In the past 100 years or so, feminism has flung itself into the forefront of the media… and horses but that’s not the point. Strikes, petitions, and powerful protests have helped to change legislation, beliefs, and behaviours over the explosive era of the 20th century. With the Suffragettes kicking things off in the early years of the 1900’s, then came the second world war and women had a chance to truly prove themselves and oh boy did they knock it out of the park on that one. Next came the hippy, peace and love movement of the 1960’s. Then in the 1990’s came Third Wave Feminism that really grabbed the Patriarchy by the balls. And we come to now, 30 years on and it’s kicking off again. It seems every 30 years or so, there comes a wave of civil rights movements and we are well overdue one. Catalysts like George Floyd and Sarah Everard may be what ignites a new wildfire, rush of hippies.
But after all this perseverance against prejudice, where are we right now? We’re in a Utopian society; frolicking through the rubble of the patriarchy hand in hand with one another. Just kidding. Although we may have come far from beating the Mrs because the Steak and Ale pie didn’t have enough Ale, and greeting your female co-workers with a friendly squish of the tush and an oggling of the jugs, we still have a long way to go to get to an equal society. And why? Language, that’s why. The Patriarchy has had a stranglehold on society for as long as there has been one. In fact, society as we know it is the gluttonous and perverted child of the Patriarchy. Imagine Geoffrey Epstein and Rupert Murdoch had a baby… pretty fucked am I right? And the food that the Patriarchy has fattened that tubby little shit up with is a language chock full of misogyny.
Gender theorist, Dale Spender, controversially argued that the language we speak is so fundamental to our perception of reality and yet so fundamentally flawed that merely using it reinforces and upholds the Patriarchy. It's like trying to get rid of your necrophile stalker by dressing up as a zombie. We use a language that holds US back and keeps THEM on top. By consciously checking what we say and analysing this complex language of theirs, we may yet see a new language at some point in the future. One without marked terms that enforce assumptions and idioms that oppress. Only just over 100 years of campaigning for equality and look how far we’ve come. Women have claimed their strength, their independence, and their pride. Now it’s time for all of us to reclaim OUR language. A language for the people. All power to all the people.
