Language

I'm reading an amazing book called Man Made Language, by Dale Spender. It's about how our language forms the way that we think. Some of the points she is making are incredibly relevant and important and I wanted to share them with my readers.

For a long time women in our society have been struggling to be treated equally, to have the same rights and to be viewed in the same way as men. I really recommend the book to everyone. One of the main arguments that Dale Spender makes is that language affects the way that we think, and our language was created by, and controlled by men, and this has a detrimental affect upon how women are perceived.

She uses an argument that I have used for a long time, that in order to have true equality - in terms of perception - in terms of careers, that we need to stop differentiating between men and women in the job titles. So an actor can be a man or a woman. If you use the word actress then you are implying that a woman cannot be an actor, she is something different, something less than an actor. The same would be true for words like doctoress or lawyeress. Ok, those words don't exist, but waitress and manageress do. And, as Ms (I'll come to that in a moment) Spender points out, it is telling that were a job title doesn't have a specific gender indicator in the name, people add one: lady doctor, lady lawyer, female flight attendant. As long as we differentiate between the genders in the workplace, there can never be true equality.

Another point that Dale Spender makes is about the derogatory treatment of women in language. Her argument is that our language is structured to identify the male as a positive thing and female as a negative concept - a "minus male". One of the striking examples that she gives is the use of terms meaning female in our language. She uses the example that if an old woman were referred to as an old man, one would merely think this was a mistake. But if an old man were referred to as an old woman, this would be seen as an insult. She cites female titles and demonstrates how each has an alternative (generally negative) meaning: a queen is not only a royal designation but can be a way of referring to homosexuals who are very effeminate. Yet the word king has no other connotations. Courtier still means a man who lives and works in the royal court, but the female equivalent, courtesan now has almost exclusively sexual connotations. A lord is nothing but a lord, but the word lady can be used for a female of any rank now. Sir is a title of respect, but Madam is used for the owner of a brothel. Likewise, the word Master retains its original meaning while Mistress is used almost solely with a sexual meaning. Consider the difference between referring to your old master, or to your old mistress. There is a world of difference between the two. Consider, equally, the difference in respect accorded to a bachelor or to a spinster.

Another point that Dale Spender makes regards names. A strong argument for the fact of a patriarchal society is that women take men's names. In my studies, I have come across the idea in the Middle Ages that women were an effective way of forming bonds between men, and marriage was a form of transaction. By marrying my daughter/sister to this man, I form a bond between him and I. Yet this attitude hasn't entirely changed. I am sure that most men do not really view their women as a transaction, but why should it be normal that the woman has first her father's name and then her husband's. Worse still, Ms Spender argues and I agree strongly, when a woman loses her first name and becomes Mrs Jack Smith. Why should our identities be defined in terms of the men we are in relationships with? Dale Spender also argues convincingly for the use of the title "Ms". Now I have always been proud of being a "Mrs", but Dale Spender points out that this again is defining oneself in terms of a man. "Mrs," she argues, defines a woman as belonging to a man. "Miss" defines her as unmarried - not yet belonging to a man, or left on the shelf. Whereas "Ms" leaves her undefined: not "woman-with-man," not "woman-without-man." Just woman.

Now I love being married, and value my married status highly, but it is true, that I don't think people should judge my worth dependent upon whether or not I am married. The fact that I am married impacts upon my role as a mother, and it impacts upon my social availability - i.e. I am not available for dates. It has nothing to do with my intellectual capacties, or my ability to carry out a particular task. It has nothing to do with my ability to do a particular job. Furthermore, although I am quite happy to be part of my husband's family and I think it is helpful and probably important for us all to share the same surname, to reinforce the fact of our family as a cohesive unit, I find myself questioning why it should be, specifically, my father-in-law's name that we all share? It's a very nice name, and I have no problem with it or with the family, but why Dane and not Hibbert? Why can't we all have my father's name and all be Caseys? Or why can't we all have my mother's name and be Le Marchants? I deplore the idea that a family "dies" when there is no male heir to "carry on the name", but this is a fact of our society so long as we continue with the arbitrary abandonment of a woman's name upon marriage.

Is there a solution for me? Am I going to start calling myself Ms now instead of Mrs? I'm not sure. I'm not going to fight against being Ms anymore. And hopefully in a year I'll be Dr, and I'm damned well going to use Dr because that doesn't give any indication of my gender at all. As for the surname... well the problem is that whichever way I go, feelings could be hurt. My father understands me leaving his name for my husband's, but would probably not understand me leaving his name for my mother's. But why retain my father's name and not my mother's? And why ask my husband to abandon his surname if I will not abandon mine? We can hardly go quadruple-barrelled... that's bordering on the ridiculous. The nearest I have come to a compromise is giving our daughters a double-barrelled surname - they bear my father-in-law's surname and my mother's surname. When they are grown women they can decide which one to use, what they want to keep if they marry. I suppose that the most important thing that I can do is to make sure that they grow up questioning the "norms" and recognising that they have other options, should they so choose.

The final point I want to make, again from Ms Spender's book but also from my own experience, is that to be truely equal, we need a fairer recognition of workloads. Recently, some high profile divorce cases have centred upon the amount to which the former wife is entitled. Lawyers argue about whether or not she had any impact upon the creation of the husband's fortune and whether or not she is entitled to some of this. I strongly believe that more recognition needs to be given to women who stay at home. I am at home partly because I am studying but mainly because I have two small children. The choice to have children was a joint decision, and I believe that what is best for them is for them to have a parent at home when they are at home, for them not to be in childcare. I feel that it is crucial for me to be around during their formative years to impress upon them the values that I feel to be important, and to give them the one-to-one attention and stimulation that they might not get from someone who was not so intimately involved in their lives. This decision means that even when I have finished studying, I will not, realistically be able to get a full-time job. But I do have a full-time job. In fact more than full-time. I am fully responsible for the welfare of two small children. I keep a house clean so that they and my husband and I remain in good health. I prepare healthy meals so that they grow up healthy and well-nourished and so that my husband and I are well fed. I am teacher, nursery nurse, cleaner, and chef. I am a manager - I read through the paperwork, organise our finances, balance our bank statements, prioritise the paperwork that we have to do. I am the one who keeps tabs on when we need to do ironing, when washing loads need doing, when we need to shop, what we need to buy, what our children need, when we need to send birthday cards, when we need to buy presents. I am a manager. Do I get paid for any of this? No. Yet without me, my children would need another carer, my husband would be unable to work, there would be a greater burden on the health services. I get a measly tiny sum of child-support and, what is worse, I actually feel guilty at times for not contributing financially to the household. It's ridiculous. I should be receiving five salaries for the work that I do. And yet I feel a need to justify myself because I am "only a housewife" and prefer to describe myself as a "student."

To put it another way - these days studies point to the fact that the best advantage that you can give a baby is breastfeeding. I know this is not always possible, but it is even less possible if a woman is constrained, for financial or social reasons to return to work as soon as possible.

I know a great many men who are wonderfully supportive and who would never in any way wish to be sexist, who value and love the women that they know. I cannot believe that many men, based on those that I know well, would consciously wish any more for women to be treated inequally. To them I say that women can never truly be equal to men while they are defined in terms of their male relationships, given job titles that categorize them as "non-male", and do not receive the financial recognition that they deserve for the roles that they carry out in the home. We've come a long way, but there's still a very long way to go. We can make a start though, by changing the language that we use, particularly by stopping to use female epithets in a negative sense. Let's stop using "girly" as an insult.