Unfair to the female

[johnriley1uk]

We were mulling over some derogatory terms as applied to people, and found lots of examples that applied to the female, such as:

Brazen Strumpet
Slovenly Trull
Crone
Hag

But we were totally stumped when it came to any that referred specifically to the male...

I know you can help..... :?

[Fez]

you forgot about:

wench
harpy
slag
slut
whore
thatcher

male alternatives...er

mick hucknal?

well, id be offended

[mr_e]

Possibly:

tosser
wanker
dick(head)
prick
schmuck
cock
paedo (ooh, controversial)

But it seems that there are certainly less invectives for men. Would it be too much to think that that's because we don't need to be cursed as much, what with us being really good at everything?

[Claire]

Ooooooh, this is the perfect thread for me, having "studied" such matters as an undergraduate! Anyhoo, i refer - in a civilised and educated fashion - to "Language and Cultural Theory" wot i studied at uni, specifically The Semantic Derogation of Women by Muriel R. Schulz; very enlightening really, given that it delineates what most of us already know: women suffer at the hands of pejorative language more than men do:

An analysis of the language used by men to discuss and describe women reveals something about male attitudes, fears, and prejudices concerning the female sex. Again and again in the history of the language, one finds that a perfectly innocent term designating a girl or woman may begin with totally neutral or even positive connotations, but that gradually it acquires negative implications, at first perhaps only slightly disparaging, but after a period of time becomig abusive and ending as a sexual slur.

Men: knob(head); women: tart, tramp, hussie, bitch, dog, cow, bint???

There are a couple of other words that i could suggest for men but I wonder why is it that the rudest and crudest word(s) are feminine in origin but would be used - primarily - to slander the male of the species?

I read another interesting article at uni, called Naming of Parts by Deborah Cameron, which refers to a survey where a male group and a female group were asked to come up with alternative names for the penis. the men thought of 144 different terms in 30 minutes; the women thought of 50. Quel surprise?!

We also did about phallicism in language, even looking at phrases like 'onwards and upwards'!!!

[johnriley1uk]

I had a feeling that most of the words deriding men related to performance whereas most of those deriding women related to appearance thus relating to the basic insecurities of the two sexes.

Thanks especially to Claire for a very interesting post.

[mr_e]

...a perfectly innocent term designating a girl or woman may begin with totally neutral or even positive connotations, but that gradually it acquires negative implications...

Claire, do you have any examples of these words that began with positive connotations? I can't think of any for the life of me, but I'm genuinely interested. And are there any authors that investigate the use of phrases referring to men?

John, you'll find a lot of those words also relate to promiscuity, possibly another thing men are most insecure about?

It'd be interesting to see, as far as the words applying to women go, if this was a response to the risk of cuckolding, as the possibility occurred more often with denser populations, a sort of behavioural conditioning through language if you like. Even better, did such phrases exist in pagan societies, where women were typically revered as givers of life and held a more equal position (so I hear)?

[Claire]

I think the problem with derogatory terms for men and those for women is that it's socially acceptable for a man to be promiscuous whereas it is not for a woman; thus stud cf. slut.

Mr e to answer your question i'll quote Schultz again:

The term used to denote a semantic change whereby a word acquires debased or obscene reference is pejoration, and its opposite is amelioration.

So, basically, the feminine words undergo pejoration. And examples given are:

We might conceivably, and without affront, call the Queen's Equerry a courtier, but would we dare refer to her lady-in-waiting as a courtesan? Sir and Master seem to have come down through time as titles of courtesy without taint. However, Madam, Miss, and Mistress have all derogated, becoming euphemisms respectively for "a mistress of a brothel," "a prostitute", and " a woman with whom a man habitually fornicates."
[...]
Terms for domestics are also more subject to pejoration if they denote females. Hussy derives from Old English huswif "housewife" and at one time meant simply "the female head of the house".

The Schulz paper goes on to explain the pejoration of: tart, minx, nymph, broad, floozie, hag, cow. Words like slut or slattern were first used to describe women "negligent of appearance" but were further pejorated to mean "promiscuous".

Anyhoo, needless to say i find this topic interesting but i've got work to do...one final question...don't you think it's indicative of social standards that there's no (need) for a masculine equivalent of "nympho"...oh, this is really weird, i'm listening to Radio 1 and Nelly Furtardo literally sang "move your body round like a nympho" on Maneater, as i typed that last sentence. I love it when that happens! Does that ruin my intellectual facade?

[Mike]

Nope it just means you have a wide variety of sources!

[mr_e]

Thanks for the explanation, Claire. It's always fun to see how the English language has changed to reflect a more patriarchal society, fairly dynamic really, but no doubt we'll still be stuck with the lovely phrases above for a while yet.

We really could do with moving back to a more balanced society (not just in male-female equality terms either), and, on the surface at least, we appear to be progressing. However, could the continuing use of those perjoratives be telling us that underlying attitudes have a long way to go? Or are our attitudes shaped by the existing language that has been left to us (omg, cyclical system, brain overload)?