The principle of Linguistic Relativity argues that language affects the worldview of the speaker. For example, in a study done at Stanford, Spanish and english speakers watched people intentionally break something, and then accidentally break something. For the item being intentionally broken, the Spanish and english speakers were both able to recall the person who broke the item with a high degree of accuracy. But for the situation where the item was broken accidentally, the Spanish speakers remembered less about the person who broke the item. This is due to the structural differences in Spanish and English. The sentence structure indicates who broke the vase. But in Spanish, the direct translation of the same sentence in Spanish would be, the glass broke itself.
You might be wondering where I’m going with this. And while linguistics is interesting, I promise that I have a point. Language is a tool. Obviously. It is how we communicate our thoughts, ideas, feelings, and plans. There are countless books on the way that we can manipulate and coerce and win based off of the language we use. The words that we choose to use indicate the level of respect and inclusion that we want to convey. The language we use can be affected by our bias and our privilege, but sometimes the bias language that we use is the only language available. Perhaps because we haven’t been exposed to other language, or perhaps because the culture and society that we live in has twisted the meaning and significance of words over time. Look, for example, at the word gay. 50 years ago it only meant happy. Today it can still mean that, or it can very clearly indicate sexual orientation. What comes to mind when I say, “Working.” For me I think of physical labor type work. Like a construction site. Then my mind might wander to an office building with people inside dressed in business attire and going to meetings. Now think of the word: “Woman.” What comes to mind? What do you picture? It’s probably pretty different for everyone. We have our own definitions shaped by our experiences of what those two words mean. But what happens when you put those two together? Working woman. The definition in the dictionary for working woman says, “a woman who is gainfully employed; often, specifying, such a woman as distinct from a housewife.” Problematic and annoying as that definition might be - it’s probably not the definition you first think of when you hear that term - right? Your mind might first think something along the lines of this urban dictionary definition: “slang for prostitute.” Interesting how when the word “woman” is added to a word that might otherwise be respectable, it becomes sexualized. Degraded. The only reason why those two words together can be interpreted as a sex worker is because of the cultural significance that they hold. Now. This is not an episode about sex workers. This is an episode about the honorifics and titles assigned to women in modern day america. And I think it’s important to keep in mind the way that language influences our thoughts, and the way that language shifts over time throughout this discussion. An honorific is a title or word implying or expressing high status, politeness, or respect. The honorifics we use in our regular daily lives are Ms. Miss, Mrs., and Mr. Miss meaning an unmarried woman. Mrs. meaning a married woman, and Ms. being ambiguous. Why might women need three honorifics to men’s one - might you ask? Why might women’s titles also indicate marital status, you might ask? Good question. Let’s look at the history of these titles and how they came to be. Both Miss and Mrs are shortened versions of the word mistress - which believe or not did not always mean a woman having an affair with a wealthy man. Miss was saved for young women. Girls. Mrs. was reserved for women of higher social status. Someone who was called Mrs probably governed a household, was a business woman, or was held in high esteem in her community. She had social capital. And probably financial capital, too. Mrs was much more likely to be used for a business woman than for a married woman. It wasn’t until the mid 18th century that younger women who also had social status starting using the title of Miss to indicate their status. But it was still not an indicator of marriage - simply age and status. Moving forward, Miss and Mrs did not definitively indicate marital status until the early 1900s when Miss and Mrs meant exactly what they mean today - married or unmarried. Fast forward to the women’s movement and the use of Ms. Ms. was introduced as essentially the female version of Mr. Mr. is simply the respectful title given to men without regard for his marital status. Ms was the same. However, like most things having to do with feminism, it has been vilified and discredited the way the media likes to discredit anything feminist. Instead of a title that indicated absolutely nothing about a person other than their gender, Ms. came to be known as a way for unmarried women to hide their marital status, or a way for raging feminists to protest against the cultural norm of female dependence on men. So it still came with a stigma. So while it might be easier to believe that we are just still using the same archaic terms with the same sexist archaic significance they’ve always had - it is simply not true. The indication of marital status in female honorifics is far younger than the actual honorifics themselves. Consider the way we use Mr. when we are considering highly esteemed titles. For example: Mr. President. We’ve never had a female president so we can’t be 100% sure, but I can’t imagine that when we do have a female president we’ll be calling her Mrs. President. Why? Why is Madam President more highly respected than Mrs. President? When the same honorific can be used to greet your neighbor down the street or a president- Why does the female equivalent not command the same amount of respect? Why is it insufficient when talking about a position of power? Why is Mrs. so much less respectable than Mr.? The presidency is the only time we use madam either. We’ve also got Madam Secretary, Madam ambassador, etc. And part of the reason why Madam works and Mrs. doesn’t is because sometimes Mrs. can be used to indicate you are the wife of that person. Mrs. Ambassador could simply mean the wife of the Ambassador. Now let’s look at the celebration of the transition from Miss to Mrs. Just picture the home of a newly wed couple. “Mr and Mrs” coffee mugs, pillows, wall decor, and picture frames. As a married woman who has identified as a Mrs. for the last 5 years, please know that I’m passing absolutely 0 judgment on the millions of other American women who identify as mrs. I went from being Miss Stokes to Mrs Cohen, and not only did I welcome the change, I celebrated it the way many young married women do - because it is a change that marks our womanhood. A change that is documented magically and romantically in fairytales, chick-lit, and romcoms alike. Honorifics are not the only gendered titles that we hold, though. Many traditionally male professions have masculine titles. And yet, they are considered neutral. For example, foreman. Mailman. Sailsman. However, when you look at the titles of traditionally female jobs, even ungendered titles connote femininity. When you hear receptionist, do you think or a man or woman? How about secretary? Nurse? And yet we often refer to men who are nurses as male nurses. Why is is that women have taken on the masculine titles of professions while men in traditionally female roles need some kind of indicator that they are not in fact women? Girls have been allotted the freedom to do things that traditionally boys did. They can dress up like boys. They can get dirty. They can play sports. They can be tomboys. But the same freedoms aren’t allotted to boys - who are made fun of when they dress up like a girl, play with dolls, have female friends, or - heaven forbid - throw like a girl. These boys then grow up and are embarrassed to hold a title that has historically been held by women. Coincidence? I doubt it. Samuel Pepys, a member of the british parliament in the 1600s said, “It is worthy of remark, that the fair sex may justly complain of almost every word in the English language designating a female, having, at some time or another, been used as a term of reproach.” The problem is not the terms or the titles. Just about any term meaning woman at some point in history and by some faction of the population has been degraded, sexualized, and demeaned. So ya. We might be a little upset and “justly complain” about that. But the solution is not to add more titles to our repertoire and wait around for those titles to be degraded like the dozens before us. No, the solution is to stop associating women with sexuality. The solution is to stop assigning value to women based off of their sex appeal. The solution is to recognize that women have far more potential than their ability to please and procreate - potential that has gone largely untapped due to these gender biases. And until that change happens, it doesn’t matter what titles we use.
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AuthorMady is the host of Shouting About the Silence Podcast and Community. She is by no means a professional writer; she just has a lot of thoughts! Archives
October 2019
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