Random Acts of Feminism for May: The Difference Between Women and Girls

This is a big pet peeve. I have many times written about language politics. Language matters-we think through language. In an earlier post, I wrote about how girlish is part of the definition of 'female' but boyish is not part of the definition of 'male.' We seems to see boys and men as different in kind whereas girls and women are the same...and women seem to be dull, old, boring girls.

Our culture has a word to describe males who are not children (boys) but also not in the context of responsible, mature, traditional behaviors of 'men' (i.e. 9 to 5 work and nuclear family): they are guys. Males over 18 who are not being spoken of as leaders, or family-men, or who are much older males are guys. Referring to themselves in the familiar are guys. 'Men' are either old, powerful, or traditionally 'male'-burly, virile, etc. Guys have fun, joke around, go out to bars, ogle women...they're 'guys.'

We don't have an analogous word for females in that same category. In earlier times, it was 'gals.' I know this isn't news to probably any of you. Our only options to describe females are 'girls' and 'women.'

Why is this a problem? After all, lots of females themselves use the word 'girl.' Well, given the options, it's understandable why. But that doesn't make its usage unobjectionable. Don't forget, we internalize gender expectations too. Culturally, a 'woman' refers to an older female, or a female that is wifely or motherly. In usage, it seems to refer to a female who is no longer (or never was) sexually available. Your mom, your aunt, your friend's mom are women. Moms in general are women. 'Older' females (which these days seems to be over 35) are women. Girl is, of course, supposed to be minor females (under 18) or female teenagers. Girl refers to a not-yet mature female, with the requisite naivete, not fully autonomous, and not-yet independent.

But a woman over 35 posed nude in for porn is a girl. Anyone sexual or sexualized is a girl, as part of female sexuality is vulnerability and a certain innocence (who's also oddly experienced). And other, non-sexual uses of 'girl' are completely unexplainable to me. Girl seems to be any female who isn't an older mom or wife. The key term in a girl as a not-yet mature, independent, autonomous, intellectually developed woman is "yet." Yet, we persist in defining females who are still sexually available (via age and/or status) as remaining in the "not" phase of young girlhood...females are only seen as mature, intelligent, strong, powerful autonomous females when they are too-old, unsexy, undesirable "women." As seen recently in the case of Chancellor Merkel, sexuality and real power are incommensurable.

So critiquing the use of 'girl' is a political gesture. My suggestion for using it as a Random Act of Feminism? Nonthreatening, yet provocative. For example,"

Person: "I was out the other day, and I saw these three girls standing in a corner..."
Me: "Seriously? They let teenagers into the bar?"
Person: "What do you mean teenagers?"
Me: "Well, you said they were girls..."

Then you can remind them that girls are minor females, and thoughtfully explain the conceptual lack we have for a familiar term to refer to adult females.

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Random Acts of Feminism for April: Stop the Snarking

Well, it's April 2nd, so it's time for my monthly Random Act of Feminism. Each month I offer a suggestion for a "random act" that anyone can do in daily life and typical conversation as a way to raise feminist issues without being, preachy. And like the "Random Acts of Kindness" I stole this from, you don't have to be a full-time activist in charge of an international organization to effect change in the people around you; you can inspire them to consider some of the gendered, racial, and heteronormative assumptions that are implicit in our culture and to be self-reflexive about their own actual behavior. Feminism happens every day.

So for April...stop the snarking.

The celebrity gossip feminist blog Jezebel ("Celebrity, Sex, Fashion. Without the Airbrushing") in January came out with a New Year's Resolution to call a cease-fire on mean-spirited snarking--the wholly irrelevant, completely inappropriate comments ripping on celebrity (women) for their weight, their appearance, their unflattering photographs, etc.

I have long brought to people's attention the unnecessariness of judging everyone--regular people and celebrities, and 98% of the time it's women being commented on--on their appearance. In my opinion, the only people's appearance we ought to be passing judgment on are models--they get paid for how they look, therefore their looks are open to critique. For everyone else, who are people, who are overwhelmingly women, who have ideas and opinions, who labor to support themselves and others, who work in the community or who are totally self-absorbed and lazy...why must women's success, or value, or importance be inescapable from their appearance? I know many people will say "oh no, it's not," but if it isn't, why do we judge so harshly the way we do?

(I'm about to be very hetero-biased now, because I'm addressing the hetero culture)

I do think in many ways women do it to feel better about themselves, especially if we can critique celebrities who in most other cases will have the perfect tan, hairdo, makeup, outfit, and will be perfectly toned from their daily workouts with a personal trainer. But if we're ever going to be successful in fighting the ridiculous importance appearance has in our culture, it has to start with us.

And men need to do this as well. I think often times men feel like they have a right to judge every woman's physical appearance they see--and thereby judge every woman in terms of their sexual appeal. But if we're ever going to kick the objectification habit, and I know many men, don't want to objectify women (or don't think they do), we need to start thinking of women as people first, and not in terms of how they do or do not conform to your sexual desire. I am not suggesting that we can't notice attractive people. But we, especially men, need to get it in our heads that we should approach people as humans, who have a right to live and breathe without being judged physically when they never asked your opinion.

The Jezebel reader said it quite well:

You know what would be great? A 'no negative comments on a woman's appearance' rule, or maybe even 'no negative comments regarding anyone's appearance". I am so sick of reading the comments and seeing "Oh she's put on weight' 'She's looking old', seeing a woman's appearance absolutely torn to pieces on /any /story accompanied by a photo, no matter what it is. It really puts me off wanting to read any comments at all, which is a great pity because there are also some great opinions by intelligent women amid these insults.

Apparently nothing a woman does can ever be more important than the way she looks, and even we woman have been brainwashed into thinking that to be valued and beautiful we must be young, thin, and covered in cosmetics. We get these messages all day every day, think how fantastic it would be if Jezebel was the one media outlet that said 'No, that's not right.'

OK, so what am I suggesting? Catch yourself when you're about to say "can you believe that photo of some-25 year-old-actress with cellulite?"; "wow, that girl was not cute"; "wow, that Ms. Politican sure is a dog!"...

And when someone else says something, call them on it. "Who cares that she's not that attractive, she's a great actress! I'd rather see her in a film than that blond-20-something-actress-of-the-moment. Plus, she's super smart-have you ever heard her speak about her experience as a ____?" All it takes is a comment to make someone think...because seriously, why does it matter?

People are worth more than their bodies.

And besides, they didn't ask you.

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Randon Act of Feminism for February/March : Gendered-Language Watch

I've decided to start a monthly "Random Act of Feminism"- a suggestion of something you can do to make feminism or feminist thinking visible in daily interactions with others. Among all of this cultural analysis, feminism is both useful and relevant to everyday life!

We're halfway through February, so this will be a 2-month deal, which is actually pretty appropriate considering February and March are the token "appreciation" months for women and African-Americans. Which in my book pretty much boils down to this:

image credit: Guerilla Girls

But this Random Act regards women and people of color (in addition to other social minorities) specifically, so in a way, I suppose it's "appropriate."**

Without further adieu....


Gendered-language watch
In conversation (your own and others'), watch how people are described. Typically, we use "identity" descriptors only with reference to women, gay men, lesbians, people of color, non-Western ethnicities, (and also non-Christian religions)...in other words, the default category for a "person" is a white, hetero, male. A person is only someone "other" than that when specified.

This is what's referred to as "ex-nomination" (coined by the semiotician Roland Bathes)-being 'unnamed'. What is unnamed is what is seen as a 'natural' commonsensical category. Those of us who are not white heterosexual men become those with "marked bodies"-bodies who must be named to be identified. In other words, people who are women, or black are designated as such (as if identifying them according to said label adds particular meaning to who they are as a person), while white hetero men are simply "people," and are thus permitted to establish meaningful identities in ways not shaped by said societal identity labels.

Listen for it-you'll be surprised. Start correcting your own speech and kindly point it out in others'. Usually these identity markers are completely irrelevant to the context of what's being said-and using them continues to produce the default category of "person" or "human" in line with how it's been posited throughout history, and how it's been assumed to be in disciplines such as science, psychology, and philosophy: white, heterosexual, and male. This is a subtle way that norms around gender, sexuality, race, class, &,... are reproduced on a daily basis, through interpersonal interaction. "-isms" (sexism, racism...) need not come in the form of legal discrimination-they often happen in little moments throughout the day in ways we often don't realize...until someone says "hey, wait a sec..."

**These token "history" months are case-in-point. I do not wish to take away from their usefulness-during those months, the promotion of minoritarian history seems like worthwhile endeavors and more people are exposed to those histories than might otherwise be. Indeed, it is sad that traditional disciplines are so WHITE that they are even necessary. But, they are a good example of what I'm talking about as far as exnomination goes. I hear so many people say, "Well, when will we have a men's history month?" The simple (and to me, obvious) answer: every day of every month of every year, in newspapers and classrooms nationwide, is the teaching of men's history. It just isn't called that. "Neutral" history is really the history of dominant culture-it just gets the "privilege" of being called plain-old "history". Why? Oh yeah-because of exnomination, baby!

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