Politically Correct Language

In 1969, when Armstrong said “one giant leap for mankind” everyone understood that he wasn’t referring only to men.  Times have changed.  Now we would say “humankind”.  That is a change we can all make without doing violence to the English language.  We can all avoid expressing gender bias by dropping words such as “manageress”.  However, there are lots of other cases where neutral language is more difficult and many cases where it is unnecessary.  For example, we don’t express racial bias if we refer to a “blackboard” or ask for a “black coffee”, so we don’t need to change these terms.

Years ago, I met a nun in a bed and breakfast in Ireland.  She was attending a Catholic conference on conception and reproduction.  She asked me if I was “pro-life”  “Of course” I said.  How could I not be in favour of life?  Then I found that I had accidentally signed up to the Catholic view that abortion was wrong under all circumstances.  I was a deep disappointment to the nun, and in the rude manner of her kind she condemned me and my murderous attitudes.

Travelling to the USA in the 1990s, I discovered that if I wasn’t “pro-life” then I had to be “pro-choice”.  There was no centre ground.  Only the two extreme of the argument were allowed, and I was expected to join the fight on one side or the other.  I upset many people by saying that I could see both sides.  I think that abortion law must aim to achieve the least bad outcome, taking into account individual circumstances, and that is what British law does. 

Let’s look at what is happening here.  Those who oppose abortion claim the high ground by describing themselves as “pro-life”.  They then act as though those who are unsure about abortion are “anti-life”.  Then they invent the concept of “personhood”. This invented concept diverts debate into an argument about when “personhood” starts. This is not a good starting point for law-making.

On the pro-abortion side, the activists have invented “a woman’s right to choose”.  This sneaks in a lot of concepts which are nothing to do with abortion.  It ignores the fact that many of those who oppose abortion are women.  This subject should not be part of the battle of the sexes, but “a woman’s right to choose” drags it into that arena.  It suggests that as a man, I don’t have any right to an opinion.

On other uses of language, we are strangely blind to obvious racial bias.  For example, if you have no African ancestors at all, you are described as “white”.  But President Obama, who is ethnically an equal mixture of African and European, is normally referred to as “black” or “African-American”.  Why?  I suggest that it is because “half caste” is historically very insulting, leaving us without a word to describe mixed race.  I believe that this linguistic mess is exactly what you would expect after a history of slave-owning.  If the origin of this prejudice is in slavery, Obama is in an interesting position; none of his ancestors were slaves.

Language is a living entity, and it needs to change as society changes.  However, I believe that language change should follow societal change.  Politically correct language tries to change society by changing language. 

Politically correct language is mostly a one-way flow from America to Britain.  Why is this?  Is it because of the more polarised politics of the USA?  Or the use of TV sound-bites to influence US voters?  Are there any Americans out there who want to answer that?

Finally, something else to think about: English is unusual in having no gender for inanimate objects. In most other European languages, inanimate objects do have a gender, which is always indicated.  So the banning of gender-specific words is impossible and pointless.  Nobody thinks that a table is demeaned by being feminine.  Then there is the problem of professions.  French male and female teachers are described by different words.  You could choose just one word for teachers, but it would still have to be male or female – it couldn’t be neutral.  Yet the feminist movement is alive and well in France!