Be reasonable

So it’s International Women’s Day. What’s new? Well, in sociological terms, a lot. The Harvey Weinstein scandal and the subsequent wave of campaigns (#TimesUp, #MeToo, etc.) have sparked off a no-nonsense zero tolerance attitude towards woman abuse at least in Hollywood. Outside of Tinseltown women also have problems (domestic violence, gender pay gap, etc.) which I would love to discuss but, since this humble blog deals mostly with the English language, I’m afraid I should focus on the verbal side of things.

The way I see it, in this era of tolerance and inclusiveness, learners of English such as yourselves should avoid Eurocentric views, condescending phrases, expressions that make women invisible, etc. That said, we ought not to take things to ridiculous extremes that may trivialize or even defeat the original purpose.

Allow me to explain what I mean by that.

Political correctness started to happen in the 1960s and gathered momentum in the 1970s. It was created on the very reasonable premise that certain words favor certain attitudes. Unfortunately some excesses did take place very soon. Some feminists, for instance, felt that the very word “woman” was inherently sexist because it defines a woman in terms of her relationship to a man (wo-man). Therefore they proposed outlandish coinages such as "womban"(womb+woman) or alternative spellings like "womyn" or "wimmin" (to mask the men part in "women"). The problem, of course, is that the etymology of woman (“wif-man”) was not sexist at all. In Old English the word “man” simply meant “person”. Therefore the term "wif-man" was effectively an unusual compound: "female + human being" that had little to do with males. In the 10th century there were two other terms which conveyed the meaning “male human being”. The first one was “were” (we still say "werewolf") and the other one was “guma” (the term "groom" has survived into modern English). Anyhow, misguided efforts aside, the PC movement succeeded in convincing millions of speakers that a number of changes were actually necessary. It is as a result of that activism that we say “immigrant”, “first name”, “disabled person” or “developing countries" without realizing that we no longer feel comfortable with the old terms ("alien", "Christian name", "cripple", "underdeveloped"). With regard to women, the fact is nobody questions the validity of gender-neutral words like “spokesperson” or “flight-attendant”. The unspecific title Ms. is absolutely normal and questions such as “who’s going to chair the meeting?” sound perfectly natural.

So, where are we now? In 2018 the Western world is much more tolerant than it used to be. There are pockets of bigotry (even in high places) and some battles have been taken too far but that is part of the process. As usual, it’s the people (i.e. the speakers) that will pass judgement on what is here to stay and what should be rejected.

As your teacher, however, I feel compelled to let you know my take on the subject, which basically boils down to one simple piece of advice: be reasonable. It’s just not logical to use the word “man” to refer to any human being (as in phrases like "the man in the street "or "the best man for the job") and it is obviously dumb to asume that the masculine gender is the default option as in “someone has left his umbrella in the classroom”. Alternatives are easy to come up with: "the average person", "the best person for the job", "someone has left their umbrella".

I’m not so sure about eliminating lexicalized terms like “manhole” (which some prefer to call “utility hole”) or "virgin" (whose etymology, "virgo", is clearly feminine). I also have my doubts about replacing simple terms with convoluted descriptions. Quite frankly, in nontechnical contexts, I repeat, in nontechnical contexts… do we really need to say “visually impaired” instead of “blind”? And, if you believe that we do, would you say that I am "follicularly challenged" or simply "bald"? Is it necessary to find race-neutral alternatives to "white lie" and "black list"?

I am not a big fan of the kind of PC that is sweeping much of the world these days but I do believe in respect, cultural awareness, empathy and good manners. And I think things are only getting better. When the first astronaut steps onto the surface of planet Mars I'm convinced that she will say something along the lines of "it is a small step for a person but a giant leap for humanity".