August 2011

Let’s Talk Women’s Suffrage:

In this era of sickening equality, words that once communicated very masculine ideals to perpetuate a chauvinist agenda have lost their provocative allele through blasé use by way of the mainstream mouth. Words and phrases like ballsy, manly, manhandle, man-up, and rule of thumb can no longer put women in their place. Oversaturating everyday conversation with these words and phrases has diluted their hegemonic authority, rendering them inconsequential.

We must invent new words that carry positive connotations for men and are thinly-veiled assaults on equality. Furthermore, we should reinforce occupational stereotypes (mailman over postal worker) while creating new ones (truck driverman, bank tellerman, librarianman) for the good of men in the workplace.

What would most satiate our sexist hearts is if we take a hint from Spanish. The masculine form of a word trumps and nullifies the feminine form. If there are men and woman in a play, you wouldn’t say there are actors and actresses; the word ‘actors’ here encompasses both genders. Segregating language will give women their own hideous and unentertaining version of each word that no one observes or takes seriously, much like the model in sports, which would again relegate women to the sidelines, mitigating their ability to reach their full potential and surpass us men in everything we do.