Feminism and Figure Skating

[skatinginbc]

The reason I personally find "colored people" or "people of color" offensive lies on its ethnocentric logic. As I pointed out earlier, the archaic Chinese term 色目人 “people with colored eyes” implicitly defines the Oriental eye color (brown/black or whatever you want to call it) as the neutral or colorless one. If there are "colored people" or "people of color", it implies there is a base color centered on a specific ethnic group that is seen as neutral or "colorless", and thence comes the connotation of "outgroup vs. ingroup, different vs. normal, alien vs familiar".

To me, every race is colored. "Colorless people" or "people of no color" are Albinos without having any pigment in their skin. I prefer "ethnic minorities" over "people of color". The word "minority" has a relative sense. One can belong to the minority in one group and the majority in another. "People of color" sounds arbitrary and dichotomous.

PS: Canada that I know or the Greater Vancouver to be specific is almost "color blind"--I mean the local newspaper hardly ever points out the skin color of a criminal. I have to guess by the name. And in daily conversation, "black" and "white" as racial designations only come out once in a full moon. People seldom talk about skin complexion in a racial term. I guess that is one of the reasons that I find "people of color" offensive because it is odd to even mention it.

 

[Olympia]

Your explanation of the etymology of the traditional Chinese term makes your reaction understandable, bc. The difference here is that this time around, "people of color" seems to be a phrase of self-identification, not imposed from above or outside, at least in the U.S. However, leaning toward your evaluation of things, I think the origin of the American use of the phrase came from the designation "free people of color," which was used in New Orleans at least (and maybe elsewhere) in the early nineteenth century. You can imagine the implications of it in the years before the Civil War--that there were people of color who were not free.

 

[jcoates]

Doris, I spoke with my mom after making the post of about Margaret in Dennis the Menace. Interestingly she pointed that out that while she was growing up, the shift in our region regarding the use of the word lady was starting to happen. Her parent's still had a relatively negative connotation of "lady" and her father specifically used the word woman consistently, something I had forgotten. It's interesting to note the regional differences you mentioned. While your native area of CT had lots of anti-British sentiment, where I come from it's more of a muddle. Maryland and Virgina still maintain very strong ties to their English colonial past. Many of our counties are named for royalty or Nobility from colonial times (Prince George, Prince William, Anne Arundel, Queen Anne, Fairfax, Prince Edward, even Isle of Wight). I wonder if that ever had an impact on language and cultural differences.

 

[ImaginaryPogue]

The reason I personally find "colored people" or "people of color" offensive lies on its ethnocentric logic. As I pointed out earlier, the archaic Chinese term 色目人 “people with colored eyes” implicitly defines the Oriental eye color (brown/black or whatever you want to call it) as the neutral or colorless one. If there are "colored people" or "people of color", it implies there is a base color centered on a specific ethnic group that is seen as neutral or "colorless", and thence comes the connotation of "outgroup vs. ingroup, different vs. normal, alien vs familiar".

To me, every race is colored. "Colorless people" or "people of no color" are Albinos without having any pigment in their skin. I prefer "ethnic minorities" over "people of color". The word "minority" has a relative sense. One can belong to the minority in one group and the majority in another. "People of color" sounds arbitrary and dichotomous.

PS: Canada that I know or the Greater Vancouver to be specific is almost "color blind"--I mean the local newspaper hardly ever points out the skin color of a criminal. I have to guess by the name. And in daily conversation, "black" and "white" as racial designations only come out once in a full moon. People seldom talk about skin complexion in a racial term. I guess that is one of the reasons that I find "people of color" offensive because it is odd to even mention it.

Yeah, I live in Alberta. Whole different story.

 

[skatinginbc]

I agree that it [high abortion rate] is appalling, but I'm not sure how it got into a discussion of feminism - I don't think it has much to do with feminism or liberalism.

In China, there are 13 million abortions each year, compared to 20 million births. It is even worse in Russia, where some years has more terminations than births.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8175864.stm

On the other hand, the abortion rate in Canada (a liberal country) has kept dropping year after year (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/article686691.ece, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life...on-rate-drops-by-369-per-cent/article1581673/) although for every 100 babies born in Ontario, 37 are aborted (http://life.nationalpost.com/2011/0...-show-reality-of-a-land-without-restrictions/), which is actually very good compared to China's 65% (13 million/20 million).

If the abortion rate has something to do with liberalism, I will say based on the evidence so far the more liberal a country is, the less the abortion rate will be.

 

[ImaginaryPogue]

Those articles paint a little more conflicted picture, imo, but still an intriguing read.

 

[callalily]

The whole issue of feminine versions of job terms such as l'avocat and la directrice in French (in other Romance languages too, I'll bet) and the English aviatrix and editress (one I heard long ago in the U.K.) seems to be viewed differently depending on the culture. Most American feminists from the 1970s on didn't welcome such terms because they implied a difference between the two genders as they performed these jobs--kind of a one-word equivalent of the terms lady doctor or woman driver. The really strict feminists even insisted on using actor for both men and women. This is doable in English, which has the possibility of gender-neutral terms. Articles and adjectives in English don't change form to modify masculine and feminine nouns, so there's no requirement to reflect gender in any terms except mother, father, woman, man, and the like.

This makes me curious as to how French and Italian feminists dealt with the innate structure of their language. Maybe that shade of meaning of the words just matters less to them.

I'm sure that French feminists would have examined the fact that every object and concept in their world is given a gender, which is built into the grammar of the language, and learned unquestioningly as a young child.

Some would say who cares, no one thinks consciously about this...but it's interesting to look at which nouns are masculine or feminine. Some seem quite random (a table is masculine, and a chair feminine), but others not so much. Words for occupations are interesting - a soldier is "un soldat" (masculine) whereas a guard/sentry is "une sentinelle", a lawyer is "un avocat" (masculine), a director is "un directeur" (masculine). In general, names of professional occupations were all historically masculine. You mention that feminists in the 70's (in the US, and definitely Canada too) preferred inclusive/non-differentiating words; we avoided stewardess, fireman, "woman doctor", and preferred titles that could be worn equally comfortably by either gender (flight attendant, fire fighter, and just plain "doctor"). In French though, with the words for professions already implying (through grammar) that the person with these qualifications is male, it was seen (in Quebec in the 70's/80's) as empowering for it to be possible to have a director who was not "un directeur", but could be "une directrice", or have a female lawyer describe herself as "une avocate", not "un avocat". These new occupational words were used in Canadian government documents from the 80's onward, and became the norm in Canada. In France the masculine titles continued to be used for both men and women (though perhaps that has changed).

 

[Olympia]

Callalily, that reminds me of a Latin sentence the daughter of a friend once had: "The farmer and the poet seize the island." It sounds kind of weird, until one realizes that two of the few occupations to have a feminine gender marker in Latin were farmer (agricola) and poet (poeta). I doubt any assumption was made about the gender of actual farmers and poets. Who knows how it came about? Maybe some goddesses were in charge of those vocations at some point. Island, or insula, was also feminine, which is how it ended up in this odd little sentence.

 

[Mathman]

The reason I personally find "colored people" or "people of color" offensive lies on its ethnocentric logic. As I pointed out earlier, the archaic Chinese term 色目人 “people with colored eyes” implicitly defines the Oriental eye color (brown/black or whatever you want to call it) as the neutral or colorless one. If there are "colored people" or "people of color", it implies there is a base color centered on a specific ethnic group that is seen as neutral or "colorless", and thence comes the connotation of "outgroup vs. ingroup, different vs. normal, alien vs familiar".

I think it could just as well be the opposite. A group of brightly colored people might persecute the "colorless people."

In fact, no one wants to be "colorless" or "of no color." The Thesaurus weighs in with

Synonyms: achromatic, achromic, anemic, ashen, ashy, blanched, bleached, cadaverous, doughy, drab, dull, faded, flat, ghastly, livid, lurid, neutral, pale, sickly, uncolored, wan, washed out, waxen, white.

Antonyms: brilliant, colored, colorful, motley, rich, stimulating, vibrant, vivid.

I can imaging a society split between the ghastly people and the motley people.

I prefer "ethnic minorities" over "people of color".

But that's a different question altogether. Minority has nothing to do with color or race. Black people comprise the majority in the U. S. city where I live. In fifty years the United States will have a "majority of non-Eoropean minorities" (counting tan-skinned people who speak Spanish as non-European, along with swarthy-skinned people who speak Arabic.)

I do see your point, though. If everyone were green and a purple person showed up, that would be a person of (weird, inferior, and to be despised) color.

Edited to add: By the way, I think the opposite of "person of color" is "nonperson of color."

 

[skatinginbc]

I can imaging a society split between the ghastly people and the motley people.

You probably didn't know it, but you just touched on a Chinese racial slur for white people: 鬼佬 (Cantonese) "ghostly men" or 洋鬼子(Mandarin) "foreign ghostly creatures". The split between the ghostly people and the motley people is for sure politically incorrect and offensive to my ear.

Strangely, I don't mind people labeling me as "yellow" (Yes, I'm a Chinese). Chinese people call themselves the "yellow race" with pride. And two thousand years ago in the Han Dynasty, "black" and "white" were already used without negative connotations to record the skin color of foreigners that crossed China's border ("Black" probably referred to the East Indians, and "white" Scythians). As I said, every people has a typical skin tone. It is only when a certain group is seen as different or special, whether "of color" or "of no color" that I find it discriminating.

 

[callalily]

Changing the attitude, not the label, is the only long-term solution.

I hear you, skatinginbc, but labels influence our attitudes, and it's hard to get away from that. Take the word "nurse". In most North American contexts we still think of nurses as female and many men are reluctant/embarrassed to enter the field of nursing. (I am not condoning this, just describing how I perceive the situation.)

Today, at least where I live, registered nurses must have university degrees; they are well-paid and well-regarded; they work in specialized medical areas or have leadership roles. Increasingly, routine patient care tasks in hospitals or long-term care facilities are handled by lower-paid practical nurses or personal care workers. Yet men don't want to be registered nurses, and in fact the term "male nurse" has very negative implications for many people. I suspect that we all have different perceptions of the connotations of the word "nurse", but I'll bet if registered nurses were to introduce a new occupational title for themselves (that was accepted and widely used), the gender balance in the field would change.

Thank you everyone for the interesting posts, by the way!

 

[Mathman]

You probably didn't know it, but you just touched on a Chinese racial slur for white people: 鬼佬 (Cantonese) "ghostly men" or 洋鬼子(Mandarin) "foreign ghostly creatures".

What color are "ghosts" (meaning the spirits of dead people) in China? In the Western World I think they are white. At least, when people dress up as ghosts for halloween they put on white bed sheets. And when "ghosts" appear to people, they are depicted as drained of color.

I have heard of African exchange students in Chinese universities being picked on with the term "black ghosts." I suppose that means unwelcome foreigners who are black. But in many cultures (including some in "darkest Africa") evil spirits are black in color.

In most North American contexts we still think of nurses as female and many men are reluctant/embarrassed to enter the field of nursing.

Well, in its original meaning, nursing is the one profession that men really can't do.

However, I think that nowadays men are swarming into the field, especially the specialist areas such as nurse anesthetist, which pays an average salary of $150,000 a year. For that kind of money. men will soon crowd out the women.

Here is what i think is a terrible condemnation of our society. The heart of what is classified as "women's work" has to do with raising children. Nurse's nurse babies, teachers educate children, and so on. Obviously these are low-paying jobs, because who cares about children?

The absolutely lowest-paying job -- not even minimum wage -- is baby sitter. If you think about it, we are handing over our most treasured possession to the care of a teenager who has no qualifications, training, or even life-experience to fall back on, and we pay her peanuts, reflecting what we think of the value of her work.

 

[skatinginbc]

What color are "ghosts" (meaning the spirits of dead people) in China? In the Western World I think they are white. At least, when people dress up as ghosts for halloween they put on white bed sheets. And when "ghosts" appear to people, they are depicted as drained of color.

I have heard of African exchange students in Chinese universities being picked on with the term "black ghosts." I suppose that means unwelcome foreigners who are black. But in many cultures (including some in "darkest Africa") evil spirits are black in color.

"Ghosts" are associated with the color white in the Chinese culture. Initially, "ghost" is used to denote only a white person. As the time went on, it adopted the sense of "foreigner" and has been applied to other foreign peoples. However, there must be a modifier preceding the word "ghost" 鬼 if the person being referred to is not white (e.g., "black ghosts" 黑鬼, "Japanese ghosts" 日本鬼子).

 

[callalily]

Here is what i think is a terrible condemnation of our society. The heart of what is classified as "women's work" has to do with raising children. Nurse's nurse babies, teachers educate children, and so on. Obviously these are low-paying jobs, because who cares about children?

The absolutely lowest-paying job -- not even minimum wage -- is baby sitter. If you think about it, we are handing over our most treasured possession to the care of a teenager who has no qualifications, training, or even life-experience to fall back on, and we pay her peanuts, reflecting what we think of the value of her work.

I agree, Mathman, that work that was traditionally done by women has typically been undervalued, and jobs in those areas did not pay well, despite their importance to society. That was a huge concern of early feminists.

I can't speak for where you live, but fortunately Canadian elementary and secondary school teachers are very well-paid, and receive excellent benefits and pensions (as a result of effective unionization many years ago). Registered nurses are also very well-paid, however that is part of the reason routine care duties are being re-allocated to lower-paid (and less qualified) health aides - who are mostly women, of course.

 

[Olympia]

That's something that bothers me too, Mathman. There are teachers' unions here, but a lot of people are trying to take their power away because they claim that teaching is too expensive for communities to support. (Here, schools are largely financed by local property taxes.) It seems very counterproductive to value, say, advertising executives more highly than teachers. As Mathman says, this isn't done just because teachers are largely women. It's done because teaching is directed largely toward children. The very young and the very old are perhaps the least important members of society.

We were talking of percentages of pregnancies ending in abortion. Here's another sobering statistic: In the U.S., about 1 in every 5 children lives in poverty.

 

[Bluebonnet]

But I simply can't get on board with the part about how women should let men have their pride. How is it my job to make sure that they can be proud of themselves? To me, pride, self-respect and dignity ist just something that has to come from your inner self, from your experiences, from your character.

I was ready to bow out this thread, but it seems that it's difficult to do so.

Because there was a saying, "men's other half is women." I believe, as I've said, women play a vital role in men's life, from birth to death, much more critical and significant than men's role in women's life. Therefore, how women generally react and respond to men are crucial, though some men rely on women mentally less than others. This actually creates a perfect harmony between men and women. Women are physically weaker and rely on men's physical protection, while men are mentally more depend on women (even though most of men would deny it ). I won't deny you said that "pride, self-respect and dignity just something that has to come from your inner self, from your experiences, from your character". But the fearless feminism (back onto the topic ) is challenging men's inner self. No doubt that it has been advancing women's position positively but in the meantime, chewing back men's pride little by little. Of course, you can say, why can't men blah, blah,... The fact is I think the dominant genes have to be more careful and humble not to hurt the other half. There are many damages as some and myself have already listed throughout this thread.

And I don't know what experts you are talking about, but the advise from paediatricians and child psychiatrists I read clearly states that children do best in stable homes with two parents, a regular schedule, lots of love, not a lot of TV-time, not a lot of computer-time... Research also points to the fact that a baby does best when staying at home with mom or dad for the first year, that nursing the babies is recommended etc. I don't know what's selfish about advise like that.

All things you've listed are not selfish acts. What I've refered to were as such:

1. Letting babies learn self soothing as early as possible. Crying into sleep. It was a common, and maybe traditional - I don't know, western style practice. It is seen generally as cruel in Asian's eyes. Recently I've read an article which has over turned this common belief about the benefit of this practice. Said that now it is believed that these babies could grow up becoming over anxious and easily feel insecure.

2. Leaving young children to baby-sitters, and parents go on over night or even over week/weeks long vacations alone.

3. Thinking that children ought to find the path of their own through trial and error because it's their lives not parents'. Parents don't and shouldn't interfer too much. To me, this is called irresponsible.

 

[ImaginaryPogue]

But the fearless feminism (back onto the topic ) is challenging men's inner self. No doubt that it has been advancing women's position positively but in the meantime, chewing back men's pride little by little. Of course, you can say, why can't men blah, blah,... The fact is I think the dominent genes have to be more careful and humble to not hurt the other half. There are many damages as some and myself have already listed throughout this thread.

Now this is interesting. I think you can make a pretty convincing argument that feminism and the consequences have definitely had a direct impact in shifting roles of men in modern, Western culture. But you lose me with the rest of it. Can you choose one damage you feel that the dominant genes (presumably women) have done when not being careful/humble, and how feminism is at fault? I mean a general, cultural example, not a specific one.

 

[Bluebonnet]

It reminds me of the archaic Chinese term 色目人 “people with colored eyes” in reference to the alien white race (Yes, white people are “colored” in the eye of others).

"色目人" sounds more like Japese than Chinese to me. I, for one, have never ever heard this word.

You probably didn't know it, but you just touched on a Chinese racial slur for white people: 鬼佬 (Cantonese) "ghostly men" or 洋鬼子(Mandarin) "foreign ghostly creatures".

It would be helpful to note that "洋鬼子" was the way Chinese called western foreigners two or three generations ago in 18th - 19th and early 20th centuries. I don't know if "鬼佬" was the fashion of the same period? Now in China, the informal common name to call foreigners is "老外". Nothing disrespectful to foreigners.

 

[skatinginbc]

For years, we have been directed to use "woman" instead of "lady" or "female" when we need to differentiate by gender.

Gosh, I hope this will stop soon, or “female” is doomed at the hands of women.

The impact of this artificial trend is illustrated by computational linguistic evidence (the numbers in the following brackets denote the google counts):
(1) Less politically sensitive contexts:
Women dancers (480,000) vs. Female dancers (1,020,000) = 0.47
Women firefighters (72,600) vs. Female firefighters (135,000) = 0.54
Women construction workers (244,000) vs. Female construction workers (375,000) = 0.65

(2) More politically sensitive contexts:
Women police officers (293,000) vs. Female police officers (254,000) = 1.15
Women teachers (1,710,000) vs. Female teachers (1,380,000) = 1.24
Women voters (4,060,000) vs. Female voters (795,000) = 5.11
It is clear that “woman” is replacing “female” in areas where political correctness is expected.

Why do I think we should stop this trend?
(1) It creates gender inequality in the language:
Women students (2,380,000) vs Men students (708,000) = 3.36
Female students (16,800,000) vs male students (9,440,000) = 1.78
It shows that female vs. male are more equally distributed than women vs. men when they are used to modify a noun.
Men nurses (62,000) vs. Male nurses (751,000) = 0.08
Men voters (32,500) vs. Male voters (315,000) = 0.10
Men teachers (273,000) vs. Male teachers (639,000) = 0.43
It is clear that the appositive use seldom applies to “men”.

(2) It creates extra burden in psycholinguistic processing:
Woman dancers (45,200) vs. Women dancer (141,000) vs. Women dancers (480,000)
Woman voters (128,000) vs. Women voter (95,200) vs. women voters (4,060,000)
The grammatical number agreement when “woman” is used as an appositive noun is an extra step not needed for using the adjective “female”.

(3) It creates linguistic ambiguity.
Woman doctor = doctor for a woman or a female doctor?
Woman killer = one who kills a woman or a female killer?

(4) It is overly marked that it is derogatory in itself.
When one has to clarify the gender of a position holder, it already implies that the person is not in her proper role. In other words, it is already marked. On top of that, to use “woman” in place of a bona fide adjective “female” is double-marked because an appositive noun is syntactically stronger than an adjective. It thus falls into the category of (2.C) A specific kind (where N1 serves as a diminutive or trivializing appositive to N2) as I have explained in my post #173.

 

[skatinginbc]

"色目人" sounds more like Japese than Chinese to me. I, for one, have never ever heard this word.

Come on. If you can read Chinese, why don't you just google "色目人"? You shall see it is an archaic term used in the Yuan Dynasty.

I don't know if "鬼佬" was the fashion of the same period?

Likewise, you could have googled "鬼佬" and found that it is still in use in Cantonese-speaking areas.