Words and their power

I sometimes wonder if we take the power of the words we use seriously enough.  When I say 'power' I mean, mostly, that I believe the  words we use affect the very essence of how we perceive the world in which we live and therefore affect all our relationships and activities. Here, my particular interest has to do with the use of gender specific words.

Take for instance, the Hebrew and Christian scriptures we know of as the Bible. In those scriptures the almost total use of masculine words for God has left us with an image of God that has permeated our psyches. God can only be male (even though most people know that God is neither male nor female ). In a very real sense this apparently unquestioned (until relatively recently) attribution has had the effect of making male the standard for human perfection. 

One modern(ish) biblical scholar (Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza) points this out very succinctly when she says, For the western understanding and linguistic expression of reality, male existence is the standard of human existence. 

She later says, The issue of androcentric language has received much attention in the past several years. The biblical texts as they are read by individuals or heard in the liturgy of the church perpetuate the male bias and exclusiveness of our own culture and language.

That is just a taste of what I mean about the power of words. In this instance I am using the Bible as an example because it has influenced western human history more profoundly than any other book. But if you think we now live in a society in which women are equals of men and that this kind of use of language is now history maybe it is worth pondering further.  

Look how often 'exclusive' language is used in the books, magazines and newspapers you read. Some people say of course, that 'he', 'brother', and especially, 'men' refer equally to both men and women so what's the problem? Do they? Why should they? Does the use of such exclusive language for the standard of humanity not subtly affect our perceptions of women?

If we think women are now equally well valued in our society take a look sometime at how many women are found on the special obituary pages of newspapers - take a survey over a week. There are probably 5 or 6 men to every woman and the women are often referred to because they were somebody's wife. Or, how often are articles and photographs of women sexualised or trivialized? ( I took a little survey of the Huffington Post and almost the only time the activities of Michelle Obama were mentioned, the reference was to what she wore).

This perhaps sounds too much like a rant, but just think about our young women and what they are taught to value in themselves and ask yourself: is this the best we can do for them?