By DONALD DeMARCO
He is now a journalist, but he remembers, with painful clarity, a learning experience he had when in grade 7. He had made the politically incorrect act of writing the word “fireman.” His teacher, an apostle of gender-free nouns and “inclusive” language, slashed a big red X across the offending word and replaced it with “firefighter.”
“The severity of that slash,” he recalls, “thick and bleeding with disapproval — was mortifying because, even as a kid, I recall thinking that my teacher thought I was sexist.”
Can we categorize the teacher’s action as bullying? There are four types of bullying: physical, verbal, emotional, and cyber. Emotional bullying occurs, according to one authority, when “one partner might make statements in such a manner as to bring about distress to the other partner.” It would seem, then, that the teacher’s action renders her guilty of bullying, though she may very well have regarded her action as pedagogical and in the interest of bringing about a better world.
What liberties may be taken in the interest of indoctrinating students into an ideology? Can a feminist teacher ever be indicted as a bully? Or do they have diplomatic immunity?
What, we may ask, did our seventh-grade student learn from this experience? He “learned” (or feared) that he was “sexist” and was left wondering how serious this label might be. The red X was more guilt-imposing than educational. If he had only misspelled the word “fireman,” his reprisal would have been much kinder. Indoctrinating political correctness, it appears, at least in this case, takes precedence over teaching the three Rs: reading, ’riting, and ’rithmetic. Political correctness does not abide patience.
The alleged invidiousness of so-called exclusive language is stated by feminist author Marie Shearer:
“Sexist language is no less noxious than racist language. As Kett and Underwood say in their recent book, ‘Avoiding he is equal to taking down the “whites only” sign in a restaurant’.”
Yet, this is sheer exaggeration. More important, however, it is inflammatory. The use of generic pronouns is consistent with Standard English, as attested by the dictionary. Women have no reason to feel excluded when they hear such expressions as “all men are created equal,” “he who hesitates is lost,” “no man is an island,” “danger — man-eating sharks,” or “he who laughs last, laughs best.” The bullying techniques of the inclusive language brigade is, according to sociologist Peter Berger, offensive. Inclusive language, he writes, “is an ideological jargon whose purpose is to compel allegiance in a symbolic fashion. This is why I find it offensive.”
What happens when the immovable object meets the irresistible force, which is to say, when the opponents of exclusivity clash with the opponents of offensiveness? What happens when the opponents of bullying clash with another group that opposes bullying? It is political correctness on a collision course with itself. On the other hand, why not simply speak English and honor the meaning of words. “All men are created equal” is inclusive, extending to men as well as women.
Garson Kanin’s celebrated play, Born Yesterday, is about the empowerment through education of a not-so-dumb blonde. In her crash course, Billie Dawn inquires about the meaning of Alexander Pope’s famous phrase, “The proper study of Mankind is Man.” “Of course, that means women, too,” she says, rather offhandedly. When Billie is assured that it does, the diligent student indicates that she knew it all the time: “Yes, I know.” There was no need for further discussion in this 1945 comedy. Billie could be educated without becoming a hard-line feminist. She knew that Mankind included women and excluded animals.
Every word includes what it means and excludes its contradictories. “Book” includes books and excludes non-books, just as “woman” includes woman and excludes non-women. Bullying has no place in education, nor do approaches to learning which are clearly offensive. Let a married couple, Peter and Brigitte Berger, both sociologists, have the last word:
“Femspeak,” they write, “must be understood as part of the cultural imperialism of the new knowledge class, seeking to impose its language, values, and political control over other classes in the society…a linguistic offensive that is part of a general political strategy.”
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