dreamer_easy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dreamer_easy) wrote2009-08-01 09:01 pm
dreamer_easy) wrote2009-08-01 09:01 pm
Entry tags:
Hysterical paroxysms
Last year I posted mourning the demotion of the word misogyny from its original, powerful meaning, "hatred of women", to a mere replacement for the word "sexism". Language naturally changes like this. But I was reminded that we're going to need a new word to describe woman-hating the other day, when I observed a self-described lesbian feminist describe a weakly sexist remark by RTD as "resounding misogyny".
Can't talk about this in detail without SPOILERS for Torchwood: Children of Earth.
You may have seen the remark in question at the end of the After Elton interview to which I linked:
Almost certainly my fellow feminist's objection to the remark is the word "hysterical". The word has been, erm, historically used to dismiss women's legitimate, rational objections. In fact, in the Victorian era a woman showing signs of stress or sexual dissatisfaction could be "diagnosed" as suffering from "hysteria". Although the diagnosis has disappeared, the basic sense of the word remains the same: women complain about stuff because they're all overwrought and hormonal and so, conveniently, we don't have to take them seriously.
(Given the hostility to my scribbles here on "fangirls" and "fanboys", it's also possible she objects to the word "women", in the sense that RTD is dismissing complaints because they're coming from women. I think the fact that the campaign is composed of slashers - heterosexual women - is absolutely relevant - especially when it comes to IMHO rather disingenuous claims that sinking their ship was "homophobic".)
It would have been more elegant for RTD to choose a different word to describe the overwrought behaviour of a small number of fans. However, it would also have been more elegant to choose a less severe word than "misogyny" to criticise it. Issues of gender and sexuality are fundamental here and can't be dismissed, but the word "hysteria" has changed its meaning over the last century or so. Headlines about "swine flu hysteria" are not gynophobic gibes, invoking instead the other meaning of the word: "exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement", "behavior exhibiting overwhelming or unmanageable fear or emotional excess". Which, let's be honest, is not an entirely unfair characterisation of responding to an imaginary death by abusing and threatening real live people.
ETA: Only really posted all of that because I hit the word "misogynous" in Erica Jong's Fear of Flying, on which I decided to make an assault this evening. I'm starting to worry I'm only contributing to the problem by banging on about it here, as though the overwhelming majority of fans were not perfectly sane on the subject, so I think it's time to take a break.
ETA ETA: Although I suppose we're going to need a new word for "homophobic", too.
Can't talk about this in detail without SPOILERS for Torchwood: Children of Earth.
You may have seen the remark in question at the end of the After Elton interview to which I linked:
I asked Davies if he stood by all of his previous statements. He did so emphatically saying he believed the "controversy" over Ianto's death was bascially "nine hysterical women."The "Russell, you heartless wench!" photo they used still makes me lol.
Almost certainly my fellow feminist's objection to the remark is the word "hysterical". The word has been, erm, historically used to dismiss women's legitimate, rational objections. In fact, in the Victorian era a woman showing signs of stress or sexual dissatisfaction could be "diagnosed" as suffering from "hysteria". Although the diagnosis has disappeared, the basic sense of the word remains the same: women complain about stuff because they're all overwrought and hormonal and so, conveniently, we don't have to take them seriously.
(Given the hostility to my scribbles here on "fangirls" and "fanboys", it's also possible she objects to the word "women", in the sense that RTD is dismissing complaints because they're coming from women. I think the fact that the campaign is composed of slashers - heterosexual women - is absolutely relevant - especially when it comes to IMHO rather disingenuous claims that sinking their ship was "homophobic".)
It would have been more elegant for RTD to choose a different word to describe the overwrought behaviour of a small number of fans. However, it would also have been more elegant to choose a less severe word than "misogyny" to criticise it. Issues of gender and sexuality are fundamental here and can't be dismissed, but the word "hysteria" has changed its meaning over the last century or so. Headlines about "swine flu hysteria" are not gynophobic gibes, invoking instead the other meaning of the word: "exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement", "behavior exhibiting overwhelming or unmanageable fear or emotional excess". Which, let's be honest, is not an entirely unfair characterisation of responding to an imaginary death by abusing and threatening real live people.
ETA: Only really posted all of that because I hit the word "misogynous" in Erica Jong's Fear of Flying, on which I decided to make an assault this evening. I'm starting to worry I'm only contributing to the problem by banging on about it here, as though the overwhelming majority of fans were not perfectly sane on the subject, so I think it's time to take a break.
ETA ETA: Although I suppose we're going to need a new word for "homophobic", too.
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Re. your ETA ETA: FWIW, we've *always* needed a new word for homophobic, and prefarably several different ones. It was never quite the right word for what it was coined to refer to, and almost immediately began to be used with a different meaning to both the intended one and the literal one... resulting in loads of time-wasting quibbles over the meaning of the word, rather than getting on with addressing the actual problem(s) it referred to.
That said, I still describe myself as a "recovering homophobe" (or more recently, a "mostly recovered homophobe"), and most people get the idea. =:o} (For those who bother to ask: Recovering from a genuine fear of the proximity of, and physical contact with, gay men - having long, long ago realised that said fear was irrational and problematic... But also with the meaning of having learned, and continuing to learn, how wrong-headed my old supposedly-Christian beliefs about sexuality were.)
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When was the last time that you heard of a gang of arachnaphobes going around and beating up spiders?
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(Although if I'd taken my bf's advice a couple of years ago, I'd probably have been aware of that one!)
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I suspect "homophobe" came into common use partly because of its assonance. (Although you'll sometimes hear "homosexual" pronounced the original way, with short "o"s, distinguishing homo "same" from homo "man".) And also because sexual identity is a very modern concept, so ancient languages aren't as useful as they might be in coining new terminology.
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To the extent that I thought about other meanings of the word, I was mostly worried that it might be interpreted as saying that my reaction was somehow funny...
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Interesting! I agree about hysteria, although I also think we feminists have come full circle, swung the pendulum, pick your metaphor with regard to critiquing those who slapped the label "hysterical" on us.
I just wrote about this, for IBARW:
http://kmd.livejournal.com/60153.html#cutid1
(reposted because I accidentally posted it as a reply to someone else's comment. d'oh!)