How to be a cunning linguist

Oh me, oh my, has there been some trouble in the internets lately. It seems some of my fellow feminists are really unhappy with what they see as an unfair and elitist desire from some of my other fellow feminists to be actively using and articulating specific language terms, such as intersectionality, and cis/cisgendered. Some feminists, myself included, would see these terms as part of what we call ‘inclusive language’. This means for example that using ‘cis’ means we acknowledge that not every person was born into the gender s/he was then assigned. Or it might mean that when we talk about oppression by the patriarchy (I personally prefer the term kyriarchy, just so’s you know) we are talking about how different oppressions can intersect with each other – so for example we are aware that if you are a black, gay, poor woman you might have more bullshit to cop off the patriarchy than, say, a white, straight, middle-class woman. For some, this language is beyond the pale. It is decried as being unfairly complicated or overly academic, or, conversely as not compatible with certain tenets of feminism. I just want to say a few words on how much I disagree with this.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have a degree, and a Master’s, and am studying for another Master’s. My first degrees were in English Language and Literature, and my second MA will be in International Politics and Human Rights. I am – literally – qualified to understand terms such as cis and intersectionality. I acknowledge that. I have read Kimberle Crenshaw’s excellent work, and I am a long-time lurker and very, very occasional commenter on Shakesville, which is where I first saw the term, ‘cisgender’. Now, given my academic background and general nerdish passion for language, it is perhaps understandable that when I saw these terms I got intruiged, then excited, then educated. That’s my reaction and I fully understand that is not everyone’s reaction. Learning new terminology is not fun or even easy for everyone, and I can understand someone saying, basically, ‘I don’t want to have had to gone to University to understand someone’s argument’.

I get that.

But here’s the thing – I promise you you don’t have had to. The way I have explained the two concepts up in that first paragraph there? I am fairly confident that pretty much anyone who doesn’t have a cognitive learning disorder or bad faith would understand what they mean. Some of the more academic articles on intersectionality will indeed be difficult to understand – that is because they are academic articles. That’s fine, they should be complex and challenging. Some of them will be easier to understand because they have been written more in the style of a blog post, or a newspaper column. That’s fine too. The conversation isn’t finite or monolithic, and it shouldn’t have to be. Because basically, what does this all come down to in the end but respect for what people are telling you about their lived lives?

Here’s the first thing I think about all this, and I’ve made much the same argument before in these pages. If you are white, and a person of colour says to you, ‘you know, that thing you said – it’s kinda racist’; or if you are straight, and a gay person says to you, ‘that was a little bit homophobic’, or any other example of this kind, basically you have two available reactions. You can be all, I AM SO VERY OFFENDED I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU’VE CALLED ME [insert insult here]. Or you can say, my god, I am really sorry, I will really have to think about that and try to make sure I don’t say or do anything like that again.

And you know, if you want to use the first reaction, I get that. I’ve done that. You might very well feel a bit hard done by and defensive - no-one likes being called out, it makes you feel shitty. But you know what? The ONLY FUCKING ACCEPTABLE OPTION is the second reaction. Even if you really, genuinely feel like the person is wrong and you have never ever in your whole perfect-ally life done or said anything that might be slightly morally dubious. Because the thing is that every time this has happened to me and instead of automatically replying with an indignant retort I have actually gone away and done a little bit of actual thinking, whaddya know, turns out I have said or done something fucking wrong. Admitting you might be wrong, for most people, myself included, is really hard. Saying sorry is hard. We humans, we are not very good at this kind of deal, most of us, and that’s ok – but it’s not an excuse not to stop trying to be better. Being a good ally doesn’t magically occur overnight, like any decent relationship it is worth some time and effort.

And here’s the second thing I think: I just do not believe that using the terms ‘intersectionality’, ‘cis’, ‘privilege’, ‘WoC’, ‘non-binary’, ‘trans’ and so on excludes me from the feminist discourse. I don’t think this excludes anyone. These are not words that have been invented just so that Twitter users can call other people out (and yes of COURSE there will be some of that, and some of it will be bloody well deserved), they have been invented because language is so fucking exclusionary of anyone not in the ‘normal’ binary that we need these words. And some of the people who label themselves with these words really fucking desperately need us to use them, way more than straight white feminists like me need to cling on to some fixed terminology because otherwise the world will be too complicated for us.

Last time I checked the world was pretty fucking complicated, after all. That’s good for us; it forces us to engage and learn. Is that always a walk in the park? No, of course not. Does that mean we give up and go home, to our familiar comforts, while people who might need us to be fighting this fight alongside them are literally shut out at the front door? Well, I don’t know about you, but I call bullshit on that.