Straight talking sexism

‘Straight talking Sexism’ from a language obsessed culture, oh women stop moaning’

Straight talking politics is deemed to exist but does straight talking sexism? Since socialisation women have been ‘taught’ the proper ways of speaking according to a leading feminist linguistic Deborah Cameron. She noted that ‘this’ ingrained acceptance of a ‘proper’ speech style which she coined ‘verbal hygiene’ ( 1995 book ‘verbal hygiene’) plays a vast part in the contribution to the sexism that exists within Language. Not only have women been segregated in the slave parlour (kitchen) but through history women have been deemed to ‘cleanse up their grammar’ or is it just because women are naturally wonderful at embedding ‘empty adjectives’ in their unconventional declarative sentences.  

Historically language has seemed to always favour the male gender, through gender-specific terms such as ‘Policemen, chairmen, postman and so on. This has been deemed to promote authority and has connoted that other genders are unworthy of such occupations. Traditionally the use of masculine pronouns in place of generic was regarded as non-sexist. Moreover the American author Bryan A Garner stated that the single biggest problem in sexist language is the generic masculine pronoun. But is it time society agreed on a gender-neutral singular pronoun? This has already been established within Sweden, when in 2014 in was announced that ‘hen’ would be introduced into the official glossary of the Swedish Academy (first proposed in 1966!). The lexis ‘Hen’ is simply implemented where the gender is unspecified. Evidently this has created vast debate globally but it vastly concludes that language on a large demographic scale is sexist. To abolish the sexism there has been a positive movement to integrate different alternatives due to society is moving away from being conservatively heteronormative and transmitting this heterosexual ideology.  

But then again society is heavily patriarchal. On the contrary through the recent movement that has occurred within the last decade for a move towards a more gender-neutral language and especially within the work-domain. There has been a societal move towards non-segregating occupation related terms such as police officers, postal workers. This is a positive move towards diminishing barriers for all genders; not just the typical two most adored and overused terms in language; female and male but also including a variety of genders: bisexuals, Asexual etc.  Which has led to the fundamental shift in English honorific. Within the 20^th century ‘MS’ was reintroduced. The American Heritage Book of English Usage states that: "Using Ms. obviates the need for the guesswork involved in figuring out whether to address someone as Mrs. or Miss: you can’t go wrong with Ms. Whether the woman you are addressing is married or unmarried, has changed her name or not, Ms. is always correct.’’. Personally I typically prefer the usage of ‘MS’ as to some certain degree it creates glorious mystery (as the ‘women’ species are socially deemed to be) but also establishes as ground meaning for individuals who identify as women sex in general but also feels drastically empowering. Men have not surprisingly been pre-established an honorific which never questioned whether they were of marital status or not. Therefore the use of lexical asymmetry between ‘MR’ and ‘MRS’ highlight the inequality.  The dominance model suggested that women use language in a way which reflects their subordinate position in society, whereas men use language which reflects their dominant position. However why do ‘men’ feel the audacity to have patriarchal dominance within language as well as the false generic ‘mankind’ being established across humanity to refer to all gender.

The typical ‘female rant’ is concluding upon this note; Language is evidently sexist through numerous data and both sociological and linguistic theorist. Howbeit how can society enforce positive liberalization within language where prejudices, discriminative remarks and male dominated terms are not given recognition within our ‘gendermutualkind’.

A taboo topic

Dear myself and others...

(caution: anybody who is ignorant towards mental illness do not read and educate yourself.)

(This post seems to have no direction with what i am discussing and seems to go on various tangents, therefore i do apologise in advance lovelys )

Ive been rather unsure on if to write a post around such a personal topic for myself and so many other sufferers on a topic that is vastly stigmatised by society and the dominant culture. However you may gather a certain theme around my blog but i aim to somehow change ones view on mental illness or just to even inform you on something that one may be struggling to mentally understand or just to let you know.. you are not alone in a world that seems to alienate those who are seen to differ from the norm. Just remember the general ‘norms’ in society are generational and change over time. There is still hope within this cruel injustice world. 

Have you ever  mentally felt a day where your body has enlaced into a state where the bones have collapsed, your muscle have disintegrated? But then your mind is completely active- full of lashing thoughts that are suppressing you into such a state where you can no longer function even a simple sentence together or even a singular movement (i.e placing your foot onto the ground whilst you lay there in the luxury of your own dinted mattress). For I, mental illness is something that is 24/7. It is not a singular phenomena that rarely occurs once or twice a week, the truth is the battle is ongoing and somehow you have to endure the irrational  wounds  that are the concomitant upon it. That for myself is the only way I can possibly describe a slight glimmer into what it feels like to have to endure one. My initial point is: mental illness may just be associated with the ‘mental’ state, but what about the physical state that has possession over an individual. One must take into account both varying points. 

I find it hard to understand why mental illness is even a stigmatised taboo topic? When 1 in 4 individuals will experience a mental illness. I personally feel there is ignorance within society to fully or partially try to understand. Before i suffered with a variety of mental illnesses i knew nothing about how to gain support, how to reach out, what was i going through and most importantly for myself: was i alone? Surprisingly these 4 recurring questions are what many have to face and somehow retrieve the answers to. 

Earlier  on this year i was able to take part in the 10k leeds run for one of my most adored charities: ‘Zane’: A small public funded mental health charity that aims to raise awareness for mental illness and eliminate many of the myths and stigmas that drastically  seem to attach themselves to mental health i.e. ‘all those who have a mental illness are psycho’- Let my just inform you: Many who suffer from mental illness are not ‘psycho’, many still endure the same experiences as an individual who doesn't have one etc. Whilst I was running I realised just how many courageous individuals there was but what occurred to me the most was how many seemed to be unaware of what the charity ‘zane’ was and what it stood for (I only saw 5 people that day who ran for Zane- including my wonderful close-friend Amber). It horrified me just how many were scared to ask questions about mental health, feared even the topic of mental health. This is the initial problem. The stigma has led many individuals to keep silent, to not ask questions which has resulted in many not understanding how it affects those and in response seem to ‘assume’. Personally I found that assumptions tend to take over the truth. 

MINI Solution: my proposal is for those who are curious to possibly ask? Educate yourself as one day you could be in the position of having to answer the prior questions for yourself. We have the skills, the resources  and a slight more freedom to finally enable ourselves to understand more about the human body and help to comfort others. 
  

Remember: Be proud to have a mental illness. However at first I rebelled against the fact I had one, purely due to the fact I was ashamed of being viewed as 'abnormal' and 'different' to those who were around me, labelled as 'psycho'. However then I found out being human and embracing all your differences and uniquenesses is what keeps me alive. 

''Those who have suffered understand suffering and therefore extend their hand.''- Patti Smith 

Mass consumption: Slimming pills

Recently i have become rather aggravated by the subjective mass media in the relation to body weight. I find it rather infuriating how the mass media subjectively corrupts a distorted image upon body weight. Purposely stigmatising many body sizes with negativity. Especially within the American media system. As the ‘ideal’ body type that is religiously portrayed for females across most media platforms, is in fact only possessed naturally by only a staggering 5% of american females. Just alone within America it has been reported that up to 24 million people of all ages/genders suffer from an eating disorder but most astoundingly 10-15% of sufferers are males. What is so astounding about this percentage is that whenever you have heard ‘eating disorder’ it is subjectively attached to females in particular. This firmly highlights how a reform within the media is drastically needed across all platforms. As in society ( in all cultures) there is simply a ‘loss transition stage’ upon myths within eating disorders and the underlying truth. The media has firmly created a diluted distorted image to society for a staggering number of years. This i believe is to be foreshowing another strategy of formal social control; decisively manipulating most individuals into an ideological state of false consciousness. i.e. many corporations prefer to add to the public delusions by segregating the truth and overly elaborating upon what consumers ‘prefer’ to hear/see, which is Inhumane on all aspects. As for instance; if the firm truth was for shown upon what is in fact in slimming pills, the slimming pill market would become bankrupt. ( in 2007 in was reported that there were 2,300 websites selling slimming pills, with global sales up to £30 billion.) A young girl this year (2015) had lost her life to slimming pills, due to buying them online without knowing what was consumed within them. Many are in fact illegal within the UK, due to a high proportion containing unknown ingredients. However even though severe incidents have occurred, slimming pills are still vigorously consumed within the public domain and are still featured within many beauty- orientated stores/ magazines.

Wondrously Leading onto….

 Cynical. I find this advert firstly demoralising for the consumer and secondly dehumanising. The advert has foreshown women in an diluted nymphet way: objectifying females to becoming dependent, relying on a counter source to supply them with what they are ‘deemed’ to be unable to simply do: choice. It highlights the daunted substantial connection between ‘self image’ and ‘weight’. Society has become almost obsessed with due to the reinforcement upon the mass medias demeaning ideology that enforces individuals into a state of false consciousness. In theory it is rather extraordinary how one is unable to notice that they're just a consumer to the product and how they are inferior to the mainstream capitalistic product at hand. 

 ‘wow you lost weight, you look great!’ this is directly followed by a female who appears to have never seen her friend on a text message before looking rather harmonious and confident within her self? 

Another factor to take into consideration is that the women is portrayed to be self loathing, un-attractive (in reflection to her attire: slobbish) to a direct link of her mental state of conclusion: unable to loose weight for her ‘holiday’. Whilst her friend is featured in a tight fitting dress and is ‘holiday ready’. Again the advert has assumed that women are only motivated to loose weight prior to a special occasion and any other time they are rather excelled with their overall appearance. Slightly ironic. Individuals have been socially engrained to link purchasing items and looking ‘thin’ as a correct combination that will somehow correlate onto how you look in an garment or somehow out of the inner self you mysteriously become more confident. Has it never sprung to a companies mind that maybe an individual may feel more confident due to something that is not related to loosing weight? Theres numerous reinforcements upon the media that latch onto this fact and we have become susceptible to endorse this ridiculing matter. Personally for myself I tend to purchase an item ( typically something from a charity shop) due to the material it is made out of/ the overall appearance of it not because i suddenly lost one pound (usually I do loose one pound but its typically in money, sorry to disappoint you XLS). 

I shall leave you on this lasting task: The next time you come across a featuring slimming advert- just peer upon the women portrayed and what direct links are correlated with weight.