
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4202
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posted 04 December 2005 01:21 PM
What outlandist said in this thread reminded me of a discussion I've thought about starting off and on for awhile. quote:
Originally posted by outlandist:
Steven Harper:"Well, I'd just say as a father and husband, you will do whatever you need to do to take care of your family," Harper said.
[end quote] Mr.Harper made no mention of making decisions for his wife,merely stating what any husband or wife or other relative would do to assist. This out of context feminist nitpicking in regard to a question he was asked to answer as a man in regard to his wife is unfair.
Well, actually, on the face of it. I disagree. Harper and Layton were asked about *where* their wife would receive treatment, not how it would be paid for. I cannot see how that can be out of context. But, on to the reason this is separate thread: I recall an interview with Judy Rebick on The Current in which she was asked if NAC's focus on "trivial things" like "language" was responsible for their downfall. I wonder how things like language can be so trivial if they were harped upon by the right so often. Furthermore, in the debate around marriage, there were some conservatives who were so incensed, they said, not that gays were gay, etc, but because they were using the word "marriage", "our word". Since it was a reactionary backlash against feminism that called language trivial and a reactionary backlash against equal rights for gays and lesbians that produced all of this cerfuffle (sp?) about, it is safe to assume that these two groups had some overlap. So why is language important when it's about marriage, but not so important, just nickpicking when it's about how relationships are described. Disclaimer to outlandist: your statement did raise my heckles, but I'm not attributing everything I wrote about here to you. I haven't read enough of your posts to have a good idea of what your views are on marriage, for e.g. Your post just re-sparked this thread idea.
From: an employer more progressive than rabble.ca | Registered: Jun 2003
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bigcitygal
Volunteer Moderator
Babbler # 8938
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posted 04 December 2005 02:48 PM
Hey kurichina, good thread topic.In terms of what has inspired you to begin the thread, however, I think it's a red herring. The right will blast the left/progressives with anything that sounds legitimate. Therefore "too nitpicky about language" or "It's the law" or (when the law is changed) "Just because it's the law doesn't mean I have to agree with it, or that it's right". You see where I'm going with this?  Being accused of being all Fussy and Sensitive about language is a classic effort to silence and redirect the argument and culpability. So of course the right brings out the language argument when it's a word they hold dear, like "marriage" (which is such a joke given the lack of insitutional merit it has, sitting at a 49% "success" rate). I daresay I've gotten into plenty of arguments with babblers about language. But I digress.
From: It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent - Q | Registered: Apr 2005
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skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478
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posted 04 December 2005 03:06 PM
Most interesting questions, kurichina. I couldn't see the original question (to Jack and Harper) quoted on the thread you've linked to: it appears that they were asked "what they would use" (?!?) if their wives were in immediate pain, the presumption being that the cause of prolonged pain would be a waiting list? Sorry: it's hard for me to reword the question if I don't have it before me - but then that in itself would be relevant to your topic, wouldn't it? - but I see at least two problematic assumptions in the question itself if that is a faithful report. And that is why "language" is not "trivial." A question was put, but that question rested on at least two assumptions, one about families and one about the health-care system, either of which may be challenged. Unless the person responding immediately challenges either or both of those assumptions, s/he is backed into a corner by the questioner, perhaps unfairly, forced to share his hidden assumptions. When backlashers complain about PC language, they focus on individual terms, which are always open to refinement and historical change. But language is a problem at a deeper level than mere usage. Rhetorical structures - like that question put to Layton and Harper - may be either so thoughtlessly or so intentionally crooked that an honest person has no choice but to take them apart in response.
From: gone | Registered: May 2001
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outlandist
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 10253
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posted 04 December 2005 03:47 PM
Interesting topic that requires furthur thought.As a preliminary response,my views are influenced by actions,not definitions of words.Posters on a thread some time ago mentioned that their antenna were extra sensitive to any indication of intolerance.Perhaps I'm not sensitive enough. I use the word "marriage" and avoid the term "SSM" as it is divisive.To me,the whole issue is a tempest in a teapot.The defenders of "traditional marriage" are the same narrow-minded denyers of the freedom to critcise the group think they espouse.Let em shun each other and everyone else.Who cares. I have never been able to understand how someone can give themself the authority to bestow a "right" upon one segment of society and exclude another when everyone is born with the same "right". Bill 38 does not bestow any "right" on anyone,rather it prevents the denyers from withholding from part of society the freedom that everyone is born with. I have always been a maverick.Don't give a rats ass what anyone thinks of me and never did.I march to the tune of my own drummer and the tune is equality and freedom. To be honest,I have never defined my actions as support of a particular minority,gender or orientation but simply standing up for those who were picked on.I take particular delight in confronting the pinchpenny,fundamentalist attitudes prevalent in the cheapsuit denyers.
I generally avoid the feminist forum.Once I posted a topic on daycare with a view to expanding the concept of daycare to include care in the workplace and working from home.Mostly,I avoid the forum.I am interested and not intimidated by the subject but consider any contribution I may make will be ignored.
From: ontario | Registered: Aug 2005
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het heru
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11011
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posted 07 December 2005 10:48 PM
quote:
Originally posted by skdadl:
When backlashers complain about PC language, they focus on individual terms, which are always open to refinement and historical change. But language is a problem at a deeper level than mere usage. Rhetorical structures - like that question put to Layton and Harper - may be either so thoughtlessly or so intentionally crooked that an honest person has no choice but to take them apart in response.
One of the key things to know about your average right wing argument is it is premised on the idea of the "special case". Whatever logic they come up with to defend their argument is meant only to be applied to THAT argument, and in no other circumstance. (More often, it's meant only to apply to them and their friends, and no one else, but that's another issue.) It all leads to the whole self-pitying "we're positioned as being un- or anti-intellectual" but frankly, when you have a logic that cannot be applied anywhere else, the argument is either stupid or disingenuous. (I'm more inclined to attribute the latter.) You really do have to analyze what they are saying on a word by word basis, if only to tease out the "special circumstance" factor, and the cases in which it does and does not apply.
From: Where Sekhmet sleeps | Registered: Nov 2005
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Catchfire
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4019
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posted 08 December 2005 10:34 AM
I think that rather than point out Stephen Harper's sexist or heterosexist inclinations, this question of language points to something much broader. The question asked of the leaders was "If my wife needed a hip replacement, I would..." For me, the problem is located in the interviewer—obviously, the correct response is "Well, I would ask my wife what she wanted to do." Jack, for his part, at least answered in the personal plural (i.e. "We would...") but Harper, poor dolt, capitulated to a patriarchal power structure that was buried in the language of the question.Think it's nitpicking to attack language like this? These problems are embedded precisely and finally in language. That's why heterosexuals are "straight" and homosexuals aren't. That's why there was a word for "homosexual" before there was a word for hetero. If you give language a free pass, questions like this will continue to slide by unnoticed, because they just seem part of the normal discourse.
From: On the heather | Registered: Apr 2003
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Boarsbreath
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 9831
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posted 08 December 2005 08:53 PM
(I thought straight came from the straight-man role in vaudeville...)Of course language is important. And of course it isn't: there's no word corresponding to "wife" in French, a language very close to English in global terms! (Not "epouse"...too close to "spouse".) Does that mean the associated social issues are any different...? Like most things, it depends. Whoever advocated "personhole" for "manhole" was being a useful idiot for sexists (unless it was a trick BY a sexist source)...but the now-ubiquitous extra "e" in French-language association names actually does help people think, I suspect (Association des infirmiers/infirmieres, Groupuscule des babbleurs/babbleuses, etc).
And those are of the easier, mere-vocabulary examples. [ 08 December 2005: Message edited by: Boarsbreath ]
From: South Seas, ex Montreal | Registered: Jul 2005
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Catchfire
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4019
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posted 09 December 2005 12:21 AM
"Une femme" is french for wife. "Une épouse" is used for legal situations.Uncovering the prejudices embedded in language isn't about simplifying to personhole vs. manhole. It's about phrases like: "As a husband, I've got to do what's best for my family." Who can pinpoint the problem there? He is a husband. He does want to do what's best for his family, like most of us do. Often, once you unpack how words are used in relation to each other, it reveals a prejudiced discourse that has been universally and uncritically accepted. Edward Said and Eve Sedgwick, among others, have used the theories of Derrida to demonstrate this very real problem. The argument is not reductive to "actor/actress," though, as you said, these terms are helpful in that they force people to consider an otherwise exremely complex and nuanced linguistic system that unconsciously privileges the dominant class, race, sex, etc.
From: On the heather | Registered: Apr 2003
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Nocturnal Goddess
recent-rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11426
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posted 21 December 2005 02:39 PM
Slight tangent, but, this has always bothered me:Someone who's loud, forceful, abrasive, rough, etc gets called a "dick" Someone who's weak, weak-willed, scared, whiney, etc gets called a "pussy"
From: Delaware | Registered: Dec 2005
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Jay Williams
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11367
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posted 21 December 2005 02:50 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Nocturnal Goddess:
Slight tangent, but, this has always bothered me:Someone who's loud, forceful, abrasive, rough, etc gets called a "dick" Someone who's weak, weak-willed, scared, whiney, etc gets called a "pussy"
From another thread about Team America: We're dicks! We're reckless, arrogant, stupid dicks. And the Film Actors Guild are pussies. And Kim Jong Il is an asshole. Pussies don't like dicks, because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes: assholes that just want to shit on everything. Pussies may think they can deal with assholes their way. But the only thing that can fuck an asshole is a dick, with some balls. The problem with dicks is: they fuck too much or fuck when it isn't appropriate - and it takes a pussy to show them that. But sometimes, pussies can be so full of shit that they become assholes themselves... because pussies are an inch and half away from ass holes. I don't know much about this crazy, crazy world, but I do know this: If you don't let us fuck this asshole, we're going to have our dicks and pussies all covered in shit!
From: Toronto | Registered: Dec 2005
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Accidental Altruist
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11219
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posted 21 December 2005 06:29 PM
quote:
Someone who's weak, weak-willed, scared, whiney, etc gets called a "pussy"
I'm with ya on the negative imagery associated with being a 'pussy'. Further to that - I'll air my beef with vagina. I haven't seen/read the vagina monologues but friends keep telling me I'd love it because of the "vagina rant". Vagina is a latin word for "a sheath or scabbard" which is simply a carrying case you would put a sword into. The term vagina implies there's a singular purpose for that hole between my legs. Giving birth, menstruation, masturbation.... not even on the radar. Saying "vagina" makes me out to be nothing more than a walking, talking tote bag for some guy's "sword". It's sexist, heteronormative and degrading. I'm getting more and more comfortable with cunt! C'mon, repeat after me - CUNT!!! cuuuuuuunt. cunt. cunt. cunt.  [ 21 December 2005: Message edited by: Accidental Altruist ]
From: i'm directly under the sun ... ... right .. . . . ... now! | Registered: Dec 2005
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het heru
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11011
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posted 21 December 2005 08:08 PM
quote:
Pussies don't like dicks, because pussies get fucked by dicks.
Pussies don't like to be fucked? Hmm. I wonder what it is that I have then...
From: Where Sekhmet sleeps | Registered: Nov 2005
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The Goddess Selene
recent-rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11455
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posted 22 December 2005 11:51 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Accidental Altruist:
I'm with ya on the negative imagery associated with being a 'pussy'. Further to that - I'll air my beef with vagina. I haven't seen/read the vagina monologues but friends keep telling me I'd love it because of the "vagina rant". Vagina is a latin word for "a sheath or scabbard" which is simply a carrying case you would put a sword into. The term vagina implies there's a singular purpose for that hole between my legs. Giving birth, menstruation, masturbation.... not even on the radar. Saying "vagina" makes me out to be nothing more than a walking, talking tote bag for some guy's "sword". It's sexist, heteronormative and degrading. I'm getting more and more comfortable with cunt! C'mon, repeat after me - CUNT!!! cuuuuuuunt. cunt. cunt. cunt. [ 21 December 2005: Message edited by: Accidental Altruist ]
Actually, there's this really powerful piece in TVM about taking back the word "cunt", taking it away from the ugliness males have given it, and restoring it to a word of female liberation. It's short and sweet, give it a read
From: Delaware | Registered: Dec 2005
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