That's a letter to the NYT "Ethicist" advice columnist (Kwame Anthony Appiah). I haven't read the answer yet.
My responses, in the order they occurred to me:
1. This was once one of the arguments for same-sex marriage — a desire to use the honored terms "husband" and "wife" to refer to the most-treasured relationship. That always had this other side, even when marriage was restricted to male-female couples: You should get married if you want the rest of the world to stand in awe of the vast profundity of your commitment to your lover.
2. It's not really a matter of ethics. It's a matter of language usage. And you ought to hesitate to use your feelings about your self-expression to impose on how other people speak, especially when they are using the language that they've lived with and there's no connection to any ill will toward you or anyone who deserves special consideration. Why would you want to push people around like that?
3. It's better as a discussion topic than a request. Don't say: I'd like to ask you to refrain from using the word "girlfriend" to refer to women you're not having sex with. Start a conversation, like: You know, every time you call one of your friends your "girlfriend," I picture the 2 of you having sex, and then I have to remember that's probably not what you meant, but you keep doing it, so I thought I should confess, that's how it sounds to me — and my girlfriend.
Posts
113 comments:
A woman refers to her female friends as her "girlfriends", but if she has a male friend she will never refer to him as her "boyfriend" because she doesn't want him to ever get the idea that he has a shot. He needs to know his place.
Leave us alone. We can use whatever terminology we feel like.
The Left constantly wants to impose its political beliefs and feelings on the rest of the culture with its language usage.
Whenever I see a he/him pronoun announcement on Linkedin I immediately think: idiot!
Just leave our language alone.
And it is totally laughable that the NYT frames this as an ethics issues. As if anyone at the NYT has any ethics at all. For the NYT, it is all about Leftist power and control.
The only times I ever hear straight women talk about their old "girlfriends", they are women in their 70s or older. Do younger women even do this?
My first thought when I read this was, life is good for this woman if that's what she has time and bandwidth to worry about.
How do lesbians know who is straight?
In the spirit of the recent prisoner exchange with Russia, I propose we build a list of words that they would like to own for themselves but we get back useful words that they took for their own use.
For instance, they can have girlfriend, but we get gay back. There's really not a replacement for it in describing a kind of carefree joy. And it seems very unprogressive to continue to insist on euphemisms for more publicly discussed categories.
Girlfriend does imply a romantic connection in much usage, but queer, like gay, had a wider meaning that was used in the wink-wink eras. So, we'd like some words back if you insist on taking more words for yourselves.
Gunner, yes I've heard it used from younger generations.
My wife who is 79 has girlfriends from high school that she is still close to even though we live in another state. This is just more bullying by the left.
I wonder how she feels when she hears dyke?
It seems just like new historians like to find homosexual behavior in many historic figures, like Abraham Lincoln and Jesus and such, so too there's a movement to coopt words for their movement. A really clever linguistic historians in queer studies could likely find many subtexts within Lincoln's speeches. Fourscore, Lincoln? You go!
Hey girlfriend is a common colloquial greeting, not always among close friends, sometimes just friendly acquaintances might greet each other that way. Hey girlfriend, what's up. The idea that there always an instant sexual connection in anyone's mind seems unlikely. And if you google "Hey Girlfriend" it leads to various sites, including a charity that's been around since 2007, which supports low income women and human trafficking victims.
Googling the phrase also comes up with a boutique and a spa and bunch of other uses for the term. Are they all supposed to abandon the word because a lesbian find its appropriative?
Can't we share? If you're confused when a friend talks about her girlfriend, ask, oh are you friends or friends friends? Or wait until it becomes clear to you what she means, it will soon enough.
As a gentleman of a certain age, I am allowed to have lady friends.
“ It feels like an erasure of lesbians (and other queer identities) when straight women use 'our' term. ”
Oh Fuck off. Just fuck right off…
Yet another example of someone who feels that they have some right to make other people's speech conform to what they want.
Also, unless someone chooses to share the information with you, the status of their relationships with other people is none of your business. It's not appropriate to get bent over the fact that you don't know if someone is in a sexual relationship with someone or not.
It's their personal life. Deal with it.
Re 1: Marriage is a Christian and Jewish sacrament. Civil union accomplishes the same purpose without the sacrilege. LGBT activists and their lefty consorts knew exactly what they were doing and what the reaction of God's people would be.
The English language, religious sacraments and any number of things must conform to the context of their sexual preferences and we will all be better off for it. /s
Don't Black women shout out, "Hey, girlfriend" to their hetro female friends?
To ban Black women from using the word "girlfriend" is clearly racist. Didn't that NYT letter writer think of that?
"It feels like an erasure of lesbians (and other queer identities) when straight women use 'our' term."
And that's when a competent psychotherapist says, "Okay, how about we start by working on that?"
Straight women have called female friends "girlfriend" for a lot longer than lesbians have, so if this lesbian is bothered by it, then she's the one in the wrong and needs to stop what she's doing.
She sounds hetero to me, anyway by the complaining.
It’s been a long wrestling match to make homosexual love into the new normal. It popped up about 1992 -93 when gays became a political movement that was out of the closet and fighting for the full rights of straights. Unfortunately that made Christianity their enemy # 1. It became hard to have openly gay friends anymore because tolerance was no longer enough. They wanted and expected a Great Replacement in social institutions.
Clinton accepted a truce under the “ Don’t ask , don’t tell “ rule. Then by the early 2000s the truce had to include a rule that opposition to Gay Marriage was a taboo like smoking indoors.
So JD now wants the truce to include a rule that child bearing families raising their own children is the better virtue. That is as an outflanking movement , but that truth is right there in the scripture. Will the truce hold?? Will Harrison Butker be fired?
I do not subscribe to the Times but I am dying to know how the ethicist responded.
Anything other than “get over yourself” is wrong.
Althouse wrote: It's a matter of language usage. And you ought to hesitate to use your feelings about your self-expression to impose on how other people speak, especially when they are using the language that they've lived with and there's no connection to any ill will toward you or anyone who deserves special consideration. Why would you want to push people around like that?
Well said indeed. It's one of the reasons I chafe against neo-pronouns (yet generally use "preferred pronouns" just to get along with people).
Marriage (original) meant domestication of M/F grudges, suspicions, fears, needs, desires, and narcissistic postures, which is why the term was fought for. Now it just means sex partner.
Yet another example of pathologically insecure people demanding not merely to be left alone, but to be actively AFFIRMED by everyone in whatever lifestyle choices they've made. Now their self-descriptive alphabet soup would make for a rather strong password, but it's never enough, even though lesbians account for perhaps 2 percent of adult women.
Not just sexual proclivities, either. I've home-schooled and seen it amongst some home schoolers. I'm an organic farmer, and have seen it amongst parts of that crowd, too. Pathological insecurity is the common thread. American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) put it perhaps best ...
“Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are unsure that we are doubly sure.”
they can have girlfriend, but we get gay back
I second the motion. Gay is a merry delight. Also, the Isle of Lesbos called, and they request that transgender females refrain from cultural appropriation.
Queer is strange, peculiar, odd, eccentric.
But what is weird, if not people who stop prostating themselves for a semblance of virtue and electronic bennies to mitigate progress.
Depends on context i imagine
Civil unions for couples, couplets, and all consenting adults. #NoJudgment #NoLabels
This is certainly vital information to someone who cares.
"And you ought to hesitate to use your feelings about your self-expression to impose on how other people speak"
Yes, she ought. But then, the essential prog impulse is to impose on others, and not just speech.
"Why would you want to push people around like that?"
Well, because 1. "you" know better; 2 they're deplorable, and 3. your moral superiority gives you the right, in fact, the duty, to push other people around. Plus, as a prog, you like the pushing around as such.
Wouldnt lover clarify the point you cant object to that can you
Perhaps a response something like: “Well yes, you are special, but not as special as the billion women who use the term daily. I think it would be quite difficult for you to ask each one of them individually if they’d change their speech habits for you, though. Ammirite? I mean, no one in their right mind would do so.”
Is she targeting black women who have traditionally referred to their female friends as "girlfriends"? It seems that there is an acute Diversity layer underlying her judgement and condemnation.
Im trying for the most neutral term
Yesterday I asked a married woman; "Is your girlfriend going with you ?"
Reply was "My friend is coming with me".
I assumed that meant a male friend was going along.
Reading the post makes me realize I never have asked a man if his boyfriend will accompany him. Unless he was gay. The lez question makes sense, I guess.
No singles allowed?
A union of one married to herself? Perhaps a sole parternship would be the more logical construct. For everyone else, in lieu of a union despised, they could be incorporated for tax and other purposes.
I've never heard a good argument that starts with identifying who you are.
"As a lesbian..."
"As a man..."
"As a Russian..."
"As a Democrat..."
It just signifies to me, as a listener, that a bunch of biased shit is about to follow.
Im trying for the most neutral term
My carbon entanglement, but beware Green acolytes lurking at the twilight fringe, waiting to sequester your "burden" for climate progress.
AlbertAnonymous encapsulated my feelings pretty much perfectly.
The comment about how a competent therapist would react is right up there, though.
What a strange game. The only winning move is not to speak.
I've never heard a good argument that starts with identifying who you are.
A prejudicial disclaimer. Case-in-point the albinophobia revealed by wielders of Rainbow banners and rhetoric. What follows is a tainted testimony to selfie. Also, political congruence ("="), but what do we make of BLM? Who doesn't think that Baby Lives Matter? That's just queer, because babies are the weird sisters and brothers of human viability.
Paraphrasing the end of wargames
Blogger rhhardin said...
Marriage (original) meant domestication of M/F grudges, suspicions, fears, needs, desires, and narcissistic postures
There is truth to that...
girlfriend or friend or partner,
"friend of a friend; not a friend of ours,"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxhUhXrLoYghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxhUhXrLoYg
Yep, that line was delivered by Franki Valli of the Four Seasons.
Such projection.
The use of the term girlfriend long predates the lexicon of Lesbianism.
Take the rainbow, take the marital concept..and take the words themselves.
Erasure indeed.
i cringe when people don't use words the way that *I* have decided words should be used!
*I* am the arbiter and decider of ALL things, and ALL MUST CONFORM TO MY WILL!
if you Don't.. you are a homophobe*
homophobe* *I* decided that this word means: someone that does not comform to MY Will
Narayanan said...
How do lesbians know who is straight?
How do lesbians know who is a woman?
This is how I learned it back in the day:
“Friends” were people the girl or woman was friends with.
“Boyfriends” were male romantic partners of various degrees of seriousness, but not married to.
“Boyfriend” was also used very occasionally to indicate a friend of the male persuasion. Mostly by older ladies discussing the friends of the younger females. This was seen as incorrect usage by most.
“Girlfriends” was reserved for their close female friends, I.e., best friends.
These usages seem to have fallen by the wayside.
My first thought was: how weak does one have to be to feel 'erased' by a mere word? Nearly everything I read on the internet has me thinking it isn't worthwhile to talk to anyone. So thankful I work at home as a contractor and am not expected to interact with co-workers.
How do lesbians know who is straight?
They don't drive a Subaru.
To ban Black women from using the word "girlfriend" is clearly racist.
Yes, exactly, exercising liberal license to indulge Diversity (e.g. racism) is a competitive congruence that will normalize adversity, and may unleash a whirling dervish in some parts. Remember the black hole... whore h/t NAACP incident? But profitable.
Sheee's back!
And quite contrary.
Please remember that lesbians rank higher on the woke totem than females in general so they get to make the rules.
My wife’s lesbian friends drive Porsches. My gay friends do too.
YOU cringe?! Welcome to my world.
I don't want go all J.D. Vance but this woman is going the "cat lady" route telling all of us what to do or say. Stop with the nagging already.
If she were male, the appropriate response would be "sod off swampy"!
As a lesbian, I cringe when I hear straight women refer to their platonic friends as 'girlfriends.'"
"This usage feels as if it diminishes the significance of the term within the lesbian community
Eh, lesbians ca go f**k themselves.
(Cue the Beavis and Butthead laughter)
Plenty of people have had girlfriends or boyfriends they courted but didn't have sex with. I did, at least. If girlfriend=sex, what term are they supposed to use? Courtier? Datee?
I grew up hearing my mother's generation call their closest female friends "girlfriend." A casual or new acquaintance was just "friend."
If lesbians own the word now, they plundered it through appropriation and must give it back because those are the new rules. At a minimum, each usage must be preceded by a language acknowledgement statement.
The use of “girlfriend” was language that straight women used to clarify relations for their men. That way you knew if she was going to meet “a friend” it was likely a man
'"This usage feels as if it diminishes the significance of the term within the lesbian community. ...'
Well - God! You should feel diminished, you're a pervert. You want to be left alone, that's fine, no problem. You want to f*ck with the normies - get ready to rumble, then. No sale, Butch.
My German-born and raised Oma, who learned English on the job back before the Great War, used to ask her four grandsons about their boyfriends. There were no female grandkids, but I suppose she would have asked about their girlfriends. In her circles, it meant boy-friend, not boyfriend.
It was embarrassing when she did it in public.
I can't let the number of comments stand at 69, in good conscience.
Dave Begley said...
Don't Black women shout out, "Hey, girlfriend" to their hetro female friends?
To ban Black women from using the word "girlfriend" is clearly racist. Didn't that NYT letter writer think of that?
My initial reaction as well. It's been a few years since I've watched, but at one time every Bravo reality show featuring black women was full of "Hey girrrlllfriend. . .' when greeting each other.
Comedian Ashley Gutermuth, heterosexual spouse of a retired military officer, has a haircut associated with lesbians - high and tight on the sides & back, long on top. She is accused online of "presenting herself as a lesbian." in response, she says, "First, all lesbians are presents." Make of this what you will.
I, for one, like her haircut, and rocked a very similar one myself, with a horrid goatee and 'stache, during the pandemic. When people try to control me, I find going off on a tangent like the one above is a useful technique to sideslip both their attempted control and their general obnoxiousness. Use it as you see fit, and again, lezzie haircuts rock.
How do lesbians know who is a woman?
There are a lot of trans rights activists who insist that it is unethical for lesbians to refuse to go to bed with trans women, penis and all.
Hey, I can say "penis" on this blog!
"This is how I learned it back in the day:... “Boyfriends” were male romantic partners of various degrees of seriousness, but not married to."
This gave me a flashback to the conventional dialogue of the 60s and 70s:
"Is he your boyfriend?
"He's a boy and he's my friend, but he's not my boyfriend."
I cringe when the first thing we are supposed to learn about a person is who they like to fuck.
When a lgbtq says something crazy, it's representative of all of them, when a Trumper say racist shit, it's a individual thing.
When someone refers to someone else as their boyfriend or girlfriend, picturing them having sex isn't even the last thing I do. It's just not a thing I do at all. I don't really picture anything at all. I just integrate a sense that they have some degree of romantic commitment to each other. Unless I think it's a straight girl, then I assume she's talking about a close friend.
Another example of Madison’s “tyranny of the minority”. No one has the right to tell others what they can and cannot say. If the LBGBT group would just accept being treated like everyone else like everyone else does, nobody would give their lifestyle a second thought.
I like "Bunny" for lez gf.
Synonyms for girlfriend
If I am going out with friends...potentially mixed company. If I am going out with girlfriends...that means just women who are friends.
I don't like the term Husband being used by a guy about a guy life partner...MY term to use as a woman for my guy.
I was all for civil unions but I never was in favor of the "gay marriage" but went along with a kind heart...Love is Love...blah, blah, blah.
Gay people need to make up their own terms and quit appropriating relationship descriptions that have been used for centuries. If you are gay and offended by the majority of people on this planet coin your own... Be original. I'll gladly go along with it.
I am so tired of the Alphabet bullies. My good will is evaporating.
whenever a lesbian refers to her lover as her girlfriend, I think she just means her friend. Lesbian should stop doing that since that's actually straight people's word, not gay people's word. They should stop appropriating our words for their own purposes. it's unethical.....
“When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."
--Humpty Dumpty
@Rocco has it right. A hetero girlfriend is more than a Platonic friend. She's special. We will hug and physically comfort each other. We will share private, vulnerable thoughts.
I hate that the lesbians have taken away the innocent intimacy women used to share with their girlfriends. And now they want to corner the emotions, as if only sexual partners have a right to closeness.
Where do I go to register my complaint?
RBS says: "I am so tired of the Alphabet bullies. My good will is evaporating."
Likewise.
That's the thing, people are being bullied but the bullies are claiming they are the victims.
I recently started going swimming at a local gym so I've been affected personally by this craziness. By law in CA anyone can enter any female designated space if they identify as a woman. Men with fully intact genitalia can use the womens' changing area.
One "woman" in the hot tub had a strong 5 o'clock shadow, thick chest hair, and was wearing a bikini top and thong bottom. Genitalia was very obvious. It was quite insane and ridiculous.
But this is the law now and we have to get used to it. Everyone doing their best to not notice.
I thought that young women now refer to their "girl squad" or just "squad".
Which is of course itself an appropriation of a terms from another culture. The Army.
Eh, poor Appiah just wanders into the waves and keeps talking until his head is completely submerged.
The lesbian who wants to police my speech can go pound sand, but what she should do is alert a lifeguard.
"We just want to be able to get married like straight people can. Is that too much to ask?"
How it started, anyway.
Best Feminine Friends (BFFs)
That's just weird.
BFFs are gender inclusive, sex-correlated, and "benefits" agnostic.
So, let me get this straight. If I am talking about a friend and want to specify it’s a woman, I can’t use the term “girlfriend” because it somehow might hurt the feelings of a lesbian. I have to say “female friend” or “woman friend”. Or just not be allowed to indicate she’s a woman and use “friend.” I need a spreadsheet with the rules, please. There are too many for my puny brain. While we are at it, maybe we can add the ubiquitous and now unisex term “guys” to the banned list when addressing a group of women.
Shorter LGBTQ:. “Me, me, look at meeee! I’m spay-shul. I will invent something to be pissed about and. You. Straights. Will. Obey!!!
Tiresome? It’s way past that. Get back in your damned closets if you can’t bring yourselves to stop bothering us.
Yesterday National Girlfriends Day.
My advice to the perturbed lesbian woman:
Get over it. Why does it bother you? Why is it your business? Women have been calling their female friends "girlfriends" for longer than you have lived. You may call your platonic lesbian friends and straight female friends and your romantic female friends whatever distinctive terms you want; straight women have the same right to use their preferred terms for their friends.
Narayanan said...
How do lesbians know who is straight?
All formerly marginalized groups know 1000% everything about non marginalized groups. No ifs, ands, or buts. Lesbians and Gays instantly know who's straight and who's not. Blacks know everything there is to know about White people.
Good Lord! Do you live in a cave or something?
The segment at the bottom of the Ethicist column is worth a read. A woman wants to relitigate arguments that her boyfriend had with his ex, because his description of those arguments made the ex sound sympathetic.
Funny how the LGBTQX find offense at every turn.
Perturbed lesbian needs to find a decent hobby, other than writing complaint letters to NYT Ethicist column. All high and mighty, grammar police, thought patrol.
Note, Harris will soon come-out as gender-fluid, explain her late-in-life marriage to a closeted metrosexual Doug as a politically-expedient move made necessary by her run for California senator.
And Jersey Fled's comment about lesbians rising higher on work totem-pole is spot-on. In my historically prominently-male profession, the lesbians advanced faster, not due to exceptional talent, but rather affirmative-action motives (promote women) with less risk of maternity-leave disruption. Black and brown lesbians were most quickly promoted to "front-desk" face-of-firm positions, regardless of ability to successfully perform in that managerial capacity.
Straight black and brown women, as well as white married women with children (or of child-bearing age) were never promoted beyond workhorse positions tasked with the actual heavy-lifting work.
By this standard, am I allowed to demand that people only use the word "partner" to refer to business partners, or perhaps partners in crime?
My law partner, a male, always felt it necessary to explain that I, another male, was only his business partner. Language can take turns one does not expect.
Almost on topic, just found out Cory Bookers' "boo" , Rosario Dawson came out a couple of years ago.
Cory devastated by break-up and has not had a girlfriend since.
Why is the onus on straight people to change their language, when you're the one who's part of a tiny minority that likes to scissor chicks? You should change YOUR language to accommodate us.
As a heterosexual, I don't give a shit what makes you cringe.
Some minds can only contain one thing.
"She's my girlfriend, no benefits," solves the problem, yes?
GFNB.
If lesbians want a term to differentiate female lover from a good, same sex friend don't try to dictate my language. YOU come up with one.
I offer for your consideration "scissor sister".
Blair I posted w/o seeing your comment. Didn't mean to step on your toes.
"My girlfriends and I are going to the mall."
Lesbian: "I'm excluded! From this orgy at the mall. Oh wait. They must be GFNB. I should alert my friends to this new language so that I am no longer erased. Thank you, word police!"
When I was in Australia, men were always going on about their "mates."
I was like, "holy shit, there's a lot of male mating going on."
But I wrote a letter to the NYT ethicist and my problem was solved.
We don't need no indoctrination, no thought control. Progressive! Leave them kids alone.
Another brick in the wall.
Floyd, Pink Floyd, Fentanyl not included.
Let them bray to whatever transmogrification they entertain. In Stork They Trust.
To any leftist who tells me Trump or any Republican else is weird, I would ask "What is a woman?"
I would ask "What is a woman?"
Such a simple question. And yet, to the left...
Kate said: Where do I go to register my complaint?
I often think about the Wilfred Brimley character's statement in "Absence of Malice",
James J. Wells: [to Megan] I think I know where we're headed here. Before we get there, I want to say something to you: Now, you know and I know that we can't tell you what to print - or what not to. We hope the press will act responsibly. But when you don't, there ain't a helluva lot anybody can do about it.
As I read this over to myself, I thought: besides other lesbians, who cares what lesbians think?
"As I read this over to myself, I thought: besides other lesbians, who cares what lesbians think?"
"The Left"? Or do they just pretend to? I don't know.
Saint Croix said...
"My girlfriends and I are going to the mall."
Lesbian: "I'm excluded! From this orgy at the mall. Oh wait. They must be GFNB. I should alert my friends to this new language so that I am no longer erased. Thank you, word police!"
**************
It's FOMO!!!! Missing out on scissoring!!!! That's so....bonding!!!!
(Who CAN'T relate to that??!!)
tim maguire said...
"Straight women have called female friends "girlfriend" for a lot longer than lesbians have, so if this lesbian is bothered by it, then she's the one in the wrong and needs to stop what she's doing."
So it's cultural appropriation, and enforced Newspeak! Bonus points!
'"This usage feels as if it diminishes the significance of the term within the lesbian community. ...'
My recollection is that the (hetero) normies said something remarkably similar when same sex "marriage" was proposed :
'"This usage feels as if it diminishes the significance of the term within the normie community. ...'
The answer then, as I recall, was - what difference does it make to you ? It doesn't affect you at all.
The other thing is that we humans often want to leave it ambiguous, or at least deniable, as to what the details of the relationship are, or were, or might become, or can be pretended at.
Thus when a guy refers to his friend Lisa, he might mean she's a pal - no romance. Or he might mean she's an acquaintance into whose pants he's hoping to get, unbeknownst to her, or he might mean she's his lover but he's not yet ready to admit it. And so on. It is not the case that the demand is always for clarity. Ambiguity is, and wll always remain, in demand when people are referring to relationships that might or might not involve bodily fluids, or aspirations or fears or pretensions thereto. Not least between the parties in question.
Post a Comment