Sherry Chandler

On losing the words

Katha Pollit in Salon:

I think that conservatives have really done an amazing job of taking away from us all the good words like “liberty” and “freedom” and demonizing the words that are left. Like “feminism” and “choice.” And “liberal.” I think we can’t let them do this forever. If you lose a way to describe yourself, you’ve lost a lot. If you lose the word “feminism,” you are losing the idea that there is anything particular to the way women’s situation is structured in this society. I would fight for that word. But it’s a losing game in the end. I think we’ve seen that with “liberal.” “Liberal” was a very good word! “Liberal” was a word that put together the idea of our constitutional liberties — like freedom of speech and the rights of the individual against the government — with the idea of fighting poverty. Fighting racial discrimination. Once you lose the word, you lose a very good way of keeping those concepts together. And I think the same is true about “feminism.” But if people want to start calling themselves women’s liberationists, that’s OK with me.

Some males in this household read Wonkette occasionally. I have never been much interested. I gave some thought to posting from her rather dismissive NYTimes review of Pollitt’s new book Virginity or Death (Random House), but in the end I decided I wasn’t much interested in that either. You can read it for yourself at the link. And also Pollitt’s response to it, Thank You for Hating my Book. In Salon, Pollitt says it may be a “kill the mother” kind of thing.

I think Katha can hold her own with Wonkette.

I did recognize a truth in the things Pollitt had to say, such as this:

The idea I find so strange is that because a woman might have an abortion and come later to think, “I wish I hadn’t done that” — that that’s a reason to make abortion a crime. That makes no sense at all. What that really says is that women are incapable of making a good decision, so we have to make the decision for them! Because there’s only one good decision, and that’s to have the baby.

Possibly related posts:

The Shape of Words

The Magic of Bad Words, the Vitality of Poetry

Feminism After Friedan

Are we losing our history?

Losing the American Dream

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.