Language.
It’s interesting that you interpret it that way.
That was said to me yesterday evening. Yes, it is interesting. It’s because I’m female and living in a patriarchal society. This is something so intimately woven into every day that mostly we don’t even see it. Someone has been opening my eyes. Thanks Witchy!
I saw sitting, drinking tea and chatting with 2 blokes. Perfectly normal, respectable blokes. They happen to be gay. They’re lovely and I’m fond of them both. I hope they know that.
But what were we talking about? One of them works in a large office as part of a large organisation. This organisation recently sent out an email inviting women and ethnic minority employees to a series of groups or workshops or something. The response to this? A single message sent anonymously to one of the managers asking where the groups were for white, heterosexual, christian males! Because the poor loves were feeling all left out. So there is now a "Mens club" equivalent and moves to open all these empowerment workshops to everyone. *sigh* White men win again. Mustn’t let them feel left out, mustn’t infringe on their fragile power base.
I was trying to explain to this pair of gay, but still white, christian males that they are in a position of priveledge. They sort of looked blank. It’s so ingrained they don’t see it. These 2 live with homophobia every day. So much so that they hide it at work. Being gay can be hidden, being female can’t, being non white can’t. I can’t and won’t hide who and what I am. Why should I?
From there we went on to natter about how this is a patriarchal society and that is so woven into the rich fabric of our lifes that we don’t even see it. Take job titles. Why is a female manager a manageress? I have always hated that. Why is a WPC a Wpc? She is still a Police Constable, still trained to do the same job, why point out she is different, why point out she is female?
But Manageress? Look at the word. What does it not quite say? Manager Less? Manager ette? Manager but somehow less? Oh hang on, look even closer Man-ager. HIS-story. (Ok, slight misspell there but you get the idea. Oh, MISS-spell?) Fe-MALE, wo-MAN, s-HE. Hence the comment:
It’s interesting that you interpret it that way.
He saw it as just words. But it’s not. It’s a pointing out of difference that is so ingrained that we don’t even see it. If we had different words for an asian manager, a muslim manager, a sikh manager, a disabled manager, then there would be protests.
Well, I protest! I am a business owner. I am an author. I am an individual. I am those things regardless of being female. So, I protest and I protest LOUDLY! I insist on being given the title and label I deserve not some lesser version. I insist that this be dragged kicking and screaming into the light and be seen.
in the theatre we now almost universally refer to actors of both gender as actors. not that there is any equality of opportunity in the industry but that bit of wording ahs at least been corrected. i thought the sentence ‘It’s interesting that you interpret it that way’. was the key one - the underlying thought being the truth is the universal, the dominant, the male perspective and your version is an interpretation predicated by your difference from the owners of that truth.
Comment by simplywondered — November 12, 2006 @ 11:41 pm
slight amendment ‘interpretation’ single inverted commas, but you knew that
Comment by simplywondered — November 13, 2006 @ 11:48 am
many (most?) languages have gender forms for nouns. they do not denigrate the possessor of the noun merely give the listener more information about them. is a female visitor in any way reduced by being refered to as a visitress? As for the objection to history (which you incorrectly spell in order to make your case)that is preposterous.
Comment by debs — November 27, 2006 @ 1:32 pm