Thoughts on Elitist Language Within Progressive Communities.

I don't like the word "girls". Not when used to refer to people in my age range who are females. I'm 22. "Girls" feels infantilizing. I don't like "women" either. "Women" feels a little too adult. "Women" feels like a mother, or a put-together socialite, not the dysfunctional alcoholic who barged into my apartment unannounced and is now demanding I make her food. Not the 19-year-old who did ketamine and broke up with all seven of her boyfriends in the same week. What word do I use to refer to these people I love?

There's a reason "girls" "women" "females" don't sit quite right in my mouth. Women can be many things in this world: a nurturing mother, the girl next door, a witch, a bitch, a manic pixie daydream, a tom-boy. They can be many things, but never a full equal. They are always above you- the solution to your lives problems, or below you- the cause of your lives problems.

She sent me an ugly hat in the mail and is now calling me on the phone to ask me to explain why her computer isn't working right. I ask her if I can visit her new apartment sometime, and she says yes but I'll have to ask again in a week because she's busy this week and will forget I asked.

She is not my saviour. She's just a kid. Not above or below but beside me. A life with problems.

The world is run by these little weirdos who scurry around trying to horde as many gold coins as possible before the earth implodes. I wish we didn't have to listen to them because their ideas are all insane, but they're in charge for some reason and they've decided girls are some weird enigma that are impossible to understand. You know women, always responding "I don't know" when you ask them where they want to eat. They do that because their brains are this labyrinth of inscrutability. Everything they say is some secret code. Everything they make you feel is about you and on purpose and in service of this secret goal.

So now I feel like a misogynistic pedophile whenever I try and talk about my gal pals because every word for women has been tainted by plutocratic gremlins. 

I consulted twitter (always a good idea) for womanly words and was suggested "femmes" or "femme people." I've heard that language used before by folks with hankering for social justice. It's very inclusive, which I like. There are some people out there who don't identify with "incomprehensible sex mom" despite that being their assigned gender at birth. Some of them might even go so far as to ask for those around them to use gender neutral language. My feeling is that "femme people" probably includes those folks who don't identify with the category of "girl" but still get victimized by anti-womeness. 

But also, like, I live in Europe, a place where English is not always the first language people learn. If I were to say "femme people" no one would know what the hell I was talking about. I don't want to make those around me feel bad for not knowing all these obscure English words. I wish to be understood.

"Femme people" is a recant invention of the American social justice crowd. It's exclusionary. Nobody that isn't saturated in social justice jargon will be able to pick apart its meaning. My overwhelming experience with the American social justice crowd is their use of the English language is needlessly exclusionary.

Language is important. What you say and what you don't say can have a lot of unintentional consequences. We should try and be inclusive with our words. We should try and be thoughtful. I think people are rightfully critical when Amy Coney Barrett says "sexual preference" instead of "sexual orientation". I think calling the BLM demonstrations "riots" instead of "protests" has some concerning implications. Obviously I care a great deal about words otherwise I wouldn't be tying myself up in knots over "girls" and "women".

I realized that I already have a way of referring to girls that satisfies my conscientiousness: "my female peers". I like it because you don't have to know anything special beforehand to understand what I'm talking about.

"My female peers" does not include non-binary folks who were raised female. But if I wanted to include them I would probably just say "my friends" or "people". If I was talking about people who are targeted by an anti-women culture without necessarily identifying as a women themselves I'd probably say "people who are targeted by an anti-women culture".

I have so often been made to feel like an absolute idiot for not knowing the latest terminology. It sucks, and more often then not it's needless. 

J.K. Rowling went off on twitter about this article that used the term "people who menstruate" instead of just saying "women". I disagree with Rowling; I think "people who menstruate" is great. It's almost as good as "people who bleed out their vaginas every once and a while." It's good because it is both inclusive and decipherable.

I think about the term "toxic masculinity" a lot. I hate it. Both because I was ruthlessly attacked for not knowing what it meant the first time I heard it, but also because it's the same thing as "internalized misogyny" just less decipherable. I think about "toxic masculinity" a lot because it's an important social force. Everyone I love is acting in toxic masculine ways. I've been noticing that I do this thing when I want to point that out to them that they're acting out their toxic masculinity, where I'll say "that's such a bro move dude" and then I'll laugh at them. Like if a friend tells me they're dating someone but they don't want to cry in front of their girlfriend. "That's such a bro move, dude. Oh no! I don't want the love of my life to think I'm a human person with feelings, oh gee what if she realizes I have a heart and cares about stuff and then leaves me? That's some real bro logic right there dude."

Using terminology that only a select group of in-members understand in order to signal your membership to the cool kids social justice club? That's such a bro move dude. That's some real frat-bro nonsense right there dude.