*** Trigger warning for possible insensitive language, used to illustrate a point ***
Political correctness is something that many people hate - usually white, privileged people. Big surprise, right?
The other day I was with a group of people and I mentioned how disgusted I was when someone in my class used the term hermaphrodite to describe an intersex individual. The person I was speaking to informed me that using these different words is merely a result of society's obsession political correctness. To which, I explained that I felt it was important for people to take that time to try and understand others and their right to identify however they choose.
Hermaphrodite is an incredibly offensive title to intersex individuals and others because it is a term tradtionally used by the medical community to "other" groups of people. The term was also used to single people out as "freaks" in the past, with the existence of side-shows and "freak" shows. This sort of thing is still happening in our culture. A great reference is the recent outrage here in Canada when CBC radio edited out the word "faggot" in a song by Dire Straits. Many citizens declared the alteration to be censorship, when in reality the song was merely edited for radio play, much like "fuck" is edited out of many songs. Of course, it was all the heterosexual people that seemed to be so disgusted by the slight alteration.
To be clear, I understand the impatience of some regarding the titles others choose - to an extent. I really, however, feel that it is cruical to recognize the agency of others and their ability to title themselves as they see fit.
Last night, I got into an argument about biological essentialism and once again the term hermaphrodite was used after I tried to explain the silliness and the recent concept of only two genders existing.
Their excuse was that doctors and medical books use the term, thus it must be acceptable.
Homosexuality was considered a mental illness by the medical community, does that mean we should refer to lesbians and gay men as being mentally unstable?
I think not.
I politley explained that the term was considered offensive and that many people prefer different titles, such as intersex. I used the illustration of the medical community and other people using terms like "indian" to describe aboriginal people for example, or "trannys" for transgendered individuals and so forth. These are not positive or very kind terms to use for people who do not identify with them. That kind of harmful language was and is always used to "other" groups of people, leading to discrimination and even violence.
In Canada, political correctness appears to be more important than it is in the U.S. Many people living in the U.S seem to beileve that people have become too sensitive and we should all just get over it. Clearly, this is not true for all Americans, but it is a common mentality from what I have observed. Similarly, the term mentally retarded still gets thrown around by the medical community in America, where as in Canada that term is considered highly offensive. I concieve that this is because Canada is a purely multi-cultural country that is made up of so many different cultures. The whole country was built by indigenous communities and immigrants.
In Canada, we name groups of people (for the most part) what they request to be adddressed by, for the most part. I am not suggesting bigotry is not rampant in Canada because that would be a lie.
Norms here changea depending on the province. For instance, Alberta is a lot less politically-correct about differences between people than say Newfoundland or British Columbia. This is due to local political climate that leans further right than the rest of Canada.
By now, dear readers, you are probably wondering where the hell I am going with all of this. I'm not really going anywhere, I'm more interested in getting people thinking about and discussing the importance of giving people some recognition. As someone concerned with peace, egalitarianism and equality, It disgusts me to hear anyone talk about other groups in a poor light. This is contradictory to many of the values I have, and I know that many others have. Could you imagine if people took that extra time to understand differences and appreciate them instead of sabotaging entire groups of people? Instead of reffering to people in a way that excerises unequal power, for example, a straight woman calling a lesbian woman something other than what she wants to be called. If a lesbian woman states, "I am a lesbian", you probably shouldn't say "Look, a queer woman!"
Differences may seperate us, but they do not have to. We can learn to acknowledge other people's right to be called what they please. It is vital because many groups of people have been traditionally margalized. Women are a great example of a marginalized group. Therefore we should not call other women misogynistic names like bitch or slut. As we should not refer to homosexuals as "fags" or transgendered people as "trannys" because it's disrespectful, alienating, hypocritical and nasty. I do not call my lesbian friends a "dyke" if that is not how they refer to themselves, and I wouldn't anyway because I respect their agency and ability to name themselves. I wouldn't use the language of the oppressors as it is hypocritcal as hell. It is my responsibility as a social justice activist to consider the feelings of others and try to see life through their perspective.
This issue is not limited to naming people. It can also come in handy when we discuss cultural differences. For example, my friend who is Islamic and a transnational feminist informed me that our Women's Study text had finally changed the term Female Genital Mutilation to Female Genital Cutting.
Why would this be good news?
Well, our choice of words, in this case the term mutilation, reflects a white bias - an ethnocentric bias that perpetuates ideas about one culture calling out another one on the basis of perceived "wrongness." To clarify, I do not support female genital cutting for obvious reasons, but I also realize that this practice is done from cultural tradition and that the women who perform them, and yes, it's always women who perform them, do not have any other form of paid work. This is their work and they take much pride in it. So, for me to waltz over to Eygpt and say, "Hey, you're mutilating 90% or so of your girls, what is wrong with you?!" would be horribly racist, white-supremacist and ethnocentric. We can be critical of a practice without naming it as something like mutliation, which in the West is a term that causes many to fill with horror and disgust. The culture that is practicing FGC may not see it that way, thus it is not my place as a privileged, educated white woman to give lessons on morality to others. This illustrates that this kind of terminology can be vital in supporting multi-culturalism and equality for all people.
I am sick and tired of being in a classroom and hearing degrading titles being thrown around. I'm tired of hearing other people being put down for their differences. Is it so hard to call someone what they want to be called? Not only do I know many people who have titles that do not fit the status quo, I am one of them. It hurts to be discluded and disregarded. It's damn offensive, in fact. It makes people invisible and feminism is about making everything and everyone, visible.
Is it so hard to wrap your head around the fact that not everyone is the same as you? This only segregates and hurts people, it does not unite. So, the next time you think someone is being too politically correct, think about it from another point of view instead of your own.
Dear Owl Eyes,
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you say about waltzing to Egypt to lecture the Egyptians on aspects of their culture.
But is it still ethnocentric and supremacist to be critical about FGM/FGC being practised by these minorities inside Canada?
Thanks,
Socrates
Socrates, What I am trying to say is that I am not "for" FGC, I believe it is very very problematic, but I never said no one was to be critical of female genital cutting. I am critical of all of it, here in Canada and everywhere else. But you need to note that the numbers here are very low in comparison to the some 90-99% of women in specific places in the east. These women are feeding their families with these surgeries and since the West is so ignorant about any other culture, they don't help people living in poverty. There's so many things that need to be examined if we are to liberate women as a class - women everywhere. I am suggesting that we take cultural differences into account as we are critical of them. You can be critical and still try and be culturally aware. Our ideas about the world aren't shared by everyone, you know? We just always think we're right and everyone else is wrong.
ReplyDeleteI want to say something about political correctness: this term has been so abused by right wingers and conservatives that it lost all its meaning. Originally, someone who was considered politically correct supported a dominant political opinion because it was opportune to do so, i.e. a person isn't politically correct if s/he ends up having the majority opinion for reasons other than opportunism. At the moment, for example, it seems to be politically correct to be disrespectful of minorities- those people who accuse you of "political correctness" are probably at least partly defending sexism, racism etc because it is opportune in the current society. I dislike these people for perverting the term so that you can't use it anymore like it was intended to be used.
ReplyDeleteI had some problems with your opinion about FGM/FGC: I understand that FGC is the preferred term because of activist pragmatics. But morality has nothing to do with it: women's rights are universal, they are not a Western value. FGC will be mutilation (I use it correctly according to its dictionary definition) everywhere. Sometimes cultural practices need to die because they abuse human rights. Anything else is cultural relativism, the big umbrella under which every act of misogyny is disappeared.
I realize you are not "for" FGC, like you have already stated. But there are many people who push terms like FGC as an euphemism to forward a cultural relativist agenda. Cultural relativism is not inherently bad, it reminds us that difference doesn't equal inferiority. However, people widen this principle to human rights- and because of this you have people who will throw around words like "cultural imperialism" (I don't mean you) to silence feminists and other activists. I wouldn't surprise me if some thought of FGM as being not "that bad" because of the positive evaluation the procedure receives from women who were mutilated themselves.
What I fear is that the speed of reformism is too slow compared to the speed of globalization. Therefore, the subjugation of women in FGC-practicing societies will probably diminish these societies' capacity to participate in the global economy even more so that the distance between the rich and poor countries will increase. It is possible that societies in which women are much more subjugated than in ours will lose their culture for no other reason than their continued overt oppression of the female half of the population (which would worsen in case of a societal collapse). Weak patriarchies usually do not survive and are integrated into the stronger (global) patriarchal society. (Unless they are economically advantaged for one reason or the other, e.g. because of oil.)
What is the problem with being cultural relativist? What gives us the right to name things for other cultures? Why aren't we giving these areas help to keep sanitary tools instead of trying to knock down a tradition that it's not our place to knock down? The horrible health consequences are rampant because of unsafe tools and procedures due to lack of funds. I'm not supporting this practice, as i stated, but merely suggesting that we try and approach it with a cultural lens, yes a culturally relative lens, it's not an agenda. It's very important if you are a transnational feminist, actually. And frankly, we all should be, because the white west is always the one being looked at. Perhaps if we change our language, we will be more open to helping these women find jobs and employment and supplying safe tools and medical training in the mean time...
ReplyDeleteIt's like saying "Make prostitution illegal" But don't give those women a financial opportunity that isn't prostitution. For example, without options, the Swedish model does not work. Women need to be provided with alternatives, we can't just knock out prostitution and be done with it, right?
ReplyDeleteAlso, in terms of FGC, we need to understand the whole range of oppression women face in those areas. We need to tackle their lack of humanity before we tackle actual practices. The conditions for women in many of these places are horrbile, women have no rights, they have no job alternatives. We must focus on all the aspects of oppression. Life is not so black and white that we can just march in and clear out practices that have been longstanding in a culture. It's ethnocentric to even think that we can and have some right to obliderate a practice and leave no reasonable option for the women conducting them.
ReplyDeleteI think you should read this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.taskforcefgm.de/img/Bamako-DECLARATION.pdf
Looks like the term FGC has been pushed on African activists. So... does transfeminism mean we use our academic words developed by western lobby groups rather than listen to the women who have fought against FGM much more longer than we?
Concerning the women who perform the procedure: they must be get vocational training as soon as possible with earnings that match the ones they would have earned by continuing their "job". However, many already let professional doctors operate on their daughters to curb the risk of infection and death. This is why lobbying to have FGM happen in sanitary conditions is not enough: sooner or later it will have to be revealed as an abuse of the human rights of girls and as a manifestation of misogyny.
Kuru,
ReplyDeleteFirst, I want to say that in the ideal world, in an egalitarian society, these practices would not exist.
Nevertheless, I double-checked my atlas of women by Joni Seager, and you were right. Medical personell performing the procedures has skyrocketed. She states that traditionally, women performed the procedures but now the rate in medical ones has increased. She stated, too, that this has lowered the medical aspect and leaves the human rights aspect. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. Definitely puts things into a different perspective.
However, All that I am saying is that in the meantime we should be careful with our language as it is powerful. As feminists, we know a lot about the power in langauge and language spoken by the powerful. I try to be as fair as I can, especially when it comes to issues of culture and differences across cultures. I try and keep in mind that women in my community may have had this done to them and would not like to hear peopel referring to their bodies as "mutilated."
Mutilation because:
ReplyDelete1. It is done to people without their consent;
2. It is done without regard for their happiness, comfort, or safety; and
3. It is done specifically to control their behavior, i.e. to further their oppression.
The beak searing of chickens is mutilation, too, because it fits all of those criteria. No one has to like my
But more to the point... I don't think we should be waltzing anywhere. I am kind of isolationist on the subject of trans-community assistance. If another community is not specifically asking for your help, then you have no right to force it on them. And I mean this specifically in terms of sizeable communities separated by geographical distance - I don't apply it to individuals at all. I've just seen things fucked up way too much by out-of-area opportunists who want the glory of throwing rocks at cops without having to live with the fallout of silent-but-literal martial law.
Also, I agree with Aileen that reformism won't cut it. Especially on the topic of prostitution: financial opportunities isn't going to suffice. That's too idealistic because it is trying to make capitalism work in a way that it cannot work by design. Prostitution exists because in capitalism, there needs be an underclass of the exploitable and vulnerable. Homeless people exist for this reason, too - as a threat to those who do not obey, and to reassure them that they are not those people, so there's no need to revolt. Very few people would willingly choose to live within a capitalist system without this kind of mentally abusive hurt/comfort and the constant reinforcement we face, especially in school, that capitalism is necessary. So capitalism serves both as a deterrant to social change and a distraction from it. Welfarism is not useful. "Nice" slavery is still slavery; "happy cows" are still property, imprisoned and bred until their usefulness comes to an end.
Language is powerful, but in different ways than I see being presented here. For example, you're talking about a cultural tradition of cutting off certain body parts in terms of harm reduction, as if it's an addictive coping method like drugs or self-injury, instead of something that is done to someone by a group of people with more power. I would not be nearly so abrasive if it were a choice made by individuals, because it's your fucking body as long as you're not killing or enslaving anyone else to do what you're doing. I don't treat eating disorders or suicide as abhorrent and morally wrong, because I'd be blaming the wrong person. But this is not what is going on. Trying to push harm-reduction, trying to codify what kinds of abuse are acceptable, only end up openly sanctioning and justifying the idea of abuse at all.
If you are property, anything is acceptable. Zero-sum game. If you are not property, then no one will do this kind of shit to you because there is no acceptable level of violation.
Cerien,
ReplyDeleteI agree with basically everything you said here. I wasn't intending a harm-reduction approach, just one that didn't mean we would, as you said, go into another area when they didn't ask for our assistance.
I wasn't trying to pit the abuse as acceptable or just because that isn't true.
You made a lot of excellent points though, all that have made a lot of sense. Especially about the property part, as many women around the world are viewed as mere property - to be bought and sold with a husband.
You're right that, if you're NOT property than no one would do that kind of shit. Very true.
Thank you for all your input, it's fantastic.