I've been hearing a lot lately about reclaiming words.
The first time in the past few days has been in the context of the word "squaw". I thought that was interesting enough.
Then, when I was on Facebook I stumbled across some Facebook groups surrounding the reclaiming of the word "queer".
And because of my work I am constantly hearing about the reclaiming of "nigger".
Along with these words there are many others that are attempting to be brought back to the mainstream.
And this got me thinking about the whole reclaiming process. I guess the idea is that a minority group, whether they be women, people of colour, immigrants or whatever, takes a word that has been used to hurt, belittle and keep them down and turns it around. It makes words that used to be offensive now something to be proud of. It makes words their own. It also makes it perfectly alright for the minority to use the word, but completely inappropriate for anyone who doesn't belong to that group to use.
This is where it gets sticky for me, for a variety of reasons.
Firstly, I find something very disingenuous about reclaiming words. Imagine that the movement of people try to reclaim a word is one person. It is my belief that that person needs therapy. I think we need to examine our need to take these words back. These hurtful, disgusting words. Why do we want to use them so badly? My difficulty with this question is that I keep imagining a kid who is being picked on and to spite a bully we stoop to their level. Maybe that's just me.
Think about the motivation behind reclaiming a word. Let's take the word "cunt" for instance. This word is linked to begin with Chaucer in his writings. To make a long story short it has travelled from 1700s to today. And it's always been a word that is hurtful to women. In the past few years there has been a movement to reclaim this word. Make this word suitable for women to use to describe their...area. The idea behind this reclaiming (as it is behind much of reclaiming any words) is that to reclaim the word is to remove the power associated with it. Unfortunately the word "cunt" is still used to insult women. On a daily basis.
My basis for this argument that this particular word cannot be reclaimed also lies in the fact that there is no male equivalent for this word. There is no word for a man's...area that is as shocking or hurtful.
So when it comes to reclaiming words, is it possible to be vulgar without being derogatory?
I can appreciate the attention grabbing factor of these words. The do grab your attention. But kind of in the same way a Michael Moore movie grabs your attention. It shocks you, but you're in such shock that the message that is trying to be sent goes right over your head. You're still reeling from this word. I can only imagine what some people may think about when they see this entry...
I guess my real difficulty is that these words that are trying to be taken back shouldn't have ever showed up in the first place. And maybe, just maybe, getting rid of these words all together would be best for everyone.
