Language and Misogyny

[alexpolismum]

I have been thinking a lot about how language is used to express things implicitly or just to add a hint, a nuance, without explicitly saying something.

The more I think about it, the more it seems that misogyny is often expressed in this way. For example, saying "a nagging wife" or a "hysterical girl" etc.

This has also got me thinking about other points of language. Does it matter if we say for example 'actress' or should actor be used for both?

(I should perhaps mention that I am a professional translator, so I think carefully about the right choice of word all the time.)

Ooh, this has brought me on to another point. Do you think it belittles women to refer to them as 'girls' as adults, while males of the same age range are referred to as 'men'?

well we might hear a lot fewer references to "raping the planet" which I could really go along with.

Ooh, that's a good topic mele.

Interesting that Littleredpumpkin should use the twat in one of her earlier posts.

Genuine question: Is that ironic?

Should read 'Use the word twat.'

I was asking her dittany.

dittany - were you on that thread where I was talking about Julian of Norwich who had a lot of ideas about Jesus as Mother.

No, not ironic joni. I don't especially like it when people throw up their hands in horror at 'twat' or 'cunt' being used as insults, because to me, that just reinforces that women's private parts are too secret and/or too nasty to speak about. Because the word is already in the language as an insult, and not using it doesn't erase it, but does reinforce that impression.

Also I enjoy swearing, I find it rich and expressive and interesting. No-one thinks that using 'fuck' is tantamount to implying that sex is offensive (as far as I know, anyway!), so why should cunt or twat be different?

Hope that doesn't offend you, though. That's not my intention either.

I'm interested in the way language hops around trying to reflect the change in the way we see things (apparently the name of the dog in the new dambusters movie is changed, for example) but am a little depressed/cynical about the way each successive name still becomes a term of abuse/disrespect in turn. As if the language is strong, but not strong enough to change really ingrained negative attitudes.

Why don't you like references to "raping the planet",EvilAnts?
My first reaction to "father nature" is that along with that would go a whole slew of assumptions - that nature is tough,able to look out for itself,not in need of any particular care or intervention,which would be bad for the planet ....which makes me feel a bit - I really wouldn't have said I thought about mothers as the opposite of that lot, but obviously I do at some level - more ...

Ok. I Understand that LittleRed. I too enjoy swearing although I don't like or use twat or cunt because to my mind they have different connotations.

I don't want to rattle cages and to be honest I haven't ever bothered with these topics before but I am a feminist and I'm finding you lot really stimulating. Even when I'm being slated!

Do you think all the change is in a negative direction mele?

An example of a word becoming inoffensive that's flattering to men is 'boy'. Used to be an insult, and it isn't any more.

It's fine, it was a fair question and I feel a bit guilty for not thinking whether or not it might be offensive to people on these threads.

oh don't bother - was just mentioning it elsewhere. It was possibly on the female history thread. Was talking about how she (J of N) thought of Jesus as the self-sacrificing mother who provides for us all etc. Also linking to Christian imagery of Jesus represented by a mother pelican, who was thought to pluck at her breast in order to feed her babies on her own blood.

I'm not sure all change is in a negative direction but I do think stereotypes are often reinforced. The fact that a word that used to be offensive to men and now isn't (mind you, down our way it's not particularly positive!) is up against the reappropriation of words like "gay" to become abusive again.

True.

It's also not always flattering that the suffering, dying aspect of Christ is associated with the feminine. Though a result is that there are quite a lot of extremely vaginal wound pictures kicking around that people used to stare at and stroke as objects to venerate.

I suppose I'd looked on it more positively in her case, because she's a "mystic" and so more writing about her vision of a redeeming mother, than Jesus complete with beard etc as a pseudo-woman.

Pogle - partly because I hate the way "raping" is used to describe things other than, well, raping (although I know this is older, i.e. the "theft" meaning of rape). Partly because what is happening to the earth is more destruction, you can't "steal" from the earth because everything stays on earth. But you can distort it and injure it and damage it irreversably. And I suppose I don't like the connotations of those WRT rape.

But I like how Julian of Norwich worked from where she was - it is hard now, but I can't even see how it would have been possible in her time, to see beyond the total immersion of the culture in that religion. (I think it was McLuhan who said, "we don't know who invented water but we're pretty sure it wasn't a fish".) And so her reinterpretation of Jesus still seems pretty progressive to me.
As my darling mother used to say, you have a choice to work from outside or inside a corrupt structure to change things. (She was a feminist Catholic).

Of course they are - but I just don't like "rape as metaphor" I suppose.