With everything that is happening around the Trump inauguration and all that it seems to be encompassing, I think one thing that needs to be addressed is our language. The Right Wing has been using language that includes “secret” messages, otherwise known as “dog whistles,” for some time. We know that language is very important in conveying our ideas. We know that language can be perverted to serve particular political endeavors. We know that language is the basis of how we communicate with one another.
Language is important. Which is why I feel the need to bring it up as we move into the Trump era of disinformation and miscommunication. We need to change how we approach what messages Trump and his cronies employ when they speak to us. We need to call out misogyny whether it is overt or covert. We need to call out bigotry whether it is overt or covert. We need to call out lies whether they are overt or covert, whether the “news media” is being called upon to “spin” a “message.”
Most importantly, we need to shift how we, ourselves, use language. I’ve read many posts here at DKos where gender is used to draw a line between the “powerful” and the “impotent.” I think we all read or heard about Trump getting upset that he was Time’s “Person of the Year,” rather than “Man of the Year.” It is important for us to remember that not everyone delineates gender the same way. “Person of the Year” is an appropriate title for Time’s piece because it is inclusive of every person, not just those who happen to be male or identify as male or otherwise are viewed “male” in the traditional sense of the word.
A person could refer to anyone, male or female, because who really cares if a powerful speaker is male or female? Who really cares if an inspirational person is male or female? The question we should ask ourselves is why is gender so important for how we view someone?
We are moving into a reinvented time of “Making (Privileged, White, Male) America Great Again.” The language with which we use to define this new era also needs to reflect that not every one of us agrees that a movement backwards is a good thing. So, why does gender play such a big role in our language now?
The transgender community made important steps forward under the Obama Administration. This community was vocal and adept at bringing forward the ideas of gender fluidity, of gender identity and the idea that the binary view of “male” and “female” may be an outdated way of talking about the world around us. This community also has allowed us to play with the idea of placing less emphasis on a person’s gender and more emphasis on what important persons in our public sphere do without the “male” and “female” titles dragging them down when one particular gender is “ranked” above another.
In the last few weeks, I have heard more reporters and writers add the labels of “male” and/or “female” (“man” or “woman”) when describing public characters. It concerns me that this shift in language will lead to more divisions between “male” (good, positive, powerful, dominant) and “female” (less good, less positive, pusillanimous, submissive), not only in how we view the world around us, but also in how we describe the world around us. I have seen a hardening of the idea of “maleness” and how that is supposed to be a “good” thing, how “masculinity” is being used as a weapon to subjugate those seen as “not masculine,” and how we, as a society, are moving toward the old gender stereotypes of “man, powerful,” “woman, weak.”
From my own experiences walking through public, I have noticed a definite change in how I am perceived and how I am treated. When I am perceived as male, my opinion counts a lot, my voice is heard and my requests are quickly responded to by those who view me as male. When I am perceived as female, my opinions are ignored or denigrated, my voice is lost and my requests are not really taken seriously. This troubles me deeply. I am an equal citizen in our society of equals. Whether I am male or female should not matter when opinions are being shared or discussed, my voice should carry the same weight whether those around me see me as male or female, my requests should be honored equally, no matter the plumbing between my legs. (I should note that I am female, but androgynous enough to pass as either male or female. I should further note that I am not bothered when someone confuses me for male, because I realize that in that person’s world view, male is considered to be “more” than female and that that person is trying to afford me a “higher” place in his/her mind. I am neither condoning or condemning this world view, just stating a fact.)
As we move deeper into the Trumperian Era (we have “TP’d” the White House), we need to continue to be mindful of our language, how others use language to describe their world views and we need to not regress our language to fit into their “reality.” We need to continue to use our language of inclusion, we need to remind others that language really does matter and, most of all, we need to remember that Newspeak and thought crimes are not real . . . yet.