Who’s Oppressing Whom?

The trouble with language police.

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Dear Reader (Including members of the Bailey Beach Club Diversity Committee who may suddenly be too busy to read this “news”letter),

I want to talk to you about everything going on right now. 

Unfortunately, according to Brandeis University’s Prevention, Advocacy and Resource Center’s “Oppressive Language List,” I just oppressed you. 

See if you can figure out why. I’ll wait. Give up?

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  1. Kurt Von Fuchs

    One of the things Jonah has complained about correctly is that both "sides" often take outlying examples of the worst behavior of the other side and then paint everyone.."all conservatives" or "all progressives". Certainly proved that point in the article.

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    JDW

    I have to think trying to ban mothers is the very definition of overreach. There is a reason why Mothers day is one of the biggest holidays in America and Fathers day is hardly a second thought. When you screw with motherhood, your enemies will grow exponentially. The hand that rocks the cradle rules with an iron fist. If these nuts try to take on mothers, mothers are going to mop the floor with them frontwards and backwards.

    It's like standing in the middle of a road with a mack truck coming. You can point, scream, even push all you want but if you keep standing there you are going to become a puddle in the middle of the road as that truck whizzes on by.

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  3. Safety Cone

    Jonah you are sooooo behind the times. All those cross country motoring trips you moon over? I stopped pulling over at scenic overlooks. Then I stopped driving altogether. Then I gave up reading, writing, movies and sports because some folks are born sighted but burdened with eyes that don't work. It's rude we enjoy all those things if they cannot.

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  4. Howard Hall

    I want to see someone explain to Daenerys Stormborn that she is the “hatching-person of dragons.”

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    Cornelius O’Brien

    I enjoyed this rant and your Ruminant(?) on the same subject. Truly. You have a gift. That said, you're blowing this out of proportion. Whether that's from legitimate outrage or a need for content, I can't say.

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  6. Paul

    Who knew Saddam Hussein was oppressing the rest of the world when he used the 'mother of all battles'. It should have been 'birthingperson of all battles'. I never knew why that cis put a baby in a birthingperson (is that what we call men now?) offended me so much. I thought it was because he was an asshole.

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    Evan Donovan

    Nice one. Usually I try to ignore these arguments over language, because I don't want to answer outrage with outrage, but I think you may be right that, in some cases, the impact is cumulative.

    The Adichie controversy about how she said "trans women are trans women" instead of "trans women are women" is illustrative here. She is well-known in both her native Nigeria and in the US as a feminist (she even wrote a book about it!) and also a defender of gay rights in a place where they may actually face death. But simply because she said that biological women have a different set of experiences and personal histories than transgender people, she was called a bigot by some progressives.

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  8. Jose A Rodriguez

    I read the article this weekend, and I found it an interesting introduction to a unique perspective on masculinity. While not agreeing, I thought it was worth reading ... until the line that you quote. I stopped to think about it (It just didn't make sense to question a near universal thought process among the multitude of cultures in history) and then just put it down and moved on to other things. It is sad that the push towards the supremacy of symbolism in language risks losing real potential advocates in the daily struggle for acceptance and dignity that every human being should be allowed.

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  9. Dorothy Burns

    Thank you, Jonah, for this brilliant essay! As another lover of language, I dislike how this policing of English makes for insipid vocabulary.

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  10. Philip Mitchell

    Like you, Jonah, I come from the age when women who had children were called "mothers". "Mom" was used as a family term of endearment. It is now the go-to noun to describe a "birthing person". The formerly outcast "unwed mother" is now a plucky "single mom".

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