"Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me."
Bullshit.
Okay, my sister-in-law reads my blog; no doubt she'll call my Mom and tell me that I just wrote a bad word on it.
Which only illustrates the point I want to make: words do hurt. And in this information age, they are the chief source of weaponry. How about "the pen is mightier than the sword"?
My friend wrote in his own blog a lengthy post about how he, as a sensitive feminist, has been upset about calling Ms. Dupre (Spitzer's hookup) a whore. Apparently the late night hosts have been bandying about the terms "prostitute" and "whore" without any sense of concern. My friend doesn't like those words. He equates him to words like "n-----" that reek of pure hatred.
Do they?
When I was a teenager I didn't curse. I actually agreed with my conservative parents - cursing was fundamentally bad.
Then I became an English major. It isn't just that I became more liberal. I have learned to embrace the power of words - judiciously.
I had an image in my mind that I commissioned an artist friend of mine to draw for me. It is of a chest of drawers with words coming out of it - so many words that they cannot hope to fit in the drawers. There are top drawer words, like insouciance, erudite and prodigious, middle drawer words, like fantastic and intense, bottom drawer words, like flat and whatever. But there are also those colorful dust bunnies living underneath the chest of drawers itself, where we find words like f---, s---, G--d---, and c---. My artist friend wisely didn't write these words out in his drawing. (As I haven't.) He let those words lie face down on the floor beneath the chest of drawers. (I do have it hanging up in my office, after all. Wouldn't want to overtly offend.)
Whether or not you agree that any words are innately offensive, the point is that words do have power. The power is held not necessarily in the wielder, though, but in the hearer.
It's the tree falling in the woods phenomenon. If my friend, sensitive feminist that he is, hadn't listened to David Letterman describe Ashley Dupre as a whore, he wouldn't have taken offense to it. (And then, sadly, he wouldn't have had a thing to blog about.) But it was an extreme reaction. Though I can appreciate his chivalry, I don't have to agree with it. To me, prostitution is pretty deplorable. It doesn't hurt my feelings to call her a whore. It doesn't hurt my feelings to call anybody a whore who definitionally earns money for sex. I think it's sad that the word whore has more negative connotations than the word pimp. It's a horrible double-standard that pimps are glamorized, while whores are downtrodden. But, I would argue that Dupre isn't downtrodden in the least. She's a capitalist opportunist (bless her heart). She'll have more than 15 minutes of fame over this. She'll be a rich whore, in the end. Anyone can take whatever offense they like, but in the end, I don't have to support her. (Although I clearly just did, having given her more press by blogging about her. So I'll stop.)
And about male feminists who tiptoe around terminology: keep doing it. It's safer that way, but know that that is what you are doing. Being indignant about such terminology is no less chivalrous than opening a door for us.
There's nothing wrong with opening doors, but then, I'm only a moderate feminist. Some of the more strenuous female feminists would clobber you if you tried. Words can hurt me, and if you called me a whore, then I'd take offense.
I only teach for money.
