Once a month, I share some of what I’ve been reading.
After a whistleblower complaint last week, the White House released a so-called ‘transcript’ of a phone call between the US and Ukrainian presidents. It’s clear for many reasons that ‘transcript’ is an inaccurate label — and my wonderful colleagues explained why #NotATranscript is important.
Also last week, a group of 16 teenagers from around the globe petitioned the UN’s Committee on the Rights of the Child about climate change. One of those children, Greta Thunberg of Sweden, has been getting most of the media attention. We can, and should, be talking about white femininity and the reasons why she has become the face of this movement. We also can and should be talking about the sexist and ableist ways she’s been dismissed.
- Camilla Nelson: “This infantilisation is invariably accompanied by accusations of emotionality, hysteria, mental disturbance, and an inability to think for herself – stereotypically feminine labels which are traditionally used to silence women’s public speech, and undermine their authority.”
- Deborah Cameron: “Strident is one of a number of code-words which have become covertly gendered because of the way they’re most commonly used.”
- Anna North: “Thunberg may be experiencing especially strong stigma from the right because she’s not just autistic, but also female.”
Among Merriam Webster’s latest round of updates, they’ve included singular they. And a bunch of people got upset about it, perhaps because they don’t understand how dictionaries make these judgments. As Deborah Cameron notes, “If enough speakers of the language have adopted a new word or meaning, descriptive accuracy requires it to be included.”
Everyday linguistic anthropology 