Girly Talk

I don’t like people labeling a 16 year old boy’s skating as “girly”. The word implies disapproval and is offensive according to many dictionaries (e.g., http://www.thefreedictionary.com/girlie, http://www.answers.com/topic/girlie, http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-cobuild/girly). I however would not resort to Big Brother (forum moderators) who is best reserved to deal with something clearly out of line or with an obvious ill intent. A “slippery slope” may occur when Big Brother steps in and decides the propriety of every word. In my view, “law” (GS Forum Guidelines) is different from “culture”. Each forum has its own culture, mainly formed by posters’ expressions of likes and dislikes through debate. Although yelling “go back to your country” is not against the US law, it is culturally discouraged. Similarly, although labeling a skater “girly” does not violate Forum Guidelines (otherwise it would have been censored by the moderators by now), its cultural acceptability is yet to be determined by posters’ expressions of likes and dislikes, which serve as feedback for individual members to either continue to label others as such or to impose self-censorship on their own speech in the future.

Using the banner of “freedom of speech” to discourage my expression of dislike is a one-sided censorship, which infringes the fundamental value of freedom of speech, which twists the discussions into a political debate, and which serves to marginalize my position and push my dispute out of convenient sight. Without feedback, those who label others as such would never hear the opposition, and those who read their posts would assume it is socially acceptable to do so.

My principle is simple: I don't like an offensive word being attached to an underage child. I don't think I need further explanations for it.

Spun Silver said:

in Sweden, the male and female pronouns are being eliminated in elementary schooling. Children are to be brought up without the concepts of "he" and "she" because those words/concepts have been deemed offensive.

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There are numerous natural languages without gender-specific pronouns, for instance, Chinese, Bengali, Estonian, Nahuatl, Persian, Turkic, Uralic languages (e.g., Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian), Austronesian languages (e.g., Malay, Indonesian, Philippine languages), and so on. My first language is a genderless language, and trust me: It won't cause gender confusion in speech or real life. Of course, I'm not arguing "should" or "should not". I'm just saying you don't have to worry about it.

Nahuatl, eh? Interesting. Somehow I wouldn't have expected the Aztecs to lack gender specificity in their language.

As to your first point, I also agree that talking about underage youngsters with careless language isn't suitable. For one thing, skaters or their families might read GS from time to time. For another, we have no way of knowing the ages of some GS members--there might be kids reading this, and it's hurtful to them to hear someone being criticized for appearance, behavior, or expression of identity. For another, it's just not right--which trumps all the other reasons.

I remember the first year of So You Think You Can Dance, judge/producer Nigel Lythgoe was emphatically critical of one young auditioned whose dancing style he castigated as effeminate. (He might have used that word.) On the finals, Lythgoe actually apologized to the guy. He had the young man back onstage to give a performance and as the audience applauded, Lythgoe stood up and waved a white handkerchief like a flag of surrender. It was a gracious moment. Lythgoe had clearly realized that he had the power advantage over this kid, and that he had crossed the line by the forcefulness of his critique of someone who really couldn't talk back to him.