male normative language
I started throwing my two cents all over Sonicage's LJ discussion on language and thought that maybe I should just sum up my own points:
Changing your language to be less gendered and gender normative is definitely one of the more microcosmic level changes you make, in many ways. However, I think that's one of the reasons it's the most accessible avenue for activism around gender and language-- you're not asking people to rewrite a dictionary, you're not petitioning a newspaper to use "hir", you're making the change in your own life, in your own conversations and dialogue. If it leads you to those other things, then great. If not, you're still making your own self and space more like you want the world to be. Once your world is rearranged, it may become easier to talk to others about it without getting confrontational or angry, when you're coming from a better space.
Example: my partner and I both gave up our former last names and made up a new last name when we got married. Every semester, I tell this story in my classes when we talk about how women are linguistically marked by terms such as Mrs. and Miss. Every semester, the students are surprised, and almost every single one of them had never thought of that option before. It leads us into a great discussion on gender, heterosexuality, family, marriage, and more.
Will any of them do the same? There's no way for me to know. However, having that discussion gave them a new option in thinking about language and society, and as a group, we questioned a convention that is often presented as common-sense or natural. Every time you can reveal the ideology and deliberation behind something in society that appears to be common-sense, you've won a battle, as far as I'm concerned.
Arguing that we should be up in arms about abortion and only abortion (or any other "major" women's issue) and give up on crazy gender-and-language battles ( or any other "trivial" concern) ignores the fact that all oppression of women is connected ideologically. The same line of reasoning behind calling doctors "he" and nurses "she" by default is traced to automatically placing women in a subordinate position, just as when women are not trusted to determine their own contraceptive choices. Once again-- there is no hierarchy of oppression-- all oppression should be dismantled wherever possible.
Also, the discussion reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Alice Walker, saying essentially that whatever small stones we can give to our heartfelt causes is worthwhile, even if it's not a boulder thrown against the Goliath we're fighting. Working to change my language is one of the many small stones I pitch in for feminism every day, along with a multitude of others.
Changing your language to be less gendered and gender normative is definitely one of the more microcosmic level changes you make, in many ways. However, I think that's one of the reasons it's the most accessible avenue for activism around gender and language-- you're not asking people to rewrite a dictionary, you're not petitioning a newspaper to use "hir", you're making the change in your own life, in your own conversations and dialogue. If it leads you to those other things, then great. If not, you're still making your own self and space more like you want the world to be. Once your world is rearranged, it may become easier to talk to others about it without getting confrontational or angry, when you're coming from a better space.
Example: my partner and I both gave up our former last names and made up a new last name when we got married. Every semester, I tell this story in my classes when we talk about how women are linguistically marked by terms such as Mrs. and Miss. Every semester, the students are surprised, and almost every single one of them had never thought of that option before. It leads us into a great discussion on gender, heterosexuality, family, marriage, and more.
Will any of them do the same? There's no way for me to know. However, having that discussion gave them a new option in thinking about language and society, and as a group, we questioned a convention that is often presented as common-sense or natural. Every time you can reveal the ideology and deliberation behind something in society that appears to be common-sense, you've won a battle, as far as I'm concerned.
Arguing that we should be up in arms about abortion and only abortion (or any other "major" women's issue) and give up on crazy gender-and-language battles ( or any other "trivial" concern) ignores the fact that all oppression of women is connected ideologically. The same line of reasoning behind calling doctors "he" and nurses "she" by default is traced to automatically placing women in a subordinate position, just as when women are not trusted to determine their own contraceptive choices. Once again-- there is no hierarchy of oppression-- all oppression should be dismantled wherever possible.
Also, the discussion reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from Alice Walker, saying essentially that whatever small stones we can give to our heartfelt causes is worthwhile, even if it's not a boulder thrown against the Goliath we're fighting. Working to change my language is one of the many small stones I pitch in for feminism every day, along with a multitude of others.