I’m admittedly new to this concept of considering feminism and the place of women in the world, so if I say something terribly unpolitically correct, I apologise.
I’ve been thinking about how language sets us up in various ways, and whether it’s possible for women to own previously male-only wordage. Now, I do believe that language is very important in terms of indicating how people think and feel, and educating them. For example, I am very much against people using terms like ‘spastic’ in anything but the medical definition of the condition.
However, I’m torn over the developments of words like chairman. I myself have never put a male-only connotation on that word – for me, it was just symbolic of the position someone held. Chairwoman is okay, assuming you know that it is a woman you’re talking about. I can live with chair (I happily called myself the chair of Conflux 4, but then I’ve not heard any other word but chair used for the position of head of a con committee). But chairperson freaks me. It seems a phrase that’s overly bowing to political correctness just for the sake of it.
This is something I’m looking at with my novel – we have a new chairman of the gadda council, only it’s a woman. Now, this is one woman who would NOT sit kindly with being called a chair (don’t call me a piece of furniture!), and I’m toying with the idea of sticking with the title of chairman for her, it being the official title of being all but the leader of the gadda. Although now I think of it, chairwoman is okay.
On Saturday, coming back from Sydney, my friend Alan and I were listening to ABC radio’s coverage of the cricket and one of the commentators used the phrase “night-watchperson” (for those who don’t know, a nightwatchman is a lower order batsman who comes in if needed at the end of a day’s play, so you can keep the better batsmen fresh for the next day – not to mention the risk involved of getting out in the last few heated overs of a day’s play). Now, I’m sorry – but we’re listening to a game featuring men, and using a term devised by men as part of a game that was back then overwhelmingly played by men, and we can’t use the traditional terminology?
When I played cricket (which I did for four summers in the Sydney Women’s Cricket competition, and played alongside ex and future Australian players), we weren’t in the least bit fussed about the terminology. It was part of the game – so a nightwatchman was a nightwatchman. It didn’t make us feel less of a woman cause we were using a word that had a male suffix – it was a cricket word.
Am I wrong in thinking that phrases that point to the sexuality of a person within a role are okay (use man when male, use woman when female) but that phrases like “chairperson” or “nightwatchperson” have taken this to an extreme, especially when it’s clear whether you’re talking about a male or female? I don’t like *word*person for anything – it just sounds silly. Or, by feeling this, am I perpetrating the divide between men and women?