Sigh. I've been deleted and blocked by yet another feminist page on Facebook....

[AnnieLobeseder]

...for daring to disagree with them on something they've posted.

Are they really so bloody-minded that they can't handle debate on their philosophies? I realise they get a lot of nasty trolling spam, but there's a world of difference between MRA nastiness and another feminist wanting to debate feminism!!

Is it just me?

I agree with your point though that jargon can be used to exclude people and that is a huge problem. I just don't think the examples you've given are that.

If I went to a sale and most women purchasing shoes has size 3 feet, I would say to DS that women with size 4-7 feet were the sale shoe buying minority despite being an absolute majority of women, and he would understand that from maths and everyday speech despite having no sociological knowledge.

I'm not criticising you for using objectify in that way PQW. I think that it makes sense in the sentence and people can work out which meaning of the word is being used. I have never heard anybody use the word concretise.

I've just looked up the meaning of concretise and it has two different meanings. So it would still have the same problem that you would have to work out which meaning was being used from the context just as you would with objectify. It is a common problem in English that one word can have more than one specific meaning.

Oh dear, it seems I offended people after all.

I think it's rather a shame that I've managed to cause great offence by expressing my own feelings and views about a nuanced aspect of feminism (in English; I don't know how it goes in other languages.) To me, that kind of proves my point although I understand why others were offended.

Freya, your shoe size example would be logically accurate! Your population is 'women in the shop' so your statement is correct.

If feminist thinkers/speakers/writers want to say "minority" when they really mean "economic minority", who am I to stop them? I'm suggesting they shouldn't be too surprised when people who use normal speech misinterpret them and think they're talking bollocks. As I said upthread, I've had to learn how to interpret specialised terminology in feminist discussion, because I want to be able to join in. And I don't blame others for deciding not to bother with that.

I do agree with you both above, btw, Freya & PQ.

I don't feel offended GN. I think it's an important topic that you've raised. I would object to people describing women as a minority in contexts where it was misleading, assumed or factually incorrect.

Yes, I do take your points, PQ, and am giving you a thumbs-up for 'truefacts'!

I've wore out me brain for today! Need a rest. Truefact

I like "properword"

Ooh, thanks! Frothers were a MN initiative that fizzled out, unfortunately. I froth all over Facebook and Twitter in my real name now, but am happy to see the blog does still get read sometimes - the issues are even more urgent now, as you must know all too well.

You could make a sideline in Properwords?

scallopsrgreat
Why are people so quick in wanting to hide the gendered aspect of violence?

OK
Men rape.
Men and Women are raped.

Better?

I think that language has to have a proper meaning. Changing what language means to fit a particular discipline is dangerous, especially if you take that language out of the context of that discipline.

"men rape" is not true as MOST men don't rape. Even as a "class description", it is untrue. "Women kill unborn babies" is literally true. However, it is an unhelpful and offensive statement for any number of reasons.

I don't think anyone can be offended by "some men rape". It is both true and accurate and does not intend to slur an entire sex with being criminal. So, why not use language accurately?

larry, that's fundamentally how language works.

It's called (ironically) 'privileging' a term. It's been going on at least since people started writing down texts. There's not a lot of point in arguing against it now, unless you have an animus against a specific discipline and want to take a pot-shot at that.

Incidentally, the confusion over what 'men rape' means is because the language is in flux. We seem to be moving from a sitution where 'men rape' would be understood as a general statement rather than a comment on the behaviour of all men, to a situation where people have begun to expect statements such as 'group x does action y' to mean 'every member of group x does action y or the statement is untrue'.

If you wanted to fossilize language in the (pointless) manner of prescriptive grammarians, I think you'd have to argue for the first meaning not the second, since it has precedence.

Malenky,

Interesting comment. I would really take an everyday meaning of a plural term to mean that it at least applied to a statistical majority. If I said "lions eat meat", surely that would imply (and always would have implied) that the normal diet for most lions is meat. And if I said that "lions eat men" it would not imply that a small majority of lions were man eaters but that most if not all lions ate men. Certainly "the man on the Clapham Omnibus" would take it that way.

However, I will research further, seeing as you seem to have a depth of knowledge on the subject.....

small minority that is..

Yes, it can be argued all sorts of ways, prom.

I defend 'men rape' because it is so, so, so rare to see people naming perpetrators. That's purely it.

There is no shortage of people discriminating against women for being 'emotional'. The problem isn't the general statement 'women are emotional' itself - the problem is that this statement is the tip of the iceberg; below it you find a mass of discriminatory attitudes and practices that contribute to make this statement a dangerous one for women.

OTOH I do not see how 'men rape' is making a dangerous statement for men. If rapists of women were always, or usually, caught and punished, while rapists of men were not, it would be a hugely dangerous statement, because it would ignore the gendered victimisation of men by men.

However, that's not the situation. 'Men rape' is a useful statement because it highlights the fact that rape isn't something that 'happens to' women, it's something that men do to women.

Btw, I've seen a zillion childrens' books where 'the dog chases the cat'. I've never actually seen a dog chase a cat.

I don't write to publishers in outrage demanding the statistical survey, I just assume most people these days train their dogs to stop chasing the wretched cat.

Maybe I would be less fussed about the wording of 'men rape' if I could be equally secure in my assumption that rape was a thing of the past, or a rare thing?