re: #112 Obdicut

You’re facing an entire language where the word ‘Pussy’ is an insult, and ‘wimp’, too. One is a female-biased insult, the other is a male-biased insult. Both only really apply to men.

The problem is not with the language. The language reflects the problem. Fixing the problem is not a matter of changing the language.

One way this can be seen is the ugly joy that racists show in switching terms when they’re not allowed. Instead of saying “porch monkey”— not sure if that’s banned here or not— they say ‘porchmanque’. If you stop them saying that, they’ll say ‘balcony orangutang’, or something else. They love their racist terms, but it’s not like you’re going to run out of people inventing them.

The problem is not that our language is coded for gender, it’s how it became coded for gender.

You’re correct in that the language reflects the culture. However, I feel that by making people aware of this, it can help them see the deeper issues from which the language grew. If people don’t stop and think about why the gendered language reflects badly on cultural ideas, they likely won’t think about the cultural ideas, either. My hope is that by bringing this sort of thing to peoples’ attention, they will also think about why they’re saying what they’re saying, not just what.