Monday, October 29, 2012
Flickr on Sexist Language
The Flickr thread started off with one person making a fair point about the use of certain language in tagging pictures. In particular, the commenter honed in on the word "girl" and explained why that word was offensive to adult women. The first person to respond was, coincidentally, an adult women who felt indifferent to the use of that word and backed up her defense by pointing out the arbitrary nature of words (which the textbook also discusses). The respondent was supplemented by a series of other comments, which went on to prove that language is relative. One recurring example came from the UK where the word "girl" and "boy" have no negative connotation. It isn't gender neutral, but it is inoffensive according to those with an English background. "What's next?" the commenter's begged. What words should be tossed out for the sake of political correctness? The opposition tended to agree with the first part of the textbook; the part that described language in and of itself. Yes, language is arbitrary. Yes, language is ambiguous. Yes, language is abstract. But they also tended to disagree with the latter part of the textbook; the part that discussed language through the context of culture and gender and so forth. By putting limitations on language, the commenters insisted that any perceived offensive would become inherent: in other words, by turning certain language into forbidden fruit, it became more tempting and inherited negative qualities as a consequence. In my opinion, language should be used at the discretion of the writer/speaker. If you want to use racy language - use it, but be prepared for the fallout. And if you're making a speech, chance are that you shouldn't use racy language because you don't want to ostracize any members of your audience. It's a simple matter of discretion that I think the Flick thread did a good job of exemplifying.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I like that you mentioned how some of the people were asking "what's next"? I think this is a pretty valid point. Sometime people go too far with their criticisms of language. For example, I had a professor once who was a feminist. She took everything to the extreme and corrected us incessantly for supposedly using offensive or non gender neutral language. The funny thing is that she was most often correcting women. Anyways, one thing in particular that I found to be quite annoying was that if there was a group of five guys and only one girl she would insist that you not greet them as "hey guys". Since there's one woman she would get all worked up over the group being labeled as "guys". Although you can see the logistics behind her reasoning, it gets to a point where it makes conversation strained and difficult. Often times I just wanted to scream, "relax!!!!" I mean, she was infuriated because she felt like guys in her jiu jitsu class weren't hitting her hard enough. Anyways, back on topic. Yes, language is subject to interpretation, but I feel like there should be a certain level of understanding and tolerance for so-called "sexist language" (due to the fact that it is most often harmless and innocent), unless it is totally obvious and obnoxious. I think most people can tell the difference.
ReplyDeleteIt seemed to me that many of the people on the flickr website seemed to have a much more lax standpoint on nonsexist language than what was stated in our book. You made a good point that maybe the choice on language use should be at the discretion of the writer or speaker. By putting such a stigma on certain words, I think that people actually make a bigger issue out of it than anyone would have thought to do in the first place. As a speaker, though, you definitely do have to be prepared for the consequences of what you say because you have to answer to your audience, who could shut down and stop listening to you if you offend them.
ReplyDelete