So, if you haven't read The Terrible Bargain We Have Regretfully Struck, read it. Then seek out the follow up posts. Then you should maybe just subscribe to Shakesville, it being one of my favorite places on the internet.
Anyway. The piece got published by The Guardian, and surprise, the comments were not as supportive. I want to talk about one thing in particular that kept coming up: "humankind".
Melissa McEwan uses gender-neutral language as an example at the end of a long list of little things that complicate her (and many women's) relationship with men, even and especially men they respect and love:
In the comments at The Guardian, that very last bit is brought up over. And over. And over. In order to prove Melissa is somehow overreacting, and this is the proof - she cares about this little tiny linguistic semantic nonsense. Some even say that, she makes good points, but that one? Ridiculous. Just a few examples, so you don't have to wade into the shitstorm that is, really, most comments threads:
"Whilst I'm generally a supporter of women's movements for social and political equality, some things in this article seem a bit much. For example: please use non-gendered language ('humankind'). Why the hell does it matter if they say mankind? We're all adults here, and no-one apart from Foucault's spawn genuinely believe that slight alterations of language mean anything for women's rights."
Listen up: I'm going to start using the word "womankind", since it doesn't matter, and, come on, you know what I meant. I'm going to do this not just in friendly conversation, but in all of my classes, whenever I'm writing an article for publication, whenever I give a speech or presentation on any topic, and especially whenever I'm reading in church.
Most of my professors use "womankind", too, you know, because it's easier and, who cares? Changing it to the neutral "humankind" doesn't affect anyone and it's not going to solve anything. Politicians have picked it up, too. And clergy - priests, rabbis, imams, what have you - they have to use "womankind" a lot, and why bother changing it? It's been around forever, and it's not a big inconvenience to anyone.
Oh, and when I walk into a room to greet people of mixed genders, I'm going to say "What's up, you gals?" Then we're all going to hang out, maybe watch the NBA, or if no games are on, the MNBA. When they leave, I guess I'll hang out alone and listen to my walkwoman, or play on my gamegirl.
This exercise might have struck you as a little silly. Good. It strikes me as a little silly that flipping it this way doesn't occur to most people. And it strikes me as a little silly that a person who has heard themselves acknowledged in the language everyone around them uses since the dawn of fucking time can tell someone else that language doesn't affect them, and furthermore, that it's worth mocking someone who does feel affected.
Maybe language is a symptom of a "real" problem of male experience being considered universal and female experience being considered specialized (and therefore less valuable). Personally, I think it's more than that; I think there is an attitude and assumption built into all that language (or, that all that language was built ON), and using it perpetuates that problem. I think changing it would make a difference, because it would hopefully cause one to think about why the assumption present in that language is not ok. (Not to mention the thousands of women who would feel less stressed out by being reminded that society neglects and excludes them, for example, in church, or in the literature that we consider classic, or in speeches by their elected officials, or in a chat with their friends.)
But maybe you don't agree. In which case you have two options, as I see it: argue until you're blue in the face that changing the language fixes nothing! You're wasting your time! No one cares about this shit! Linguistics! Semantics!
Or woman up and just attempt to say "humankind" because there's no real reason not to.
