Are we abusing our language?

Me: “Tom boy is harmful?”

Professor: “Yes, it is.”

Me: “Because it categorizes a set of characteristics derived from a boy, to a girl?”

Professor: “Yes.”

Me: “I could see that. But I don’t know if that’s what it is intended to do. I don’t feel it’s meant in any derogatory manner.”

Professor: “It’s another attempt to keep men in power and in control.”

In my mind: “Okay… now you lost me.”

This was a quasi-organic conversation hosted by my diversity class several years ago. I feel diversity training, as many people who know me know, goes completely off the rails more often than not these days. Instead of learning about other cultures, being exposed to documentaries, art, ethnographic accounts, essays, film, etc., like we used to be, diversity training has become the "recognize" your privilege training. It asks individuals to reach into the pile of resentment, that oozing mass, only to emerge with some grease-covered grievance of the day. Men are trying to keep women down was that day's lesson…

Peering around the room, I saw a sea of faces, a majority female. Only one other classmate and I identified as males. We were the only men present. My classmates, each chimed in with their thoughts on the term “Tom-Boy”. One even announced with pride that she had been called as such, as a girl, beaming ear-to-ear. She must have been recollecting a positive association with it because she went on to say that she didn’t think it was ever utilized in a bad way. My professor vehemently disagreed. The person in power was setting the tone. She was making the claims.

Why did my professor feel that this term, was being used to stifle women? Was it because the association behind it marked some sort of perceived “irregularity” that a girl might display classically, and therefore defined what is normative amongst the genders? I guess I could buy that. But once she took the word to be a word of authoritarian power… well that’s when we skidded into disagreement.

You see, this word, like so many others, finds its origins in attempts at classification. Of this, I have little doubt. However, we have to take into account the context in which this word manifested. It came about at a time that gender norms were highly stratified. In fact, originally it described traits of rambunctious boys. But I must say, I think the word actually was one that was meant to liberate girls in a time when liberation was hard to come by. Yes, it put the normed behaviors of boys on girls in a superficial manner. But it also allowed these girls to engage openly with their male counterparts in activities that they would not have been allowed to do regularly if their behaviors were not explained by way of a label. It also provided girls, who noticed their interests were somewhat dissimilar to their same-gender peers a home, perhaps rather inclusively. Again, context is key here. The word evolved, and so too did its usage over time. This is a natural progression. That is how language works.

As times change, so too should we. The word really doesn’t fit in a modern-day, fluid, attempt-at-utopia. Because today, we try not to assign certain patterns of behaviors to either sex or gender. However, keep in mind, certain subsets of behaviors are assigned to genders because on the margin they are pervasive amongst that group. Those who dislike this perspective typically see the world as socially constructed primarily, seeing gender as wholly differentiated from biological sex. As in, if there were no gender norms more gender-specific behaviors would be seen across the board. To some extent, that's probably true. But the constructivist argument, taken to its extreme, leaves out biological predisposition, and personality differences in its wake of socialization panic.

A modern-day “tom-boy,” exhibiting all the traits this term suggests, is likely still on the tail end of a distribution of interests. And so too was a classic “tom-boy”. For those who are not statistically inclined, the tail end of a distribution simply means the end of a bell curve on a graph. That’s where fewer numbers amongst a category theoretically exist and where we find our extremes, also known as outliers.?That doesn't mean stereotypic interests can't co-exist with the interests this label conveys.

So again, tomboy… a word that labels behaviors that we wish to assign to a gender, and eclipse said behaviors over another group. Okay, yes, I can get behind that possibility. However, an attempt, in modern-day form, to subjugate girls and women, by way of elevating men? I’m sorry professor… I don't think so, especially when subjective interpretation and self-identification are involved.

For me, the term is one of endearment. It allows me to know which girl might share a common interest with me. It also breeds a sense of familiarity, where one can interact with the opposite sex, feeling as though there is less of a breach in decorum. A “tomboy” is a girl with whom I can be best friends, not someone a man would control for frivolous reasons. They are someone I can share more parts of myself with. It’s a label that expresses, “Hey we can both let our hair down.” Another phrase, I’m sure that carries with it some negative weight to someone.

Again, if you reach into the mud, you’re gonna come up with bugs. Looking for a way in which a term can be deemed a harbinger of disenfranchisement, is like telling yourself to look around the room for a specific color. If I say look around the room for blue. Chances are, unless you are truly averse to blue, you are going to find it.

Our language is fluid, it changes. Just because our social norms change, doesn’t mean we have to arrest the entire enterprise of the linguistic territory. Some words should go out of style, that is true. They are outdated. Some go out of style for arbitrary reasons as well or by some analogous process of natural selection. Society as a whole chooses what words those should be, over time. By osmotic interactions, not by force. And some words, needn’t be tampered with. Once we go around burning words like we would books, we enter into a realm of hostility, resentment and holier-than-though focus. Which will leave us all, inevitably, dumbfounded and mute. Some things should be left to a natural progression.