I realized, before I fell asleep, that it would be a bad idea because if people actually read it and even if I wrote at the bottom of the my intentions for writing it, they would probably be ignored because people tend to be blinded by the one bit that they want, whether that bit is a good or bad thing depends on the reader and his or her state of mind while reading it. (I do it, too. I'm not trying to say that I'm better, I just want to say that I realize it's going on within me as much as it is within every reader out there. Otherwise, how could you explain so many different religious takes based on one book?)
The whole reason I wanted to write it was to point out how by using a word in a place where it doesn't belong the word starts losing it's meaning.
There's this great strip over at Penny Arcade that helps to illustrate my point. Gabe is proposing to his then girlfriend, now wife, and says,
"It is not enough for me to say that I love her. I have used this same word to describe my relationship with milk, my television and those little bagel things with the pizza inside. So, to use it to describe the immense feelings and emotions that she elicits in me seems wrong."Which is really good point. Do you think he loves his wife like he loves milk, his television, or those little bagel things with the pizza inside? I hope not.
I started thinking about this a while ago when I followed a link to a link to a link and came across some one's blog post where this woman wrote about why she wasn't going to read a certain online comic anymore. (I looked for the page, but I couldn't find it. Please pardon my memory if I really fuck this up, but I don't think I'm going to.) I don't remember what strip she wasn't going to read anymore because it wasn't a strip that I follow, but I do remember a comment. The person who wrote the comment said that she was no longer going to be reading PVP because Scott Kurtz, the creator, had written about (to find it you have to scroll down to the post titled "Jade," it's most of the way down) how he felt Jade had become a reactionary character, someone who stood in the corner, rolling her eyes, and telling the guys in the strip how they screwed up and that he wanted to make more time for her in the strip to flesh out her character more and then the next storyline happened to be one where Marcy and Jade tricked Francis and Brent into having a romance contest. Then she called Scott Kurtz a misogynist for doing that.
I got angry and wrote a horrible comment. I erased the post pretty quickly because I think a person should pause, count to ten, and reread an angry comment to decide if it was appropriate. And I didn't want to be pounced on by the people who would ignore what I actually wrote and be called a misogynist for it. Basically I didn't understand how a man can be considered a misogynist for writing that he wanted to take a closer look at a character he created and then doing a story about romance. Does that really make a man a misogynist? I don't think so. I think calling Kurtz one is a misuse of the word and takes away from it's intent and meaning. To know if Kurtz is a misogynist, the person who wrote the comment would have to know him, and I don't think she did.
Along the same lines are the women who jumped up (and those who continue to jump up) and say that Ron Marz is a misogynist because he created Alex DeWitt to be killed within the first few issues of Kyle Rayner's tenure as Green Lantern. One of my favorite pieces of writing on the subject is Kalinara's "Women in Refrigerators" post from way back in her first week of writing.
When people use a word like this too much in the wrong context, it reminds me of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf."
Let me put it to you like this:
Dave Sim is not a misogynist because Cerebus raped his wife, Astoria, and then divorced her. (It's in "Church and State.") Cerebus is a nasty bastard of a character that Sim created. Cerebus did the raping, not Sim. Plus, Cerebus and Astoria aren't real. They're fictional.
Dave Sim IS a misogynist because of the writings of Viktor Davis (who is a thinly veiled stand-in for Sim) in "Reads" (where he says that men are points of creative light and women are emotional voids trying to absorb the male creativity) and an essay called "Tangent" (where he agrees with what he wrote as Viktor Davis and bashes feminism and homosexuals and calls women beings of emotion who don't have the ability to be logical).
Maybe I'm wrong, though. Maybe I'm not allowed to even think like this since I'm not female and I don't think of myself as a feminist.
But I really hate to see and hear words with strong meanings lose their meanings. I don't say that I love those little bagel things with the pizza inside, I only say I really like them.
12 comments:
the stage between awake and asleep... I have a very nice condo there.
For you, is it a place where ideas come to you and you and, for a moment at least, you're not sure whether you should get up and write them down or just sleep?
It is for me.
I usually just sleep.
sometimes it's a moment when Ideas come to me, I think they're great and write them down. Then I look at them again when my brain is fully awake, and they're completely insane
But is there some fun in the insanity?
Feminism has illusive meaning as well. There's first-, second-, and third- wave feminism all having their own perspective on the meaning of the word.
Yes, you are allowed to debate word meanings. The definition of words nothing to do with having a vagina. I will say that language is liquid. What the word means to you is completely different to someone else simply in the difference in social interaction leading up to the use of said word. Now granted our lexicon is a generally agreed upon meaning. But it is also generally agreed upon that Britney Spears is an interesting person, and according to me, we all know that isn't true.
The definition of words may have nothing to do with a vagina, but what certain words imply do to quite a bit of the world's population, or at least this country's. (There are other words that imply certain things that many people seem to think are dependant on ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, eating practices, and so many other sub-groups of the human population and are therefore off limits to someone as WASPy as me.)
I know that language, especially the English language, is fluid, but to me "misogyny" always meant hatred of women because they are women. Using that word, or it's adjective form, toward people who use a female stereotype or let a female character fall to wayside with no malicious intent seems more about shock value than anything else. Eventually, the shock will wear off and the word will lose much of its value.
I keep wanting to come back to the word "love" as an example. If I was out with someone having a hamburger and she says, "I love this hamburger." What am I supposed to think if later she tells me she loves me? I sure hope that she doesn't love me the same way she loves the hamburger. It just bothers me.
I come to you through Jazz's blog comments today--thought I'd see what you write. It's good! The underlying problem with word choice/usage seems to be a fundamental lack of critical thinking skills; I try to teach students how not to snap their minds around an idea, just because it sounds like they can agree or disagree with it, but rather to weigh the idea and see if 34% of it sounds good, with tweaking, 22% sounds okay on Mondays, and the rest makes no sense at all. But mostly, I end up seeing that teaching students critical thinking is a thankless pursuit...
Jocelyn, thanks for looking. And it's only good sometimes.
As for teaching critical thinking, I wonder if people even want to learn how to do it. With so many news channels, it's just so much easier to trust what's being said than run it all through a personal filter to find nuggets of truth. It's hard work with no real external reward.
And then there's the question of what's important. Obviously, the precision use of language isn't too important to the average person living in the US, but what about other things? Why is the media more concerned with whether Britney Spears is wearing panties and a crotch shot is passed around rather than wondering about her kids and how the fact that their soon to be divorced mother would rather party all night and (probably) sleep most of the day than spend time with them.
I just don't know.
We seem to live in an age where the pop part has surpassed the culture part. Seems to me that there was a time when they were more equal.
I feel the intention of the word is definitely more important than the actual word itself. And with that, I also feel that is it is fine having a discussion about the words "off limits to someone as WASPy as [you]." Utilizing nigger, wetback, chink, queer, whore, etc. in a derogatory fashion is entirely different. I am assuming that no matter what your background is you will have an opinion on such vocabulary.
Using a female stereotype or let a female character fall to wayside with no malicious intent seems more about shock value than anything else unless there is no other representation of females within the comic strip.
Look up a word like 'love' there are 18 different definitions. I can comfortably say I love hamburgers (esp. from the Diamondback) and then turn to my boyfriend and say the same thing, because each context has a completely different meaning to me. If we weren't English speakers, love of hamburgers might be assigned a different word than love of boyfriend. However, we don't so we must rely on interpreting pragmatics and not dismissing it to rely solely on syntax
Unfortunately, it's Monday morning, and I'm too brain dead to comment, but I really liked this post as well as the discussion it sparked. Jazz out.
Alliya, I've tried my damnedest to come up with something really clever to say, but lack of a thought process and having actual work to do have conspired against me.
I do have to ask, though, when is the word misogynist ever not used in a derogatory fashion? Or is it only really an adjective used to describe certain people? The biggest difference I see is that the men I've met who I consider misogynists take pride in being misogynists, I've yet to meet a Mexican who likes to be called a wetback.
I do agree that everyone should be able to discuss words, their meanings, their uses, and their implications, but it seems that groups that feel the word the most tend to be the ones listened to more while the other groups' opinions get pushed to the side and sometimes ignored. Especially words like nigger and queer. I may be able to voice my opinion on the use of those words and the changing power of them, but because I am neither black nor gay my opinions will, probably, be ignored because I don't know what it's like.
As for the love between a woman and a hamburger, if she said she loved a hamburger and then said she loved me, I'd be wondering what the hell she means. Maybe I'm just a suspicious person with low self-esteem, but there's no way I couldn't read something into that.
And Jazz, it's never too late to join in.
Ok, so it took me entirely too long to write back. I apologize.
You’re absolutely right, if it doesn’t reflect life experience than your opinion does lack a certain authenticity. I guess I am in the frame of mind that these stereotypes and slurs are perpetuated due to a lack of dialogue, so to say that you don’t know if you get to feel one way or the other about something because you lack firsthand experience in something seems ludicrous. You have an opinion about songs you’ve never played; you have an opinion about politicians you’ve never met; and a governmental body of which, you’ve never read the policies.
However, the opinions of people in the dominant group are important. They are crucial. A gay man can be as upset as he wants to be about being called a ‘queer,’ but until the larger straight community realizes that is disrespectful and unacceptable behavior, and more importantly, begin shunning that inappropriate behavior as a community, no change will be effected. I truly believe this is the case with misogynists. I don’t think it had any shock value to begin with. It is still generally accepted to be awful to women. There are always exceptions, but if a man walks into a room spouting off at how emotional and irrational and completely incomprehensible and dumb women are – how many people (and I used people purposefully here) would disagree? When is the last time you saw femininity celebrated in mainstream pop cultures as anything besides being a sexual object?
As far as love for hamburgers vs. love for you…Faith and trust are elusive things, I know this much is true. Without that/with that all these words are going to hold different meanings.
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