4 year old hate speech

(trigger warning - language)

So.... one of my 4 year olds called another a faggot today.

In case you don't know, I work in a preschool, one that has a mission statement of specifically empowering women and girls.

We had just come in from playing outside and were taking off snowpants and boots, about to head to lunch. I don't even know what happened in the build up, but it came pretty much out of no where.

I didn't catch the first part of what he said, but he was talking to another girl. He ended the comment with, "faggot!"

I said, "What did you say?"

He said, "faggot?"

"No. That is not ok. You can not use that word. It hurts people," I said.

"I can say it at my house!"

"Well, this isn't your house and I don't want to hear it."

"[brother] says it!"

"And if he were here, I'd tell him the exact same thing."

"Aw, come on, can't I just say (mouths faggot) one more time?"

"No! I don't want to hear it again."

I usually don't respond to kids swearing. Most of the time they're just trying to get a reaction from someone and it's easiest to let it rest. Often, another kid will tell me another kid swore and I just tell them to tell the offender that they don't want to hear it.

I think I was just so surprised that I instantly responded. But even so, I wouldn't have let that one pass. I responded with emotion, I think more emotion than the kids are used to me wielding. It's just ... these are 4 year olds. Faggot should not be in their vocabulary.

There are several open lesbians who work at my site, several of whom bring their partners to school functions. His mother works at the site and he has spent the night over at one women's house many times.

I don't know if he knew what it meant. I doubt it. Would he have used it if he knew what it meant? I don't know.

He did know that it wasn't something nice to say.

He did know that you're supposed to say it in a mean tone, spitting it out of your mouth like venom.

He did know that it was a name you use when you want to make someone feel inferior, like shit, to show that you're better.

He knows it's supposed to hurt. Which means that it doesn't matter if he knows what it means, because he'll use it again as a weapon. Except next time, I won't be there.

Butts, penises and cookies

I submit, for your consideration, exhibit A in the case of needing accurate age-appropriate education about our bodies, a scene from the PreK classroom where I work:

We are reading a book about how dinosaurs say good night. One of the dinosaurs turns off the light with his tail.

Lead teacher: Do you turn off the light with your tail?
All kids: No!
Boy: We don't have tails! We have butts and penises!
Girl: Girls don't have a penis! We have cookies!

There's a split second where everyone looks at the boy, then the girl, thinking we're going to tell them not to say "penis." My lead teacher says, "Girls have vaginas," and keeps reading.

At least the girl didn't call it a vah-jay-jay.

How I came to yell at a woman on the street about feminism

My sister and I were walking back from the bus and a woman came riding up on her bike beside us, talking about how crappy men are and how unlucky in love she is. We mumbled in agreement, etc, and thought we left her behind us. Then she rode up again and started talking about how men are wusses and pansies and girls when they don't do their "job" (whatever that is). I told her I didn't appreciate her comparing weak men to women, saying that it put women in a hierarchy under men. Well, I said it less academically. Eventually we ended up shouting and she called us lesbians, and then somehow I ended up yelling across the gas station area, "'Man up' is not an acceptable term!" At that point, I became the yelling lady and the circle was complete. The student became the teacher.

Honestly, I started talking back to her because I've had enough with people not living their beliefs. I believe in gender equality, even - especially - in language. How we speak and the words and idioms we use reveals our inner biases and beliefs. Inclusive language in church is another fine example of this exact thing. If we're for something, well then, let's be for it.

All in all, I just didn't want to think later, "Why didn't I say anything?" Casual sexism is sexism is sexism.

Would I have been nearly as vocal if it was a man, or a person of color of any gender? No. Her whiteness and gender made me bold in ways I wouldn't have if it was another person. Well, maybe it didn't make me bold, but it made HER non-threatening. I may have said something, but definitely not yelling the way I was.

Would I have even said anything if it was in a group of my friends or family?

Casual sexism is sexism is sexism.

Attention Trolls: A quick definition

From the lovely comment moderation box on "Apologize." for your consideration:

Feminism: Advocates of censorship and thought control.

Rape means more than "Sex with a woman that didn't want it".

Shame that feminists refuse to acknowledge this, and instead try to make every single thing on earth solely about them.

Why... one might as well call it "What about teh wimmenz???"

Not. Everything. Is. About. You.

Rape has multiple meanings, look it up, please. Celebrating this moron makes you look foolish and ignorant.

Also, there's no such thing as rape culture. Pushing idiotic buzzwords just makes you look idiotic.

Thank you, Anonymous for your lovely, though-provoking comment.

I'll have to admit, you're right about one thing. Rape does mean more than "sex with a woman that didn't want" - I'll broaden the definition to "sex with a person that didn't want it". Because that's EXACTLY what rape is.

Unless, of course, you're refering to the less commonly used definition of rape as "an Old World herb (Brassica napus) of the mustard family grown as a forage crop and for its seeds which yield rapeseed oil and are a bird food" (M-W). I'm going to use my deductive reasoning skills here and guess that's not what you mean, or what the person who used rape originally intended. "I'm going to herb of the mustard family you in this video game"? Nope.

So when we refer to rape, it's talking about "sex with a person that didn't want it", FYI.

Impersonators, any other important things I'm forgetting about in our definition of rape?

"Apologize."

A story I heard last night from a friend about one of the frats on my undergrad campus:

They had an open house, inviting interested students to come by and find out more about the frat. They all sat around the living room, talking about things and generally getting to know one another. The current members were excited to see how many guys had turned out for just an information session.

One of the current members said something along the lines of "I'm going to rape you so hard in [video game]."

A freshman, his first time meeting these people, said to the current member, "Apologize."

At first, the current member wouldn't. But the freshman wouldn't let it go. And then the entire room of guys wouldn't let it go. They wouldn't let him blow off his comment. The member eventually apologized to the room full of frat members and potential members.

This freshman, one person, held others accountable for their language and atmosphere in a setting that most people wouldn't feel comfortable doing so. My friend was very impressed, since he had prejudged the guy based on his appearance. This one incident probably changed the tone of the house for awhile... I doubt people are going to make rape jokes and comments quite as casually as they did before.

I just wanted to share this story about one person making a small, but maybe one day large, dent in our rape culture.

Limbaugh thinks "dikes" in Red River flooding HILARIOUS

Transcript:

“I heard some top-of-the-hour news, and it made me feel uncomfortable. It’s about the flooding in Fargo, North Dakota, brought on by the melting snowpack and the icepack. [Reading from news item]: ‘As the Red River threatens to overflow, they’re filling in the dikes.’ Isn’t there a more appropriate word? Do we have to say, I mean, we don’t have any dikes here. The ‘dykes’ are over there. … They’re filling in the dikes. Couldn’t we change that to ‘they’re filling in the contingencies’ or something? … We really need to change that word. … Hey, would you dykes in North Dakota give me a call and let me know how the flooding is going?”

Hey a-hole, those dikes are saving lifes and saving property, probably put in place by people who don't appreciate your humor. I bet some of those people are even lesbians (dykes, some may say) and gay and bi and trans and allies and straight.

So shut the f up until you graduate 6th grade, mmmkay?

Gendered language and Early Christian thinkers - pt 2.

Last week I wrote about gender-inclusive language in early Christian literature - specifically the period between the apostles and Augustine (roughly 100-451 CE). I noted that because of the inherently male dominated world of theology and thought at that point in time, much of the language used to describe the Godhead had masculine pronouns (God as he) and all relationships were describe in male terms (Father, Son).

However, much of the theology they describe cannot be extracted from underneath the baggage of masculine language simply because it is so essential to what they're trying to describe. For many of these early thinkers, God is the Father precisely because Jesus is the Son; God is Almighty because of the existence of creation - I'm looking at you, Gregory of Nazianzus. The description of the relationship between God and Jesus is inexplicably mixed with the Father/Son language; it is an essential point of their argument that we consider God and Jesus within the structure of a parent-child relationship.

Consider the example of the king in Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince. As the little prince travels from his little planet, he comes across several people, one who is a king. However, he's the only person on the planet, begging the question of what he really is king over. Although the king would argue he's king of his planet and the stars and universe, there is nothing there that makes him a king. Having a kingdom is an essential part of being a king. This example applies to some of the arguments made by early Christian thinkers; God is God because of the relationships God has with creation and Jesus. God is God the Father because Jesus is a son.

Much of their writings were the foundation for theology from then on; their writings were referenced and built upon for centuries by theologians who created systematized theological doctrines. Both the original writings and the later writings based on church fathers are still influential today. These texts are not just a part of the distant past; they continue to impact and shape current theology. The inherent gendered relationship became institutionalized; while some people throughout the ages have found ways to incorporate alternative metaphors (the medieval mystics are particularly good at this), it's largely been dominated by the father-son relationship.

A large project for future study would be a re-thinking of these early Christian theologians, an attempt to try and describe the relationship between Jesus and God without automatically falling back on father-son language; to extract their meaning and place it in an inclusive setting. Some of the terms used for Jesus in the Bible include (in addition to Father/Son language) logos (Word) and Sophia (wisdom). It's possible to be more inclusive and it's biblically based as well.

Bringing in these inclusive terms doesn't invalidate the father-son relationship as described by the early thinkers; it adds to it. The problem occurs when we rely exclusively on one metaphor without fail. If God is incomprehensible, then we should be using as many ways as possible to describe what we experience. For every God the Father, we should use a God the Mother. For every God as Lord, we should incorporate God the servant.

While this focused mainly on the role of gendered language in early Christian theology and literature, another topic worthy of discussion is gendered language today. A comment on the earlier post actually inspired this post, but looking back, I realize that I only further clarified the points already made without addressing the Jesus as Son language used in today's theology and liturgy. I will address that in a future post, however, if someone is interested in this topic, I suggest Elizabeth Johnson's She Who Is and Rosemary Radford Ruether's Sexism and God-Talk. I really enjoy Johnson's book and will be reading it in the scant free time I have before my next semester starts.

To get you started thinking about this language, I leave you with the concepts of imago Dei and imago Christi - the image of God and the image of Christ. What does it mean for one to be imago Dei? What does it mean for a white, hetero man to be imago Dei compared to a queer woman of color? Or anyone, for that matter? What does imago Dei and imago Christi look like?

Gibt es ein...embedded sexism?

I am taking German classes this year to fulfill the second language requirement for my college. I could have taken Spanish, the second language that I studied for four years in high school, but I decided it would be fun to try to become multi-lingual.

Oh, fun indeed, as Lindsay may be able to attest to.

A while ago I was flipping through the glossary in my book, looking for a vocabulary word so I could do my homework, when a word caught my eye.

(die) Jungfrau. Translation: virgin.

Some explanations for those not familiar with German.

The German language uses three different "genders" of articles (masculine, feminine, and neuter) when referring to nouns. "Die" means "the" and it is feminine.

The word "jung" is German for "young." "Frau" means "woman."

Literally, the German word for virgin translates to "young woman."

Excellent! Slut-shaming embedded in language. There's nothing like associating virginity strictly with women...even if it is rather covert like this.

Argh.

Consent is not puberty

What's problematic about this pair of statements?

CNN's headline was: "Evangelist: 'Puberty' is age of sexual consent"

In an interview on Saturday, [Tony Alamo] had said that for girls having sex, "consent is puberty."

CNN assumes that he means reaching puberty enables girls to make sexual consent decisions. If you look at what that statement actually says - "consent is puberty - then he's implying that the age of puberty is the same thing as consent. Maybe the context of the statement clarifies what Alamo means, but as it stands, the literal meaning of that sentence is that anyone at the age of puberty gives sexual consent. Not that they have the ability to, but that they automatically do.

For someone accused of child abuse and pornography, the semantics make a huge difference.

You've Got To Be Kidding Me

If you type in "weaker" into Thesaurus.com, you get this.
Again, in case it gets taken down.
Seriously?!?!

Via Feministing

Also, I was just typing things into the same website researching for a comment, and I found that the synonyms for "black man" include, but are not limited to: "SOB, bad egg, bad news, cheater, conman, lowlife, villian."
Offended yet?