The other day I was checking out my High Priestesses' blog and I re-read a post she made quite some time ago about unintentional misogynistic language. For the record, I do agree with her. A lot of the language we use can be very damaging; uses of the words pussy, retarded, etc. But that's not what I'm really going to talk about here; Lady Jesamyn's post is more than adequate regarding word usage. The languaging that I'm going to talk about here is phraseology.
Something I grew up with was when I did something out of the ordinary I got "What the hell's the matter with you!?" as if when I was not "normal" there was something wrong with me. If what I did was not good, it was "What the hell possessed you to do that!?" as if what I did was so bad, I was possessed by something/someone other than myself in order to be able to do it. This has left me with some serious lingering issues.
Phrasing such as this implies that there is truly something wrong with the person for them making the choice they did, and any mental conditions aside, simply asking "why did you do that" or "what prompted you to make that choice" is much less inflammatory and will get you to the root of the problem much quicker.
Words are damaging. I personally really, really hate that little childhood jingle "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." I hate this jingle because as someone who suffered emotional abuse, words have hurt me very much and even through my adolescent years I'd hear this running through my mind and I'd feel like something was wrong with me for me allowing words to hurt me so very much.
Today I was doing laundry and I was sitting down in the laundry room and a young-ish mom (could have been anywhere between 22 and 28) came in with her little girl (maybe 5-6 yrs). The little girl tried to help and instead of saying "No thanks honey I don't need help right now" or some variant this mother immediately goes "Get out of my way!! You're in my way!!"
This phraseology is so damaging. It's hurtful, it's dangerous. It begins, or continues, patterns of hurtful, damaging even abusive phrasing, languaging and verbal behavior. It causes self esteem issues, self image issues, confidence issues even depression and other emotional issues.
In the end all we need to do is recognize that other people's feelings are authentic and then we just need to take an extra second or two to think about what we are saying. We will never, ever be able to know what will hurt someone as we all have different experiences and some people can be triggered by non-typical triggering things. So... ya know what you do? You just apologize and don't say it again! Learn and grow as a person.
Words are damaging. I personally really, really hate that little childhood jingle "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." I hate this jingle because as someone who suffered emotional abuse, words have hurt me very much and even through my adolescent years I'd hear this running through my mind and I'd feel like something was wrong with me for me allowing words to hurt me so very much.
This phraseology is so damaging. It's hurtful, it's dangerous. It begins, or continues, patterns of hurtful, damaging even abusive phrasing, languaging and verbal behavior. It causes self esteem issues, self image issues, confidence issues even depression and other emotional issues.
In the end all we need to do is recognize that other people's feelings are authentic and then we just need to take an extra second or two to think about what we are saying. We will never, ever be able to know what will hurt someone as we all have different experiences and some people can be triggered by non-typical triggering things. So... ya know what you do? You just apologize and don't say it again! Learn and grow as a person.
Oh yeah, sometimes I have felt if what I said was the proper thing to say, or feel concerned if I said something wrong.
ReplyDeleteYea, people really need to start respectfully, tactfully and kindly saying things like "that really hurt me please phrase it differently" or whatever. Communication has really degraded in this modern age.
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