Let me begin by saying this: I cannot stand Sarah Palin. I think she is ignorant, unintelligent, incapable of using the English language, egotistical, irresponsible, hateful and horribly misguided on so many levels. All of her wounds have been almost entirely self-inflicted, no matter how much she blames the media. I find it hard to believe that anyone still thinks she could be a candidate for Prez. I found it baffling even before this incident.
That being said, there is something about many opinion pieces and comments that I find disconcerting: the use of the phrase "this woman," as in "this woman is so ignorant" and other things along these lines. Something about it strikes me as sexist. I can't recall seeing the phrase "this man" used very often when referring to male politicians (unless in the context of a sex scandal I suppose). So why do people use it to refer to Sarah Palin (or Hillary Clinton etc)?
Is it because there are so few women in politics? Is it because people find this behavior more intolerable or more unexpected from a woman? I mean, we all know that Sarah Palin is a woman, right? Why do we need to be reminded like that? When criticizing Barack Obama do you say "this man" or "this African-American" or "this black man"? I didn't think so. So why do people refer to Sarah Palin as "this woman"?
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Mungular
Ed Nachtrieb
Verbal Remedy AKA Denise
LuisG
Behind Blue Eyes
1_Irritated_Mother
Salon.com
Comments
Awhile back, there was a big change in reporting when, at least in my town, the "race" of perpetrators and victims of crime began to be withheld more regularly. "This person" or "this individual" ends up in my writing pretty regularly.
This guy
This man
This woman
This girl
This teenager
This queer (gay man doesn't work as well, nor does homosexual)
This idiot
This black guy (couldn't get the spit nails phenomenon for the term African-American--shows respect and disrespect at once)
This Mexican
Yup, read like this and they all sound pretty ugly.
Try it with "a" or "an" instead of "this":
A guy
A man
A woman
A girl
A teenager
A queer
An idiot
A black guy
An African-American
A Mexican or a(n) Hispanic
So it seems to me as if the word "this" does sound a little disparaging but is made much more disturbing combined with a word that can be used disrespectfully (whether it was intended or not) create a double whammy.
This discussion brought something else up in my mind. It took me many years to accept and use the word "woman." We were all girls for the longest time, and some aspired to being ladies. Woman wasn't used much and sounded very awkward. I imagine many people still struggle with this one.
Lots of great discussion on language and power/discrimination here this week.