Screeds

[flexibeast]

A couple of times recently, i've posted comments in LJ communities that are basically mini-essays. Since i put a fair amount of effort into them, i've decided to reproduce them here, particularly as they're both about issues close to my heart.

Firstly, an excerpt from something i wrote in response to someone noting that they support hate-speech laws because they feel that hate-speech is a way of terrorising people:

[T]he problems with such laws are, in my opinion, manyfold:

* Laws are only as effective as the ability of all members of society to use them. There's no way i could afford a lawyer to effectively represent me in a "hate speech" case, and yet my income situation has consistently meant that i am unable to access state subsidies such as concession cards - so i doubt whether i could access Legal Aid.

* But let's say some reasonably well-off person brings a case to trial in which the defendant is found guilty. Will that serve as a deterrent? Well, we only need to look at the plethora of other laws in society that are regularly disobeyed. A good example is the law against downloading illegal copies of music: the penalties for that, in the US at least, have gotten to the point where they are (in at least one instance) comparable to the penalties for manslaughter - yet such downloading has not signficantly decreased. If people don't think laws are moral, they often simply ignore them.

* What constitutes 'hate speech'? How does it fit with freedom of spiritual/religious/political/social beliefs and their expression in written or verbal form? i certainly understand your point about the (perhaps inevitable) need to curtail some freedoms in order to protect others (e.g. i imagine we would both agree that a person has a right to not be the subject of physical violence, even though that clearly involves limiting people's behaviour). But i don't think the boundaries are so clear-cut when it comes to the issue of speech acts. For example: is saying that same-sex marriage will cause societal problems an instance of 'hate speech'?

. . . i'm not aware of many governments that have consistently demonstrated that they are defending the interests of all their citizens, rather than the interests of a select minority. And once governments have been granted powers, they don't give them back without a fight, and often use them in ways which those who originally proposed the laws didn't intend.

[ Reference: the full comment, in context ]

Secondly, something i wrote about the use of the words 'pussy' and 'cunt' as insults:

Ack.

i'm all for free speech. i'm also all for people being aware of their own behaviour, and how certain privileged positions are often expressed in that behaviour. i don't expect people to not behave a certain way because otherwise they will get beaten up by the PC police; i hope that people will behave a certain way because they get, in their guts, why it's the right thing to do.

In this particular case, the issue is: 'pussy' and 'cunt' are used as words of disparagement. Why are these words regarded as disparaging? Iirc, 'pussy' meaning 'vulva' (and perhaps 'vagina' too) ultimately comes from Old Norse puse, meaning 'pouch'. It's merely a co-incidence that it ended up as the same word for the domesticated cat. So which of the two basic meanings is meant as derogatory? Well, i would suggest that anyone who considers domestic cats to be inherently weak and passive has never tried giving a cat a bath. :-) But perhaps they are under such illusions; okay. It's then interesting to note how often the domesticated cat is associated with the 'feminine', and wild cats (such as lions and tigers) with the masculine. And not only with the 'feminine', but with the nasty, evil 'feminine' - witches and evil queens. So even 'pussy' in the form of domestic cat has negative 'female' connotations.

Then there's the meaning of both 'pussy' and 'cunt' as genitalia - why is it insulting to refer to someone using the words for female genitalia? What's so bad about being a 'cunt'? Is it not because it's a symbol for the 'feminine', which is stereotypically considered 'weak' and 'passive'?

The central point here is: words are loaded with implicit, as well as explicit, meanings. And those meanings partly depend on who is using them and who is receiving them. In sexist societies such as ours, the use by many men of certain words that carry strong connotations of "disparagement by association with the female" serves to highlight sex-based privilege: specifically, the notion that men can say whatever they want without taking into consideration how it might be received by women, and how it might uphold patriarchal notions of 'femininity'.

Finally, it's also about respect. How much respect can such men truly have for women and feminism when they so arrogantly dismiss women's feelings on a given issue?

[ Reference: the full comment, in context ]

 

Comments

[scopo.livejournal.com]

I cringe at the way 'gay' (or even odder, 'ghey') is now commonly used as a disparagement i.e: 'that's so gay'

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

Indeed! Interestingly enough, the person using 'cunt' as an insult identifies as gay, i believe. Perhaps i should have said "Anyway, using 'cunt' as an insult is so gay." :-P

[scopo.livejournal.com]

well, that sort of misogyny used to be quite common in queens of a certain type - but it's something that I would have thought (hoped) had largely gone by the wayside ...

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

In my experience, it's still very common amongst gay men; although i must say i wonder if it isn't 'merely' part of the self-centred "only the issues that I think are important should be of any importance to the queer communities" sort of attitude that i continually encounter from many gay men . . . .

[foibey.livejournal.com]

And people always look at me funny when I question hate-speech/hate-crime laws (when I ask things like "what makes it worse that they beat you cause you're gay rather than because you're vulnerable?")

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

Yes indeed! i presume that the reasoning behind 'hate-crime' laws is that, even though legal judgements are not supposed to be influenced by prejudice, they are; so 'hate-crime' laws seek to redress this. But if, say, jurors who are legally obliged not to show prejudice are doing it anyway, how is enacting another law going to help, since apparently they feel their morals are beyond the reach of the law? It seems to me to be yet another instance of trying to use regulations to make social change a fait accompli, instead of working to actually change societal attitudes.

[foibey.livejournal.com]

trying to use regulations to make social change a fait accompli

Isn't that the essence of the liberal modus operandi?

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

True. Liberals' naïve faith in what can be achieved with our system of democracy would be touching if it didn't ultimately delay more fundamental social change . . . .

[happyevilslosh.livejournal.com]

!!!!!

You spelled naïve right!

Will you marry me?

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

*laugh* Yes, using the correct character can be very important - i seem to remember reading somewhere that a particular Finnish [?] word with umlauts means "[File] save", whereas without them it means "shit". :-)

[happyevilslosh.livejournal.com]

Sorry I followed your journal through from your post. You seem like an interesting person.

Anywhose as for it being coincidence that pussy ended up the same as that of a domestic cat, I did read a research a while ago that suggested when a language adopts a word from another it also tends to corrupt it a little to follow the more common pronounciation of the langauge in question. So puse, with what I assume with an 'eh' sound at the end, is more readily pronounced as pussy, as the original sound doesn't really occur terminally in English. The exame that I read from the research was about groom (as in bride and groom), it also apparently came from old norse where the word was guma, briefly goom, and then the more natural sounding groom.

Also as a last comment, beginning with a disclaimer. I do swear, when appropriate[1], it's not something that bothers me. But cunt is one of the words that just makes the hairs on the back of my neck rise. It's just a word I really don't like for no good reason, maybe that's why people use it. *shrugs*

[1]
I don't believe swearing constantly is a good idea as when something actually does go very seriously wrong it makes it hard to find words ;P. I had a friend when I was doing my degree and he was this really quiet mild guy. And one day, after programming for a bit, I heard him say dammit, which isn't really all that bad, but at the time I was all like 'dude! are you ok' because it was so unexpected. On the flip side of the coin however I also get annoyed when people try to substitute words (ie melon farmer=mother fucker, fudge=fuck, etc) as everyone knows what they're talking about and all it really says is they don't have the courage to say what they think and can you really trust such a person?

Ok I'll cut the rant now. :)

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

Sorry I followed your journal through from your post.

That's fine! i just checked out your LJ too - i love seeing someone posting about transfinite numbers on their journal. :-) (Personally, i'm still struggling to 'get' transfinite arithmetic . . . .)

when a language adopts a word from another it also tends to corrupt it a little to follow the more common pronounciation of the langauge in question

*nod*

I do swear, when appropriate

Oh, i do too - i'm hardly an angel in that regard! Although nowadays most of my 'swearing' is usually limited to such words as 'dang' and 'crikey' - which are obviously terribly naughty ;-) - and tend to only use 'fuck(ing)' when i'm really upset. But 'cunt' as an insult - i have pretty much the same reaction to that as you.