Language, literacy and hierarchies.

[Damsili]

I've been thinking about how languages have evolved within systems of hierarchies and how that must have influenced the form and flavour of the words and phrases that are used. Before we even have the ability to really question the words and phrases we use, we are fluent in our native tongue, habitual in its structures and even have our thought processes informed by the structure of our language.

Continuing with that, I recall someone recently quoting Sandi Toksvig as saying that the alphabet helped men maintain power over women. (Slightly throwaway remark on R4, but still!) Certainly the ability to read and write is used as a tool to minimise female power in many countries and throughout history - but does literacy itself actually aid patriarchy? In thinking about how language develops, I can certainly see that it maintains the habitual reinforcement of sexist themes.

With that in mind, I'm also wondering if social media has simply exposed existing misogyny or whether the rise of the written word in communication can be correlated with a rise of sexist vitriol directed at women.

Vivacia - while I agree with you that changing terms like "fireman" etc is very important in stopping the default being male, the over-arching problem with language being gendered, with "he" and "she", is that even with a hypothetically level playing field, it still thrusts the existence of gender into the limelight every time anyone has a conversation. We have to define people (any even things, in many languages) by gender just to be able to talk to/about them. Which is not the case with, for example, race. Language divides us into the gender binary by necessity for everyday conversation.

QueenoftheRant, my point was not really about capitalism (it was probably not the best word to use), but large-scale trade and complex social systems that were made possible by literacy and, in turn, lead to more stratified societies, with some people at the top and some at the bottom. As in men raiding other people's villages, kidnapping women and girls, putting them to work en mass in textile workshops and selling their produce. This actually happened.

I am not really sure why women ended up at the bottom of the pile in the first place, but their position at the bottom, I feel, became more solidified in a large complex society and large-scale trade network as they had this specialised job - to sit in one place and produce stuff that was then sold by men over long distances using writing.

Just to continue my somewhat convoluted point - If there was not large-scale trade, enterprising men would not need to kidnap and enslave women and girls from other tribes as the needs of their own tribe are small enough to be fulfilled on a local basis. If you need to clothe one family, the people in that family can do it themselves. But if you want to clothe a large army and also sell lots of textiles abroad, you need more than a couple of spinners and weavers.

But humans did have large-scale trade - you'd be surprised, there's even evidence for long-distance trade in the stone age, and the bronze age east mediterranean was very interconnected - without literacy. I just don't see that the alphabet helps men keep power over women specifically.

And men have always kidnapped women, and slaves, for other purposes than producing trade goods... sex, obviously, and agriculture before widespread machines. Don't see the literacy link.

There is an economic link, a simpler one - the wealthier typically have better education generally speaking, though like I said scribes were not universally admired. That's a class issue though.

Feeling bit confused about literacy helps patriarchy specifically.

I did try learning mandarin, I was so shit at it that I can't remember if words were grouped(masculine, feminine, etc). I do remember that they don't have any tenses, which saved a lot of learning.

Yes, I know, there was long-distance trade in totally deep pre-historic times. As in stone axes from the mines in the Lake District being found all over continental Europe (or something like that) and stuff from the continent being brought to the pre-historic Britain. However, at that time, we are talking about 5,000-10,000 people (ok, perhaps even 50,000) living in the whole of British Isles. Very small numbers and hardly amounting to caravans and caravans of camels loaded with tons of stuff trudging up and down the Silk Road. And even the biggest pre-historic village will not rival a society like Babylon.

Writing opens up opportunities. First of all, it reduced the need to be right next to the speaker. You can communicate over long distances. You also don't have to memorise everything, so you can keep more information. An ability to keep more information let you create and control larger and more complex systems. A place like Babylon is possible partially because of writing. To build that massive ziggurat, you would need to keep close tabs on your armies of workers - how many you have, who is doing what, who is getting paid what, etc. For that you need writing.

So when you have writing, you have a chance to build Babylon. Very attractive. But you also need underlings to do the work. And women - a productive labour force - tend to end up in this role. I am not sure why specifically women. Perhaps biology plays a role and women are easier to control physically as they are often physically weaker and can be made pregnant. Perhaps somebody more clued up than me has some ideas.

Annie

thanks for explaining

Vivacia

I don't know why it is a problem to call them firemen, when the vast majority of them are male.

nurses are still called nurses whether female or male - and that is probably one of the most "female words" to me!
in fact the word for nurse is the same word as for sister in Hungarian (nÅ?vér which literally means woman blood - so female sibling)
I don't know if people are objecting to male nurses being called "nurse". are they?

and I can honestly say I have never seen or heard of binmen being other than male. so just so we don't discourage women from becoming binmen maybe there should be another for that job? (can't think one)

police officers - that makes complete sense nowadays, but obviously another profession that used to be very much male dominant so it made sense to call them policemen, because they were.

(Hungarian word "rendÅ?r" means "watcher of order")

soldiers - does that still count as a "male" word? with so many women in Armed Forced that is a gender neutral word to me.

I find this just so interesting.

sorry Hungarian letters came out all weird

Um, Zing, a profession having a gender-neutral name (like nurse) is very far removed from a profession having the words man or men as an intrinsic part of it. Nurses aren't "nurse-women". How odd to think that just because a profession still maintains sexist employment practices and is dominated by men that it's okay to exclude women both from the profession and its name.

Catal Huyuk springs to mind... plus you might have the same trade to population levels ratio... but literacy does and did help.

Nevertheless you can also have these big trading and specializing (ie different professions) societies which do not oppress women. Arguably - there was a separate thread about it recently, of course not a lot is known and prove- able about daily life in history.

I still have trouble seeing a causal link - men can find excuses for patriarchy without literacy. I still see it as a neutral tool which can be used either way.

That's interesting about Hebrew, AnnieLobeseder. I live in France and it really annoys me that a group of girls/women become 'ils' as soon as one boy/man shows up - and all the adjectives become masculine too...

And again similar to Hebrew, the word for 'woman' is the same as the word for 'wife' (femme). Men get two words, one for man and one for husband.

Sorry, Zing, I think I was unnecessarily arsy there. Luckily all the jobs which used to end in -men have now have officially changed. Fire fighters. Refuse collectors. Police officers. Even if some people will stay say "Bin Men". Jobs titles like Nurse and Soldier don't need to change because they were never Nurse-Woman or Soldier-Man. So the names themselves have always been neutral even if predominantly held by one sex or the other.

I don't think it started off as a deliberate exclusion though Annie

this whole thing seems such a weird problem to me and I wonder if it is more the "fault" of how the English language works.
fireman or policeman - these words just don't exist in my language to mean "male".
we have gender neutral words like teacher or cleaner or chemist or lawyer.

but I give you that some words would imply we would be talking about a man, simply but because women just didn't have those jobs.
And since females have joined previously exclusively male or male dominant professions Hungarian language started to change too.
there was doctor. now there's doctor and doctor-woman.
and so on.

I forget what my point was.
(bloody migraine)

It sounds to me that you're saying literacy is a bad thing, a tool for oppression. Is that what you're saying, or am I being really silly.

I think of it the other way... literacy equals education, equals the great enabler.

Doctor and doctor-women? Urgh. Why can't they both just be doctors?

I am pleased to see how professions where there used to be a male and female version (actor/actress, waiter/waitress, comedian/comedienne) etc there tends to just be one version now, used for male and female.

But of course, the single version used now is the one used previously for males.

Because that's how the language is. no need to be disgusted Annie

*the Hungarian language is

It's a general disgust that any language needs to be gendered, Zing, certainly not directed at Hungarian in particular. But it underscores my point that it is going to be hard to achieve equality when most languages themselves are so sexist.

I need to stop taking everything to heart!

Queen, no, I am not trying to say that literacy is a bad thing. More that like many innovations it has many different consequences. I am also not saying that it is the origin of patriarchy and oppression. I am rather saying that literacy makes oppression more profitable and therefore more attractive. Literacy gives people an opportunity to coordinate resources to produce and sell off large surpluses, and it's nice to be able to oppress somebody into doing the donkey work. (I have a strong feeling that I am close to Marxism here.)

I have to plead ignorance about Catal Huyuk. But its size does appear to me rather an exception of its time. Also, it's a pre-writing society, right?

I totally agree with you that complex societies and large volume trade is possible without patriarchy. But somehow all over the world we managed to end up up to our ears in it . . . I am really not saying that literacy is to blame for all of this, but I feel it may have been an indirect factor in encouraging it.

There is of course another side. In more modern times literacy is a vital resource for anyone who does not want to be oppressed. And the ruling elites are very much interested in keeping it to themselves as in "you don't need to read that Bible, the friendly local priest will tell you all you need to know!" or "girls don't need education".

Did you know that in German the young girl (das Mädchen - neuter) only become a female woman (die Frau) when a man (der Mann) has helped her along on that transition.
Confunsingly, 'die Jungfrau' (the virgin) uses the feminine pronoun (literally mean 'young woman').

Language very much indicated the realities of patriarchal society there - boys (der Junge) were male from the start, in contrast.

"Das Baby" uses the neuter pronoun but does not imply 'thing' but this is only context - 'das Auto' (the car) is clearly a thing (unless it's my DH's car: then it's a much loved member of the family…. ).

Wrt professions: I have struggled with this all my life. Is it better or worse to make a difference between, say, 'dentist' and 'dentistrice' (made up word alert) or to just accept that 'dentist' is a job title and the person performing this job could be male or female?
Again, it's much worse in German where most jobs/professions are gendered, including nurse for instance.

Looking at it worldwide I think there is no doubt that increasing literacy and numeracy for everybody but particularly girls/women will improve their lot and their communities. The evidence for that is pretty overwhelming.

why can't they be both just doctors

on the one had you answered it yourself - it's because doctors used to be only or mainly men so the word carries the assumption it's a bloke

on the other hand it would be easier if "doctor" carried no such assumptions. and some words really don't, to me anyway (in either English or Hungarian) like "pharmacist"

but I do wonder if in some jobs it is useful to point out whether it's a female or not.
doctor is a perfect example - some might prefer or avoid being seen by a male or a female so there's a practical use there.

do you agree with any of that Annie?

midwife - is there a midhusband? or a genderfree term?
it's a traditionally female occupation.
equivalent to firemen - traditionally male occupation.
times change so yes change the terminology.
but I just don't get the why it's sexism that men who were putting out fires as their job would be called firemen. it's just who they were/are.

I don't have a problem with actor/actress etc.

This is a really interesting thread. I'm replying just to the initial post now so I can give my personal "what I think right now", but that might change by the time I've read everything :) (one of the reasons I love MN)

I don't think that literacy itself encourages the continuation of current societal norms (in this case the patriarchy).

Norms can be passed down perfectly well orally.

What literacy gives us is a greater chance to experience alternative views, which we might not find if we only heard about "this is how things are" from our village elders.

Literacy allows the spread of new and different ideas.

Zing, I find it totally fascinating that Hungarian does not have the he/she thing. Wow! I wonder if all this gendered stuff is a feature of the Indo-European and Semitic languages and that perhaps other language groups do not have it or at least to the same extent (anyone speaks Finnish, Mandarin, Cherokee, Basque?)

Some popular science literature hints that all this patriarchy business is somehow linked with the Indo-Europeans . . . Hmmmm.

PD

@ car being much loved family member!