TO THE EDITOR:
We are concerned by the vehement negative reaction to Katie Varner’s Feb. 16 letter (“Gendered language could be comparable to racism”). Words order our society, and so our speech constitutes a social act: we may not all commit gendered violence, but we all do communicate.
Biased language inures us to the inequities it creates — it predisposes us to accept gendered, discriminatory behaviors as normative. We should not equate gendered language with slavery, as one commenter suggested, but prejudicial language does contribute to an environment where discrimination is permissible. No one is suggesting that a woman who doesn’t mind being called “dude” is not a successful woman — but the hostility of some women against non-gendered language can be seen as “immasculation,” Judith Fetterley’s term for the social and academic training that pushes women to read, and understand their world, in a male (and male-dominant) fashion.
Immasculated “readers” unwittingly perpetuate gendered inequities. English is not like Spanish or German, which have grammatical gender: when we say “policemen” or “hey guys,” we are, like it or not, enacting speech that encodes male dominance. As students in a University dedicated to non-discrimination “on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, creed, sexual orientation, gender expression, age, or disability” we have a responsibility to create and support a safe and inclusive environment for all students, and this begins with our communication.
Serena Witzke
GPSF President-Elect
Ted Gellar-Goad
Graduate Student
Classics
