The Words That We Use
I've been waiting for an idea to inspire me. What to blog about. Then I started reading the current book assignment for a book club I'm in. It happens to be Demystifying Disability by Emily Ladau, and it is not about gender identity, sexual orientation, sex vs gender, or LGBTQIA+ issues. It is about identity politics, though, and it starts off by doing something that annoys me, which makes the matter a good thing to blog about.
The fact that it isn't about gender or related matters makes it a good detached "exhibit A" for discussing the annoying stuff. Because it annoys me when I encounter it within our environment, and I definitely do, quite often.
I should state for the record that I'm only through the first chapter of Ladau's book and the remainder of it may be provocative and informative.
The annoying practice
Ladau kicks the book off with a tour of vocabulary and why you should use these words and phrases and why you should not use these other ones. The explanations are short and choppy and don't provide much analysis: "The way we talk shapes how we think, and the way we think shapes how we talk", she informs us. This term is outdated, hence bad, don't use it. This term is reductionistic, hence bad, don't use it. Sometimes the reasons are more personal: "It makes my skin craw", or "I don't like euphemisms".
She declares herself not to be one of those judgmental people who have no tolerance of someone who uses the wrong words: "It's totally normal to worry that you'll mess up on what to say...if you get it wrong, just apologize, move on, and try to do better in the future".
But when you spend the first 25 pages on nomenclature, and only provide superficial explanations for why saying things with these words and not those words is important, and to whom, it still looms in significance and emphasis.
The real reasons
Whenever an out group begins to stand up for itself as an identity, having a different vocabulary to describe the differences than what the mainstream majority uses helps to do these social tasks:
• It underlines group identity and polarization from those who are not us. We do this; they do that. It signals one's allegiance, much like the wearing of berets or khaki or jeans have sometimes done for people at various times. It's likewise similar to the wearing of one's hair a certain way. It reminds everyone which group we're in.
• The lack of explanation itself serves a purpose: it emphasizes embrace of the group over retaining individual nitpicky differences in perception. It puts a higher priority on group loyalty than on respect for individual dissent.
Why I dislike it
• First off, I do my own thinking and I can follow yours if you bother to share it. Don't treat me like I'm too stupid to consider the real thought process. And if you didn't engage in any real thought process and you're just handing down "because everyone in the group all says so" wisdom you absorbed when you joined up, you shouldn't be writing as if from a position of leadership on the topic.
• Visualize the mainstream folks for a moment. Think about the ones whose initial response is to be dismissive of ideas they aren't familiar with, but who are willing to listen. They're following along with the culture's ongoing dialogs at home. Well, when you come out with a bunch of "is" declarations that lay out what is right and what is wrong, and don't unpack any of your thinking, you haven't given the mainstreamers any reason to consider your viewpoint. In fact, you've given them ammunition to be contemptuous of us.
• Then there's litmus testing. Other people whose situations put them into the same camp with us may arrive at a sense of identity from having analyzed their own situation. That means they may not be camp followers who have absorbed the appropriate vocabulary lesson when they first show up and attempt to communicate. The mindless thoughtless and arbitrary "never say this, always say that" approach often causes people to label them as enemy, as wrong-thinking outsider, instead of listening and recognizing that they're us.
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My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves. Hardback versions to follow, stay tuned for details.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for both books.
-------
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
--------
Index of all Blog Posts
The fact that it isn't about gender or related matters makes it a good detached "exhibit A" for discussing the annoying stuff. Because it annoys me when I encounter it within our environment, and I definitely do, quite often.
I should state for the record that I'm only through the first chapter of Ladau's book and the remainder of it may be provocative and informative.
The annoying practice
Ladau kicks the book off with a tour of vocabulary and why you should use these words and phrases and why you should not use these other ones. The explanations are short and choppy and don't provide much analysis: "The way we talk shapes how we think, and the way we think shapes how we talk", she informs us. This term is outdated, hence bad, don't use it. This term is reductionistic, hence bad, don't use it. Sometimes the reasons are more personal: "It makes my skin craw", or "I don't like euphemisms".
She declares herself not to be one of those judgmental people who have no tolerance of someone who uses the wrong words: "It's totally normal to worry that you'll mess up on what to say...if you get it wrong, just apologize, move on, and try to do better in the future".
But when you spend the first 25 pages on nomenclature, and only provide superficial explanations for why saying things with these words and not those words is important, and to whom, it still looms in significance and emphasis.
The real reasons
Whenever an out group begins to stand up for itself as an identity, having a different vocabulary to describe the differences than what the mainstream majority uses helps to do these social tasks:
• It underlines group identity and polarization from those who are not us. We do this; they do that. It signals one's allegiance, much like the wearing of berets or khaki or jeans have sometimes done for people at various times. It's likewise similar to the wearing of one's hair a certain way. It reminds everyone which group we're in.
• The lack of explanation itself serves a purpose: it emphasizes embrace of the group over retaining individual nitpicky differences in perception. It puts a higher priority on group loyalty than on respect for individual dissent.
Why I dislike it
• First off, I do my own thinking and I can follow yours if you bother to share it. Don't treat me like I'm too stupid to consider the real thought process. And if you didn't engage in any real thought process and you're just handing down "because everyone in the group all says so" wisdom you absorbed when you joined up, you shouldn't be writing as if from a position of leadership on the topic.
• Visualize the mainstream folks for a moment. Think about the ones whose initial response is to be dismissive of ideas they aren't familiar with, but who are willing to listen. They're following along with the culture's ongoing dialogs at home. Well, when you come out with a bunch of "is" declarations that lay out what is right and what is wrong, and don't unpack any of your thinking, you haven't given the mainstreamers any reason to consider your viewpoint. In fact, you've given them ammunition to be contemptuous of us.
• Then there's litmus testing. Other people whose situations put them into the same camp with us may arrive at a sense of identity from having analyzed their own situation. That means they may not be camp followers who have absorbed the appropriate vocabulary lesson when they first show up and attempt to communicate. The mindless thoughtless and arbitrary "never say this, always say that" approach often causes people to label them as enemy, as wrong-thinking outsider, instead of listening and recognizing that they're us.
-----
My first book, GenderQueer: A Story From a Different Closet, is published by Sunstone Press. It is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, hardback, and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves.
My second book, That Guy in Our Women's Studies Class, has also now been published by Sunstone Press. It's a sequel to GenderQueer. It is available on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble in paperback and ebook, and as ebook only from Apple, Kobo, and directly from Sunstone Press themselves. Hardback versions to follow, stay tuned for details.
Links to published reviews and comments are listed on my Home Page, for both books.
-------
This DreamWidth blog is echoed on LiveJournal and WordPress. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
--------
Index of all Blog Posts