Language: Our, Us, Them

[sasha_feather]

Thanks to those of you who took the poll and/or left comments! I ended up going with green tone outfit and no hat. Well, I wore a stocking cap because it was a whopping -1 F (-18 C) when I left the house. I had time to comb my hair a bit before the interview. Anyways, the interview went fine.

I watched most of the inauguration the other day. I quite liked it but here is a rhetorical thing that some people have pointed out on Twitter:

Regarding fair pay for women: "Our wives, mothers, and daughters..." This excludes women, making men the rhetorical "we", and also reduces them to roles in relation to men.

Response from Laura Bassett (@LEBassett) on Twitter: "As an experiment, I'm going to start referring to men as "our husbands, fathers and sons." Just to see if anyone finds that a little weird."

Regarding LGBT rights: "Our gay brothers and sisters": Similarly, this excludes gay people by making straight people the "we/our". It also excludes people who are queer but do not ID as gay.

Obviously I'm very happy the president is acknowledging these issues. But here is another way to phrase it which I learned from WisCon activists:

"Those of us who who are gay..." "Those of us who unfairly receive less pay due to the simple fact of being women in society..."

Very. Simple.

Comments

[chaila]

YES. SO EASY. I just hate it because it reminds me who is writing the speeches and giving the speeches, who has a voice.

Glad your interview went well!

[kalmn]

Oh, nice.

[amadi]

The relational construction versus the inclusive construction is a particular favorite of POTUS's speechwriters, and it's continually an irritant. Being positively mentioned while simultaneously being set apart is still othering and divisive!

[wrdnrd]

Language is such a constant reminder of how deeply embedded these thought processes are. Today our local video store tweeted that they're never sure what to call someone whose gender they can't determine. [eyeroll] The person tweeting (i think everyone at the store takes control of the twitter from time to time) said they didn't like, "Can you help this person find 'Star Wars'?" I don't see what's wrong with that myself, but whatever. For me, the important thing was this: This is a STORE. I tweeted back at them: I think "Can you help this customer..." works perfectly fine.

I don't understand why a video store employee would be involved in working out the gender of a customer in the 1st place. But culture has embedded the practice of gendering people pretty deeply.

UGH.

[amadi]

We've become a culture that is simultaneously completely disconnected from one another's essential humanity while at the same time, inexplicably and inappropriately invested in interfering with aspects of one another's lives that are none of our business.

[sasha_feather]

ICON LOVE.