Page 2 of 3
 What's in a name?
Who has the power?
Taking the power back
Sticks and stones
by Dr Emma Moore, Sheffield University Who has the power?
In 1980, Dale Spender wrote a book entitled Man Made Language. Her book made some strong claims about the way that language is organised. She argued that our social world is described using language which is biased against women. Spender believed that, by being more active in public life than women, men have been more able to get their opinions heard. As we use language to speak our views, Spender argues that the words which are acceptable and commonplace are more likely to express male experiences than female experiences. Spender's argument relies upon the belief that men have traditionally had more power than women. It's not difficult to find evidence to support the idea that those who have more power have more control over the words we use. The naming differences that we've already considered seem to support Spender's theory, but it's not just beliefs about gender differences that show up in language. We also find evidence of biased beliefs about race, sexuality and disability too.
 |
|
|
Listen to Amir and Danny disagree about the use of 'coloured'. More... |
|  |
For many years, the term 'coloured' has been used to refer to black and Asian people. Many people don't see anything wrong with this term, but what it does is set up black and Asian people as marked. The implication is that these communities require special noting, whereas white folks are just white folks - they're so "normal" that we don't need to mention their colour. The truth is, of course, that we're all coloured. The same goes for terms which refer to sexuality. How many terms can you think of to describe a heterosexual person? Now think of how many terms are used to describe a homosexual person. (I'm sure you can think of lots, and many of them are undoubtedly negative terms.) Perhaps the most telling term used to refer to non-heterosexual individuals is 'queer'. It's no accident that this term also refers to something which is 'strange'. For a society which has a heterosexual majority, homosexuality has become the marked category.
|
|
|
Listen to James in Edinburgh express his feelings about the word invalid. More... |
| |
Likewise, how we refer to disability betrays a history of inequality. In the past, we often referred to disabled people as 'people with disabilities'. However, this term is problematic because it erases the role that society plays in disabling people. You might think that this is a strange thing to say, but what really stops disabled people from gaining full participation in society? Is it really an impairment, or could it be how we deal with that impairment? For instance, those who need to use a wheelchair are often excluded from participating in everyday activities, not by being unable to walk, but by the fact that they can't get into a building or use public transport. If we call them 'people with disabilities' then we're implying that the disability belongs to them, when in fact many disabled people are disabled by the fact that society doesn't account for their impairment. What does the existence of terms like 'coloured', 'queer' and 'people with disabilities' tell us about the distribution of power? Basically it suggests that the people with the power to get their version of the world 'out there' are busy defining themselves as normal and marking out everyone else as different. We all define our world in relation to what's familiar to us. If something falls outside what we consider to be 'like us' (i.e. normal) - more likely than not - we'll find a way to define it as marked. So, if being black or Asian or gay or disabled is labelled as marked, we can be pretty sure that these groups represent individuals who haven't traditionally had the power to get their version of the world 'out there'.
|
