I was one of those weird kids who was disappointed that Latin was no longer available when I got to high school. The forebear of all Western Languages (more or less, not a completely true statement) and it’s not being taught any more? Sheesh…
Well, I have had lots of time since then to study a bit on my own. Plus some German, French, Spanish, Italian, etc. I look forward to scarfing up some Mandarin (the most spoken language on the planet right now) and some Gaelic in the near future. None of which is my point, just some background.(1)
I have made a lot of interesting discoveries. Some that affect the social politics in America, yet appear unknown by the principals, because we don’t teach language (Latin, English or otherwise) in America(2).
For example: “woman” is a complicated word, socio-politically, but very simple linguistically. It’s true meaning is “wo-man” or “that which belongs to man.”
Husband and Wife is no better. “Husband” is a word meaning a care taker (such as in animal husbandry). Wife is a word meaning “that which must be taken care of.”
The origin of the English word “she” (described as a proper noun for feminine gender) is complicated, to say the least. “She” seems to be of a similar nature as “wo man” and implies yet another subservient relationship to man (the proper noun for the masculine gender), rather than a thing powerful and autonomous in itself.
However, before you run off to accuse the English Language of crimes against humanity [nolo contendere, by the way], consider that in Spanish there isn’t even a proper gender-neutral word for parents. In Spanish it’s “los padres,” or (literally) “the fathers.” German’s no better on gender equality.
How do we achieve gender equality when even our most basic language concepts are hard-wired to support patriarchy? Every time you say “woman” you are denigrating the likely subject of your statement. Good heavens.
Alright… what the heck do I mean here?
I mean that, despite what I just said, gender equality is not dependent on words, (“Mr Chairperson” Great Gods above — give me a break, all that does is emphasize gender differences!) and it’s not dependent on gender neutral bathrooms (though that’s certainly a good step, for many reasons). It’s not dependent on pay scales (stop working for any slob that offers you less simply because of some characteristic of your 23rd gene pair — that slob isn’t worthy of you, no matter how much money he’s offering(3)).
Gender equality isn’t any of these things, nor the thousands of other silly rules that have come about along the path of the Honorable and Needed Quest for True Equality.
But it can not be imposed on people from outside; that’s just another kind of violence, much as gender prejudice itself is. No, gender equality comes about naturally — and only — when you remove all the “us vs them” thoughts from your own mind.
Let me put it another way: as long you divide the world in to “male” and “female”(4) you will keep creating differences where differences don’t necessarily exist, or at least do not matter. Yes, there are differences. Without women, the Human race would stop, cold. Men… it is arguable that men are superfluous now. (I think that’s wishful thinking on the part of some folks who have been badly treated; completely understandable, though. I mean, I’m not sure the technology to generate sperm in a lab is fully “there” yet.)
The same is true of any label you apply to anybody. The moment you label some one — smart, geek, computer guru, idiot, politician, liar, stone mason, tall, “vertically challenged,” janitor, republican, libertarian, Christian, Muslim, atheist, etc — the moment you label some one, you have diminished who they are, by applying a narrow label to a person who is many, many, many things simply by the nature of being Human.
Human — unfortunately, that’s another male-derived term. Blame Latin for that one. Even “homo sapiens” is suspect, since, again, “homo” means “man” in Latin.(5)
Homo Sapiens actually means “man wise” or “wise guy.” And the so-called modern man is actually Homo Sapiens Sapiens, which we might translate as “really wise guy” [ok, “man wise wise” — outstandingly pompous, or, properly, “man who knows that he knows”].
So… Ladies (let’s not investigate that word, ok?) The situation is — if you focus on the words themselves — a whole lot worse than you may have thought. The origins and roots of the “male is king, female is property” mentality probably can’t be removed as if they never existed, but you can remove it from your own heart and mind.
Frankly, that’s all any of us can do with regards to our fellow… um… Earthlings. Greet everyone with Joy, respect every one as Child of the Universe / Child of God. Put no one down, ever. It takes work, constant and gentle work, to reprogram yourself this way, but it’s possible, and very worthwhile.
Oh, and in the meantime, be tolerant of what other people say, and be tolerant of how they react to what you have said, knowing that what you said isn’t necessarily what they heard and that their understanding of certain works may be different from your own.
(1) Although I do want to mention that “touring” several languages has definitely increased my general understanding of culture, sociology, and even of my own language, or, rather, the real meaning of some common words and phrases we only think we understand, etc. [“Real Meaning” he says? Isn’t the real meaning what ever we think we are saying? Well… (he says back to you), yes and no. That’s another conversation.]
(2) America, by the way, is what’s properly known as a polyglot country, a country of many, many languages, just not officially. This is not recognized by the good-old-boy dominated back-room politics that runs this circus. There are, at last count, over 430 languages spoken in America every day. Think on that. Think on, also, that there are over 6,500 languages in the world (excluding Klingon, which *is* an official language now — go figure). That shows us one thing: America is speaking less than 7% of the world’s languages. So, maybe, America isn’t quite the world-wide soup some think, isn’t quite as “invaded by foreigners” as is feared by some very strange “thinkers.”
(3) Men, you too should stop working for any one who pays less to any of your fellow Earthlings simply because of a configuration on the 23rd gene pair. If your “boss” can act disrespectfully to one of your fellow employees, believe me, it’s a short and inevitable hop to disrespecting you as well. — By the way, 23rd Gene Pair controls (or at least contributes to) a person’s gender, and it has at least 7 recognized “standard” configurations, which has lead some to conclude there are actually 7 genders. Go figure…
(4) Another case of “that which belongs to man” by the way
(5) Actually, it means “same,” and “vir” means man, but “same” was what the inventors of the term were after, meaning “all Earthlings the same as me” — all men. Therefore, a term specifically crafted to emphasize a difference. Ugly. So, the term “Human” doesn’t work. How about “Earthling,” then? Well, then the listener might get confused over the billions of other species living on this planet. So, how about “The Two-Legged Dominant Earthling?” Ah, Elephants would then be the 4-legged dominant (research suggesting Elephants are at least as smart as Humans — they just have a different agenda about what’s important), and Dolphins would be no-legged dominant, I guess. What about whales with their 15 pounds of brain and their extraordinarily complicated songs? Or insects, who outnumber every thing else alive save bacteria (shear number being one definition of “dominant”)? Or bacteria themselves, whose population numbers are too huge for the mind even to name, let alone grasp? Hmm… Complicated, huh? Equality among ourselves is only just the tip of the ice-berg, you know?