Click on the headline to link a website that features George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language."
Markin comment:
On a day when I am featuring George Orwells's "Politics and the English Language" the following article dealing with the specifics of current politcal language usage (1995, but still appropriate today)seems timely.
Markin comment:
The following is an article from the Spring 1995 issue of "Women and Revolution" that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of "Women and Revolution" during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.
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On Language and Liberation
We print below an excerpted exchange between a reader of Women and Revolution and a member of our editorial board.
Montreal, Quebec [undated, received July 1994]
To whom it may concern,
As a recently new reader of the Spartacist League's journal "Workers Vanguard" as well as the journal (of the Women's League of the SL), "Women and Revolution," I am very inspired, encouraged, and impressed with your organisation's anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-homophobic integration with very clear Marxist principles which seek to destroy a class-based, capitalist society and the inequities it creates. I, however, am puzzled by something I noticed in "Women and Revolution" which, though seemingly trivial, is I think very important to any Marxist publication and especially one which chooses to focus on the "woman question."
I noticed that throughout "Women and Revolution" you consistently use the term "mankind" as opposed to people or humankind. While I anticipate your defense of this practice to claim that language or terms are a mild bandaid (or not the true problem) rather than a solution to sexism, I have a few reasons why I think language is an important issue in battling sexism.
First, language is not solely a means of communication. It is also an expression of shared assumptions and transmits implicit values and behavioural models to those who use it. Therefore, to use "mankind" implies that people are men—this renders women invisible in a very literal and symbolic way and serves to perpetuate an androcentric society.
Secondly, since language both reflects and creates social norms and values; that is, "if it plays a crucial part in social organisation it is instrumental in maintaining male power..." (Deborah Cameron, Feminism and Linguistic Theory [1985]} and Marxists, in deconstructing sexism as an integral tool of capitalist oppression, must study its workings carefully. While, obviously, gender-neutral language will not eradicate sexism, it is a very important aspect in social transformation. To say something is not worth implementing because it does not provide complete success instantly, is like saying that since international expansion is integral to a successful Marxist revolution, it is not worth starting a movement or mobilization in one country.
Finally, if indeed "mankind" means everyone and language or terms are trivial, then why all the resistance to changing it? If you were to substitute "womankind" for "mankind" or "she" for "he," your readers would assume you meant only women and would (with reason) question your motives. If it is truly not a "big deal," then why the insistence on continuing a practice which perpetuates sexist and androcentric images and values?
While I understand your organisation's focus is class-based, I assume, by your journal "Women and Revolution" as well as your anti-sexist stance in all your activities, that eradicating sexism both as a special oppression and as a tool and product of capitalism is an important issue for you. As a result, considering my argument outlined above, I urge you to contemplate your use of the term "mankind" and the larger issue of language in general.
Sincerely, Jasmine C.
Vancouver, British Columbia 27 August 1994
Dear Jasmine,
Thank you for your interesting letter to Women and Revolution forwarded here by my colleagues in New York. I assure you, political debates about language are not trivial. We share an understanding that opposition to all forms of oppression is integral to the Marxist program which indeed seeks to destroy "class-based capitalist society and the inequities it creates." And that is the framework in which I will address your concerns about W&R's use of language, especially words like "mankind."
It's true that changing language is not a "solution to sexism." It's not even a "mild bandaid." But this is not why we oppose "political linguistics." Rather, the sustained effort by feminist linguists to change language with the aim of partially or wholly addressing social inequities, embodies a political program that is counterposed to the necessary social struggle against social, racial and sexual oppression. It is based on the false premise that by changing how people speak, we can change how they act. This is idealism: proceeding from what is in people's heads, their ideas and the language in which they express those ideas, rather than the social reality that creates and conditions the ideas. As Karl Marx said, "'Liberation' is an historical and not a mental act."
Language mirrors social reality and is a vehicle for communicating ideas, a powerful instrument of human culture. It can as easily convey a liberating revolutionary program as a reactionary one. But language doesn't create social reality, or as you say, "social norms and values."
We disagree with Deborah Cameron that language is instrumental in maintaining male power, and with Dale Spender, another feminist linguist, that language causes women's oppression. Women's oppression is deeply rooted in the institution of the family, economic unit and guardian of private property in capitalist society. It's really not a matter of words and ideas and language. It is capitalist exploitation and private property that are central to the maintenance of women's oppression. Our struggle as communists is to transform that social reality through proletarian socialist revolution.
That said, I agree that language can have a political program. Two examples will illustrate this. When anti-abortion terrorists hurl words like "baby killer" at women seeking abortions and the doctors performing them, this is an action program for murder which is being carried out. Racist epithets and code words for terror against blacks, Asians and Jews can incite pogroms and lynching. But stopping that race-terror is not a matter of linguistics but of mobilizing the integrated working class in action to stop the Klan and Nazi fascists.
Until 1977 we didn't use "gay" to refer to homosexuals, except in quotes, because we did not consider gay as a neutral or conventional synonym for homosexual. But we began using gay because, while homosexual was and still is an adequate term, it became impossible to refer to a whole range of cultural/political activities without use of the word gay. Yet it still does not refer to homosexuality in all contexts (ancient Rome, for example, or Iran where homosexuals are anything but gay). Nor does it describe a variety of sexual orientations and interests (e.g., lesbian women and bisexuals). American author Core Vidal's elegant solution was to speak of "same sex sex" which is both accurate and explicit. We explained our political rationale when we announced the style change in Workers Vanguard:
"The term was promoted by and gained public currency in the last decade due to the gay liberation movement. The general program of the gay liberation movement is not so much fighting for democratic rights for homosexuals as the affirmation of 'gay pride.' As a political rather than purely personal statement, 'gay pride' represents a sectoralist outlook fundamentally hostile to Marxism and detrimental to the struggle for a united mobilization of the working class and all defenders of democratic rights against discrimination and social oppression....
"Our resistance to using the term gay was also derived from opposition to New Left moralistic idealism in general, one aspect of which has been a tendency to reject the conventional terms relating to oppressed social groups in favor of new terms, often quite artificial in appearance (e.g., chairperson). As Marxists we oppose such termino-
conservative attitude toward conventional usage. Thus we used Negro rather than black until Negro generally acquired an obsolete or derogatory meaning and black became conventional usage. We still do not use the term 'Ms.,' a form of address closely associated with feminism and based on an amalgamation of traditional aristocratic-derived, sex-defined terminology (as opposed to the democratic 'citizen' or the communist 'comrade')."
—WV No. 168, 29 July 1977
We also don't use "choice" to refer to a woman's right to abortion. "Choice" is insisted upon by the petty-bourgeois feminists of CARAL in Canada, and NOW and NARAL in the U.S. They speak of "a woman's right to choose" and call out the well-worn slogan, "Control of our bodies, control of our lives." Posing the struggle for abortion rights as a matter of "choice" is the political program of the petty bourgeoisie. It intentionally masks reality. Abortion is a medical procedure. It is a democratic right, and should be available free and on demand. For teenagers and for poor, minority and working-class women the decision to have an abortion is an often painful economic or medical necessity. A "choice" perhaps, but not one freely made. The "pro-choice" feminists appeal to their well-heeled sisters in the bourgeoisie who in any case can always afford abortions. They call on Clinton's cops to defend the clinics in the U.S., while in Canada they also preach reliance on the state, especially if the attorney general is an NDP [New Democratic Party] social democrat. In the context of medicine-for-profit, these feminists will not fight for free abortion on demand. And nothing less than that will provide "choice" for the vast majority of working-class women.
Now to the thorny question of "mankind." In flipping through W&R I see a variety of words and expressions to denote the whole of homo sapiens, men and women: mankind, human beings, humanity, humankind, people, all people, women and men. "Mankind" is not inherently anti-woman. Its dictionary definition is "the human species...human beings in general." "Humankind" has a similar meaning: "the human race, mankind." By the way, in French "mankind" translates as "I'humanite," a feminine noun, while the German word is more akin to the English: "die Menschheit," also a feminine noun. As for "man," the Oxford English Dictionary's first definition is "a human being (irrespective of sex or age)" and their historical backup is this piquant quote from a 17th century writer: "The Lord had but one paire of men in Paradise"!
I'm sure you would be interested in the question of language in Japan. This is a very hierarchical country where women's oppression is profound and permeates every aspect of social life, including language. At an early age boys learn to add a particle at the end of a sentence to indicate their definite opinion, while girls are taught to add other particles which convey hesitation, deference and politeness, literally codifying and enforcing female inferiority and oppression. A Japanese grammar tells us that "Some of these particles are used exclusively by male or exclusively by female speakers, so they also function to mark the speaker's sex." This is an example of "conventional usage" that our comrades in Japan would avoid and in an egalitarian workers' Japan it would quickly disappear.
After the 1917 October Revolution the Russian language changed considerably, becoming both simpler (fewer letters in the alphabet, for example) and more egalitarian. In tsarist Russia, the familiar second person singular (you/ty) was used by the nobility towards servants, peasants and workers, but the latter were expected to respond in the more respectful mode of the second person plural (you/vy). This reactionary social convention was overthrown first in the army and in the factories. Leon Trotsky described the new, revolutionary order in the Red Army: "Of course, Red Army personnel may use the familiar form in speaking to one another as comrades, but precisely as comrades and only as comrades. In the Red Army a commanding officer may not use the familiar form to address a subordinate if the subordinate is expected to respond in the polite form. Otherwise an expression of inequality between persons would result, not an expression of subordination in the line of duty."
—Problems of Everyday Life
After the Stalinist political counterrevolution the bureaucracy fostered a recrudescence of the old tsarist forms of address. In his decisive analysis of Stalinism, The Revolution Betrayed, Trotsky voiced his outrage at the reemergence of this practice:
"How can they fail to remember that one of the most popular revolutionary slogans in tzarist Russia was the demand for the abolition of the use of the second person singular by bosses in addressing their subordinates!"
Contemporary feminism has had some impact on the language, but this has not translated into even token improvements for women in the realm of social equality, abortion rights, jobs, or an amelioration of the unremitting violence that so many women so routinely face. Even as the bourgeois media, employers and governments implement "gender-neutral" language, we are witnessing a real degradation of women's rights and lives. This is a product both of the capitalist economy utterly going down the tubes, and of the social counterrevolution in the ex-Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. And "gender-neutral" language can express reactionary, anti-woman bigotry. I heard a really horrifying example of this on the radio the other day. A professor at a provincial college is accused of sexual harassment. In the radio interview, he used quite "correct" language to say that women belong at home and blacks have low IQs!
I agree with your arguments against those who say that something is not worth implementing because it does not provide complete success instantly. Thus we struggle for abortion rights and mobilize ourselves and others at the besieged clinics. We fight for full democratic rights for gays and lesbians. We oppose the ruling class' anti-sex crusade, which hits women and gays most viciously. We seek to mobilize the multiracial working class to struggle against the racist immigration laws. We've organized numerous integrated working-class actions which have stopped the fascists from marching. In all the battles in defense of workers and the oppressed, we aim to lay bare the inner workings of capitalism and to link such struggles to the necessity for the working class to take power in its own name. That's when we can begin to lay the material basis for the true liberation of women and all humanity.
Communist greetings,
Miriam McDonald
for Women and Revolution
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