three questions.
there are much larger and far more overarching concerns in my life at the moment (among them may be one or more or none of the following: hunger, homelessness, living high on my dreams...??) but as i am currently menstruating and doped to the gills on generic aspirin, now seems as good a time as any to bring up some linguistic questions i have been debating recently. for the purposes of this conversation, "recently" may or may not extend to the past couple of months.
problem the first: are people capable of oppressing themselves? oppression would seem to imply a definitive lack of agency, however when it comes to the quandary of internalized such-and-suchism you have to wonder if it is a legitimate claim that people can, in fact, turn historical forms of oppression inward on themselves or toward their own so-called ranks, or if this is another clever way of dismissing the responsibility of the outsider. i.e., if oppression is internalized, is it somehow also legitimized? does it become something people do to themselves rather than something which is done to them? of course, the original thing must have been done to them for it to become internalized in the first place, but if it is perpetuated by the oppressed, it becomes a sort of entropy. i don't know. for context, this is probably somehow tied to the difference between shtetls and ghettos. or possibly the idea of the concept of "being a lady" being advanced by older women on younger girls (not exclusively, obviously). is phyllis schlafly an oppressor? is she the basis for serena joy in the handmaid's tale? wtf, phyllis schlafly? you have been on my enemies list since 1998.
problem the second: actually, i don't remember what the second quandary was, because phyllis schlafly made me angry. we'll come back to this one later. right. so. i remembered this one (this entry is compositionally sort of interesting to me. instead of just deleting the bits where i erred and pretending they didn't happen, which is my mother's favorite improvement of computers over typewriters, there are redirections and parentheticals. interesting!) and here we are. i tend to use gendered words in a non-gendered context. or, more specifically, regardless of whether or not the contexts are parallel. for instance, i basically call everyone "dude" and refer to a lot of things as "my go-to guy". like trying not to say the word "bitch" even in a so-called "reclamatory" fashion (debates on whether or not there is such a thing are still raging) because it is too easy a word to say and i don't want it to be my go-to guy for spoken placeholders. are male-gendered pronouns my go-to guy? and if so, what does this mean? is it an ingrained sense that male=better? male=the norm? or is it the equivalent of girls wearing pants? a traditionally masculine social marker which has pretty much been rendered meaningless by the vast number of non-male-identified people who wear pants? and am i just assuming, in this example, that america is, in fact, the world (gratuitous morrissey reference!)? i mean, obviously there are plenty of other places where there is gender-neutral dress, however this is ignoring the places i am dimly certain exist where what a person wears is a very legitimate social marker. i am also wondering if it is 1)true 2)relevant that there are no parallel cases. for instance, a girl who wears pants is not an anomaly, but all sorts of assumptions are made about boys who wear dresses. i call girls "man", but can't think of a single instance outside of gay men where i have heard male-identified individuals referred to as "sister" without protest. and these cases are only half serious to begin with.
problem the third: some of you may or may not be familiar with my ongoing project to purge certain words from my vocabulary. hang on, i just remembered problem the second. i'll be right back. okay, i'm back :) as i was saying, two of the earliest words to go were "hysterical" and "genius". more ostensibly gendered terms, huzzah! "genius" may or may not have been derived from the greek word for "testicles". i was told this in highschool (there may have been zines...and articles discussing why girls are so rarely ranked at "genius level" when it comes to standardized testing) but all i can tell for certain is that it has the root "gen" which means "to produce". i am willing to believe that said highschool zinewriter's research was not faulty. in any case, i have been wary of this word and, until i know its etymology for certain, it has been replaced by the adjective "brilliant". or, in french, "chouette" ha! on the other side, is the word "hysterical", and that is what i am having trouble with. originally i wanted it gone because it seemed like something that was just an easy catch-all way of dismissing women entirely. wandering uterus. equal rights. what next! however, i have been reading for her own good by barbara ehrenreich and deirdre english, and it goes into some depth about the way medicine became industrialized and commodified and how "the experts" basically painted themselves into a corner by creating the theory that women were, by nature, sick and sickly while, at the same time, holding themselves up as the general saviors of (wo)/mankind. femaleness could not be cured, however curing sickness was their job and they had fancy degrees to prove they were proficient in just that. this book chronicles the rise of the cult of invalidism and its consequent backlash by really embarrassed medical professionals who all came to the informed conclusion that all invalid women could be cured, and if they couldn't be cured, then they were faking. "hysteria" then arose as a sort of anarchic subversion of sanctioned female sickness. it was naturally wild and uninhibited and men had no idea what to make of it and were, frankly, terrified. of uteruses. wandering. and such. taken in this context, i am half tempted to welcome it back into my lexicon warmly. rejoice! this word was dead but now is alive! however, i can't help but see it as an example of trying to destroy the system from within it. which i am not so much a fan of. but, i suppose, when there is no "outside" the system, you work with what you have. "hysteria" did not, of course, destroy any particular systems, and in the end just rebounded and made a convenient diagnostic excuse for invasive surgeries, fumigations, and institutionalizations. but, you know, it was the little syndrome that tried. so is there any harm inherent in describing something as "hysterically funny"? this is not a medical diagnosis. language does evolve, after all, which has been my argument and call to arms from the very beginning. but i don't want to speak in a way in which i offend myself.
thoughts?
seriously, friends list, please have thoughts! i don't often troll for comments, but regardless of how poorly and run-onily i may have phrased this, i am really interested in these things. so i'd like there to be some sort of discussion at least.
and, re: poor phrasing and/or unclear concepts. remember. doped to the gills on aspirin. i did warn you.
and one more thing. yes, this is sort of about annie lennox, so you can skip it if you are so inclined. in the course of all the videos i have been watching, i've noticed how often she uses knitting as an indication of female subjugation (examples off the top of my head are beethoven (i love to listen to) and waiting in vain which, ps, is probably one of my favorite videos because it is so completely ridiculous. also, i am pleased with how completely she doesn't sonically wreck bob marley. pretty much, annie lennox can sing anything and i will fangirl her). i am amused by how often i tend to be knitting as i watch said video and discover this fact. playing the percentages, though, it is bound to happen, as i am knitting most of the time these days. we will not talk about domesticity now. no, we will not.
problem the first: are people capable of oppressing themselves? oppression would seem to imply a definitive lack of agency, however when it comes to the quandary of internalized such-and-suchism you have to wonder if it is a legitimate claim that people can, in fact, turn historical forms of oppression inward on themselves or toward their own so-called ranks, or if this is another clever way of dismissing the responsibility of the outsider. i.e., if oppression is internalized, is it somehow also legitimized? does it become something people do to themselves rather than something which is done to them? of course, the original thing must have been done to them for it to become internalized in the first place, but if it is perpetuated by the oppressed, it becomes a sort of entropy. i don't know. for context, this is probably somehow tied to the difference between shtetls and ghettos. or possibly the idea of the concept of "being a lady" being advanced by older women on younger girls (not exclusively, obviously). is phyllis schlafly an oppressor? is she the basis for serena joy in the handmaid's tale? wtf, phyllis schlafly? you have been on my enemies list since 1998.
problem the second: actually, i don't remember what the second quandary was, because phyllis schlafly made me angry. we'll come back to this one later. right. so. i remembered this one (this entry is compositionally sort of interesting to me. instead of just deleting the bits where i erred and pretending they didn't happen, which is my mother's favorite improvement of computers over typewriters, there are redirections and parentheticals. interesting!) and here we are. i tend to use gendered words in a non-gendered context. or, more specifically, regardless of whether or not the contexts are parallel. for instance, i basically call everyone "dude" and refer to a lot of things as "my go-to guy". like trying not to say the word "bitch" even in a so-called "reclamatory" fashion (debates on whether or not there is such a thing are still raging) because it is too easy a word to say and i don't want it to be my go-to guy for spoken placeholders. are male-gendered pronouns my go-to guy? and if so, what does this mean? is it an ingrained sense that male=better? male=the norm? or is it the equivalent of girls wearing pants? a traditionally masculine social marker which has pretty much been rendered meaningless by the vast number of non-male-identified people who wear pants? and am i just assuming, in this example, that america is, in fact, the world (gratuitous morrissey reference!)? i mean, obviously there are plenty of other places where there is gender-neutral dress, however this is ignoring the places i am dimly certain exist where what a person wears is a very legitimate social marker. i am also wondering if it is 1)true 2)relevant that there are no parallel cases. for instance, a girl who wears pants is not an anomaly, but all sorts of assumptions are made about boys who wear dresses. i call girls "man", but can't think of a single instance outside of gay men where i have heard male-identified individuals referred to as "sister" without protest. and these cases are only half serious to begin with.
problem the third: some of you may or may not be familiar with my ongoing project to purge certain words from my vocabulary. hang on, i just remembered problem the second. i'll be right back. okay, i'm back :) as i was saying, two of the earliest words to go were "hysterical" and "genius". more ostensibly gendered terms, huzzah! "genius" may or may not have been derived from the greek word for "testicles". i was told this in highschool (there may have been zines...and articles discussing why girls are so rarely ranked at "genius level" when it comes to standardized testing) but all i can tell for certain is that it has the root "gen" which means "to produce". i am willing to believe that said highschool zinewriter's research was not faulty. in any case, i have been wary of this word and, until i know its etymology for certain, it has been replaced by the adjective "brilliant". or, in french, "chouette" ha! on the other side, is the word "hysterical", and that is what i am having trouble with. originally i wanted it gone because it seemed like something that was just an easy catch-all way of dismissing women entirely. wandering uterus. equal rights. what next! however, i have been reading for her own good by barbara ehrenreich and deirdre english, and it goes into some depth about the way medicine became industrialized and commodified and how "the experts" basically painted themselves into a corner by creating the theory that women were, by nature, sick and sickly while, at the same time, holding themselves up as the general saviors of (wo)/mankind. femaleness could not be cured, however curing sickness was their job and they had fancy degrees to prove they were proficient in just that. this book chronicles the rise of the cult of invalidism and its consequent backlash by really embarrassed medical professionals who all came to the informed conclusion that all invalid women could be cured, and if they couldn't be cured, then they were faking. "hysteria" then arose as a sort of anarchic subversion of sanctioned female sickness. it was naturally wild and uninhibited and men had no idea what to make of it and were, frankly, terrified. of uteruses. wandering. and such. taken in this context, i am half tempted to welcome it back into my lexicon warmly. rejoice! this word was dead but now is alive! however, i can't help but see it as an example of trying to destroy the system from within it. which i am not so much a fan of. but, i suppose, when there is no "outside" the system, you work with what you have. "hysteria" did not, of course, destroy any particular systems, and in the end just rebounded and made a convenient diagnostic excuse for invasive surgeries, fumigations, and institutionalizations. but, you know, it was the little syndrome that tried. so is there any harm inherent in describing something as "hysterically funny"? this is not a medical diagnosis. language does evolve, after all, which has been my argument and call to arms from the very beginning. but i don't want to speak in a way in which i offend myself.
thoughts?
seriously, friends list, please have thoughts! i don't often troll for comments, but regardless of how poorly and run-onily i may have phrased this, i am really interested in these things. so i'd like there to be some sort of discussion at least.
and, re: poor phrasing and/or unclear concepts. remember. doped to the gills on aspirin. i did warn you.
and one more thing. yes, this is sort of about annie lennox, so you can skip it if you are so inclined. in the course of all the videos i have been watching, i've noticed how often she uses knitting as an indication of female subjugation (examples off the top of my head are beethoven (i love to listen to) and waiting in vain which, ps, is probably one of my favorite videos because it is so completely ridiculous. also, i am pleased with how completely she doesn't sonically wreck bob marley. pretty much, annie lennox can sing anything and i will fangirl her). i am amused by how often i tend to be knitting as i watch said video and discover this fact. playing the percentages, though, it is bound to happen, as i am knitting most of the time these days. we will not talk about domesticity now. no, we will not.