#61 - The Privilege of Vocabulary
In Short:
The English language contains many heavily-loaded words and phrases specifically for use against women. This makes it easy for anyone to lash out at women. On the other end, many widely-used positive words in our language have distinctly male connotations.
Derived From:
#27 - Only Male Attributes Are Valued
#14 - Men are the Default Gender
#11 - Privilege to Define Everything
#8 - Privilege to Make the Rules
Exclusive to Men Because:
While there are many swears to use against women, equivalent swears against men do not exist. Calling a man a "dick" does not have the same sting as calling a woman of "bitch" or a "cunt". The few swears that are exclusive to men still manage to attack women first, such as "son of a bitch".
Harms:
Everyone from a boss to the local homeless drunk can launch a pretty effective barrage of verbal napalm at any woman, even if they do not know her. Women are also forced out of conversations by men who intentionally pepper their sentences with these words.
If You are a Good Guy:
Then simply don't use these words! Don't use loaded swears like "bitch" or "cunt" when talking about women, and stop referring to every book that you like as, "a truly seminal work". You might slip up occasionally and use "seminal" out of old habit, but soon new habits will form. And when they do, you will enjoy the added benefit of finally being able to participate in polite conversation. Or at the very least, you will stop sounding like a Red Sox fan with Tourette Syndrome.
Part 1 - "Seminal"
Part 2 - The Privilege Dictionary
Part 3 - How Do You Swear at a Straight White Man?
The Privilege of Vocabulary (Part 1):
"Seminal"
"On 4 April 1967 Martin Luther King delivered his seminal speech at Riverside Church condemning the Vietnam War"
~From The King Encyclopedia, Stanford University (Emphasis added)
"As one stands in front of it, the 99 spots, each of a different colour, seemingly pop in a brilliant chromatic display. What makes this example so special is the date: made in 1992, it is one of the earliest works in the series, made in the same year that the artist was nominated for the Turner Prize. One of the most important artists of his generation, this truly seminal work shows Hirst hitting his creative stride."
~From a contemporary art sale at Sotheby's London (Emphasis added)
If I could time travel back to the 16th century, and get my hands on the pea-brained idiot who coined the word "seminal" to describe the germinal, archetypal, original, preeminent, paramount, or primary works of an author, I'd clobber him to death with a dictionary.
Why get so worked up over "seminal", you ask? Well, I bet that you have been blithely throwing out the word "seminal" for years now without ever actually looking it up. I know I was until last week [1]. If you have never bothered to check a dictionary before, allow me to educate you:
sem·i·nal (sěm'ə-nəl)It's shooting fish in a barrel to condemn urban slang as a sperm-and-misogyny-ladened pile of crap. But ladies and gentlemen, if you think that the lexicon of slovenly phallus worship is cut off at the borders of academia and high culture, then I invite you to read the definition of seminal to yourself once again.
adj.
1. Of, relating to, containing, or conveying semen or seed.
2. Of, relating to, or having the power to originate; creative.
3. Highly influential in an original way; constituting or providing a basis for further development: a seminal idea in the creation of a new theory.
[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin sminlis, from smen, smin-, seed; see semen.]
~From The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition (Emphasis added)
And yes, "conveying semen" is the PRIMARY definition of "seminal" in every one of the sixteen Patriarchal shitcan dictionaries I had the misfortune to lay eyes on! And that includes the Russian-to-English dictionaries too! And worse, we have been using this word to equate the pinnacles of human achievement with cum-shots for nearly HALF A MILLENNIUM!
'Seminal' is the crudest and most idiotic word that I have seen bandied about in the academic and arts communities. It's high time that we stop lowering our discourse to the level of a Seann William Scott movie, and leave this word to the urologists.
Did Stanford University really mean to imply that Dr. Martin Luther King was getting off on the Vietnam war? Of course not! Did Sotheby's London want their buyers to believe that Damien Hirst ejaculated onto his canvas? Not if they want to make any sales! Did the bloggers over at The Seminal want to equate their writing with masturbation? I doubt it.
But did the misogynistic fuckers over at The Guardian want to imply that they were jacking off to the oppression of Islamic women. You'd better believe it!
So if only to differentiate ourselves from the sexist assholes who snicker every time one of their jack-off buddies slips "seminal" into their conversations with women, we need to stop referring to our greatest human achievements as, "seminal"!
And if this article becomes the inceptive force for such a movement, I will be ecstatic!
[1] Loads of thanks to Jezebella, who pointed out the obvious for me.
Copyright July 2008 by F*ck M*sculinity
This was a fascinating little study. I always thought "seminal" was really one of those odd academic words that I never hear in real life. Is it related to "seminar?"
ReplyDeleteThis explanation of the power and priviledge of vocabulary is probably the hardest for men to understand, and it's why millions of dollars of harassment law suits have been filed at corporations.
Men don't even know how absolutely offensive their language is to women most of the time. I used to think they deliberately did this, but men, being trained from birth not to hear anything women say, miss the cues. Then they seem shocked when they get fired by women managers or sued.
Men's anger over the term P.C. is an indicator of just how resentful they get when women claim the right to free expression without being harassed by the priviledge of vocabulary.
Keep up the good work. All men should read this and learn about this, but I doubt they'd reform or get it!
Ooh, if only I could send every guy I ever dated to this blog!!! Another word that kinda bothers me (which, incidentally, is what made me think of my ex!) is when people say someone had "the balls" to do something. I argued a lot with my ex about this, since he didn't see why it bothered me. To me, it kinda implies that someone without balls is somehow less courageous, that courage is only a manly attribute. It's great to see an article pointing out why this language is misgynistic.
ReplyDelete"Having the balls" to do something always bugged me too. Especially when you realize that in reality, having balls is a weakness. Something you can kick hard in a fight, and completely put an offensive man off the deep end in pain.
ReplyDeleteBalls are something you hit with a bat or perhaps shoot at skeet shooting, but having to do with courage? Only men assume their private parts are about courage!
Having balls or not having them is ultimately irrelevant to an individual's ability to function in society. But under a Patriarchy, every piece of phallic stupidity that drops out of someone's mouth has one commonality: to demarcate all qualifications for power (whether it be courage, decisiveness, what have you) as essentially biologically male in order to limit the access of power to men only. And since the only surefire way to exclude women is through that completely irrelevant piece of tissue hanging down between men's legs, that becomes the basis for so much of our language.
ReplyDeleteF*ck M had a really good point. This is the bottom line of the whole system, and language gives it dead away every time!!
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, while your point would at first appear sound, you have made the mistake of not doing sufficient research.
ReplyDeleteThe word seminal does arise from semen, from the latin word for seed.
Seed: "...the germ or propagative source of anything..."
From this, the name for the male reproducive fluid is derived. (Biology: Both male and female gametes are required for reproduction. In this sense, they can be considered the propagative source of H. s. sapiens.)
Likewise, the term seminal (holding the relation of seed, source, or first principle) is derived. Correctly, it does not refer to the greatest work, but rather to the source/first/original work.
Sorry to say it, but (with extremely few exceptions - generally curses, which are functions of their originating society, and therefore based on that society's views) language is not biased in any direction.
Also, as a consquence of its structure and development, names and terms in language are were almost always assigned arbitrarily at first, with further terms derived from those (Usually Greek or Latin). Do not fall into the trap of allowing one's self to be defined by words and titles. Definition should come from the self, and ultimately should consist of the sum total of a person's original thoughts and ideas, interpreted as such, intellectually, without bias or prejudice.
Pax vobiscum.
-R
R, I fear that you have made the mistake of not being critical of your own assumptions.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that seminal is, as you correctly point out, ultimately derived from "seed", yet many modern dictionaries list "semen" as their first definition, shows the bias that I am talking about.
Nor are new terms defined arbitrarily. Take L-fuculose kinase, or "Fuck Ecoli", as a modern example of a non-arbitrary name assignment (this one was a researcher's attempt at humor).
There is also plenty of patriarchal biases in human language: there are thousands of non-curse words in the urban dictionary that are biased against women, the strict male/female dialects of Japanese separate women from authoritative speech, and numerous Spanish nouns have a distinct male power bias. Also, take another look at the origins of semen:
That "seed" became synonymous with male reproductive fluid, and not with a woman's uterus, is an example of the patriarchal bias of society that fed into language. Men have always been seen by society as the key propagative source of humanity, even though women are the ones who go through all the effort give birth to new life. Why is so much linguistic emphasis placed on coitus and man's "seed", when semen is nothing without nine months of constant effort and orders of magnitude more human tissue derived entirely from women's bodies? Why is so little language given to the woman's role in germination? Why don't we hear about "ovular" sources or first principles?
It is because language is shaped by the people who have the power to make their words escape the confines of subcultural jargon and influence the greater society. For thousands of years, patriarchal bias has influenced our language. Lately, as women have gotten more power in society, new terms have been added to the popular lexicon to explain concepts that were overlooked in the days before women had power: misogyny, gender (as opposed to sex), contraception, sexism, patriarchy. But a few words that are centric to women's experience do not make up for the thousands of years that women had little or no influence on language.
You are right in that "definition should come from the self, and ultimately should consist of the sum total of a person's original thoughts and ideas, interpreted as such, intellectually, without bias or prejudice." Several smart women have done a lot despite our linguistic biases: George Eliot, Virginia Wolf, Andrea Dworkin, Molly Ivans, etc. And self-definition is precisely why feminists work so hard to mitigate the gender bias inherent in our language.
After all, it is much more efficient when feminists don't have to trip over outdated words like "Chairman" while making arguments for women's economic equality.