In a Glamour magazine that was honoring women, I recently read a quote that stopped me cold. It said, “I believe the lives of women cannot improve, that women cannot thrive, until men free themselves from the constraints of the male code.” (1)
Truth or fiction? Agree or disagree? Is our freedom truly chained to what men decide to do or not do? God, I hope not.
Yes, I believe men are in part responsible for our imbalance. Patriarchy hasn’t done much to endear itself to those of us who are not male. But I don’t agree that ‘they’ need to change before we can have an impact on our own lives. In fact, I believe everything will change based on what we as ‘that which is not male’ decide to do next. Are we going to lean into our power or stay attached to an idea that says we cannot become free until men act?
I’d like to suggest a different, and perhaps unique approach. Let’s change our words and see what happens to our world. Perhaps it’s because I’m a linguist but I’ve studied our masculine use of words for over a decade and I believe there’s room for change—big change—that could change everything. In fact, it’s altered my writing and my speaking—in order to bring more respect to us.
Are we conscious enough to realize that in English there is no way to refer to ourselves without using male words? Do we realize that English is one of only a couple of known languages that do that? How does it feel, as a woman, to be forced to attach what describes you to a masculine word? WoMAN, WoMEN, LADy, FeMALE. Is it truly acceptable to us to be so chained that even our language does not respect us as free and independent people (huMANS as it were)?
As English continues to prevail as our world’s most commonly used language, I believe it’s important to pay attention to what our words suggest in literal and subliminal ways. As a linguist I’m concerned that we use ‘man’ words so liberally in English (ISH also spells ‘HIS’ and ISH is ‘man’ in Hebrew in case you’re interested) with almost complete disregard and disrespect for anything that is not male.
It’s not a shock to most of us that English is not in favor of our ‘fairer (i.e. purportedly weaker but fairer) sex’, in fact we joke frequently about how many man words are used, even to describe our own bodies and sacred processes. For over a decade I studied how English words are coded toward men and against us. I undertook to remove unnecessary ‘man’ words to see if it could possibly make a difference. I stopped using words that refer to ‘men’ without an equal reference to ‘that which is not male’, except in gender-related context. I call it ‘WEnglish’.
I believe that it is imperative that we, as ‘fifty percent of the sky’, create our own new words to describe ourselves. Most other languages already do that; why not English?
I believe there is as much power in our tongues as there is in our swords (notice that ‘words’ also spells ‘swords’ and I don’t think that’s a MIStake).
I believe it is right and good that those who are not male be equally represented by English and I can suggest three or four simple ways to do that. Number One? Learn to refer to ourselves without using ‘man’ words.
How to change a man? Let’s take our equal place in life, assume our power, and allow our world to rebalance itself.
Vivian!