Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Today's Trivial Thought Which Will Bring Feminism Down



Note how we always write "men, women and children?" Always in that order, and what you say with that order has become invisible. Try changing it to "women, children and men," say, and note how suddenly you are stressing the first word in the list and you wonder why men are less important than the other two groups.

The original statement is not just a statement with words which could be presented in a different order without changing its meaning. The original statement really means menANDtheirwomenandchildren. That's how we see the world. At the same time the fact that we see it like that is invisible. Even someone like me pointing it out is irritating and will bring feminism down. That's because words are trivial and should be ignored, even if they teach us something about this weird planet.