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Zahira's avatar

Brilliant piece, Helen. It shouldn't be surprising but it was truly depressing to read about the circular firing squad Andrew found himself in the middle of.

I have no problem naturally changing language to something more "inclusive" or sex-neutral purely for accuracy, not because I necessarily think it would encourage more women or (insert other minority) to participate. I don't think words can necessarily change reality, but as realities change, a change in language can describe a new reality better. But I can't figure out if the "old" terms were simply neutral terms that could encompass both sexes anyway - in the way that "mankind" uses the word "man" in it but obviously includes the female half of the species too.

For example, with the old school PC wars, I am happy to say "firefighter" instead of "fireman" in genral terms because women can now become firefighters (though, they do so in vanishingly rare numbers compared to men), same with "chairperson" instead of "chairman". But this assumes that "chairperson" wasn't already inclusive of both sexes. It doesn't make much difference to me either way and I certainly don't find it misogynistic to use the "old" term. The point is, either "chairperson" or "chairman" / "chairwoman" can describe the role accurately.

The interesting and, I think, different thing about the new language wars is the demand to neutralise or change words to the point of inaccuracy. In my view, "chairperson" is a naturally sex inclusive role, but "woman" and certainly "female" is not, nor are words around pregnancy, motherhood, breastfeeding etc. These are sex specific and so exclusive to women. This is why I think activists need to police them much harder, because they need to control your thoughts to try to change the way you actually perceive reality. Whatever language you choose to use, we can imagine chairpersons of both sexes and firefighters of both sexes (even if that is rare), but most of us cannot really perceive of a woman of both sexes or of a man as a woman. So, the language and tactics must become even more totalitarian. But also, it's become some sort of weird power grab too, and the "correct" words keep changing - "women" isn't inclusive enough so must become "womxn" but apparently this is now problematic too, and so it keeps on shifting.

Having said all these, I do still remember the dogma of some feminists growing up in the 90s around the language we should use to describe women, girls, and positions of power. And you are certainly right about all the precursors - the Salman Rushdie affair should have taught us that blasphemy was already a deadly affair in the old school days.

I loved the anecdote about the Queen Mother. Would love to see Andrew channel this haha.

Anyway that's the end of my long and rather endless ramble. Thanks as always for the thoughtful commentary, Helen.

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Braeden Mitchell's avatar

Political correctness has always been tyranny disguised as manners.

I remember when I was a kid, I ran across various people who were, for lack of a better term, "hippy" type people. I always felt uneasy around them and at the time I didn't know why. Now I realise they spoke "love", "openness" and "freedom" from their mouth, but they constantly came across as very passive aggressive. In my life I have come across very few truly open-minded people who are willing to discuss anything.

I like a quote from Jordan Peterson when he was interviewed on the BBC, "In order to be able to think, you have to risk being offensive...you're certainly willing to risk offending me in the pursuit of truth"

I really resonate with this thinking. It is simply not possible to have opinions and to say things out loud whereby not one single person gets offended in one way or another. It's not reasonable to hold the whole world hostage in order to prevent one person, or a minority of people from being offended. It also comes back to personal accountability as well. At the end of the day you, and only you are responsible for the way you feel. This tyranny simply ends up in a chilling effect, where even those sympathetic to the "cause" become afraid to speak out.

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