Women's Rights & Issues

I can't believe I'm wading into this. But I'm a glutton sometimes. First, I've served on many juries and I've served on MIRT. It would be great to have clearer guidelines in both cases about what's inappropriate. This is a sticky wicket though I will admit to the evil of our patriarchal society that has, in my opinion, created many, many more misogynistic terms than misandristic terms. This is apparent in the fact I had to look up the term misandry/misandrist and while they're in the dictionary neither were in my computer's default dictionary and I had to add them to type this post.

When serving on MIRT there were lots of post hides that came to us and many the team found on their own that sparked the sort of discussions about: "Was the intent of that person to be misogynistic and demeaning or were they using a word in a manner that is common now so they shouldn't be penalized with a ban?" The word "bitch" and its variants are a perfect example brought up here. It is a word that has evolved and will, like others, continue to evolve in its implied meaning and usage. There is a term, "Standard American English" which by definition says our speech is not static and it will evolve as to rules of grammar, definitions and usage. Think of the words we've added since the 80's and the Internet revolution. My browser highlighted misandry as a misspelling but not tweet or twitter, nor did my browser's speller highlight e-mail as a misspelling. I mention this just to begin to let you know what a difficult task you have before you - though I think you already knew that.

At the risk of being pilloried, I'll return to the word "bitch." In contrast let's compare that with the word "text." Both, I believe, most likely only had noun forms defined in the dictionary probably as late as the 50's and 60's and the word "text" probably up through the 90's at least. I wish I had my dad's college dictionary to verify that but I'll use this example because I think it shows one of the issues.

I'd be more than willing to bet that common usage of the word "bitch" until after WWII and later didn't include using it as a verb as in "to bitch at some one or about something." Nor did the word "text" common usage include a verb form for sending messages over a cell phone and then social media. Both of them now do include the verb form.

Words also lose their original meaning or have it changed. "Aspirin" used to be a brand name. But now it's used as the generic name for almost any generic pain killer. Kleenex has pretty much achieved the same thing with representing almost all facial tissue. "Windows" used to only be those things through which we see either physically or metaphorically. "Quarantine" originates with the 40 days that Jesus spent in the desert after his baptism and originally meant a 40 day period. Not what is does today. "Decimate" used to mean "kill one in ten." Even the word "Christ" has lost it's original meaning as messiah and has come to, in Judeo-Christian societies, refer to Jesus of Nazareth. If you ask 10 Christian kids and many adults they'll probably tell you it's Jesus' last name (family name weren't used in ancient times).

Usage of a word changes its meaning as we saw above. So at what point, if it hasn't already happened, does the word "bitch" and its variants fall prey to the evolution of Standard American English? When does it's usage change it's normative meaning from something inherently female to something that's just considered an irritant or "bad" so to speak. I personally, at the risk of all the flaming I'll get, would say it already has. I know I never would have used the phrase "life's a bitch" when I was a kid and even up into high school. Certainly not in front of my mother or sisters. Now it's just so much common usage.

As for words like the c-word they have not changed and they still offend my sensibilities. But I've seen posts here that even call out "hysteria" and "hysterical." We can't prohibit use of those words. We can prohibit the use of the word "dick." I've been a software developer. Tell me the fool-proof algorithm for deciding when "dick" is used pejoratively and not as a noun or slang. Tell me how to program the system easily to decide that "bitch" is being used to refer to a woman rather than a female dog. Sounds easy when you first think of it. Sure, any time bitch is used as a modifier of a proper noun then it must be an insult. Easy for humans, but now I have to teach the computer what a proper noun is because I can't possible program every possible name and nickname of people in the just the US into a database and keep it current. Not to mention a good number of humans and dogs share names. Then add how to deal with pronouns. I'm sure there are computers and programs that can do that now with great effectiveness. But I don't think they're still very cost-effective for small organizations like DU.

I mention all this not as an exercise to bore you, but to hopefully get you to think about how difficult the task of deciding what is sexist or misogynistic really is. It depends on so many factors.

As an LGBT person I more than sympathize with the issues of words to demean. Take the words "fag" and "fagot/faggot." Neither of those was originally a disparaging remark toward homosexual men to begin with. "Gay" used to just mean cheerful or happy.

I look forward to output from this discussion as to how we can provide better guidelines in the TOS. I hope I have not insulted anyone as that is not my intention. I'm also not saying: "Well, the task is impossible so why try?" I think it's possible to better clarify the TOS. I think it's also necessary to realize you'll never be able to write a TOS without some vagaries in it. That's why we'll, in my opinion, always need something like the jury system and MIRT.