Free Speech Isn't an Excuse

“I have a right to free speech”

Yes you do.

“Feminism and political correctness are infringing on my freedom of speech”

No they aren’t.

Firstly let’s clear up the technicalities about free speech. In most Western countries, freedom of speech is an accepted right of every citizen, whether written in the US Amendments or implied in the Australian Constitution. It is specifically about your right to speak out against the government, and is essentially the watchdog of governmental censorship.

Governmental censorship.

Governmental.

The right to free speech has nothing to do with your opinions on people, social issues, or your secret affair. It has nothing to do with how either individual people, or society as a whole reacts to your words. Instead, it protects you from governmental persecution for speaking out against them. In countries with free speech laws, we can criticise, protest against, ridicule and defame our governments without fear of being thrown in jail, or mysteriously disappearing one dark and cloudy night. Similarly, the government cannot curtail or manipulate your words through censorship, blackmail or threats.

So hopefully now we have established that the almighty right to free speech exists solely in the political spheres of our lives. Let’s move onto feminism.

With a growing awareness of the oppressions within society, and the gradual emancipation of marginalised groups to speak up about their experiences, we are beginning to reconsider the language we use to discuss social issues. Language is inherently influential, as analysed here, and it comes as no surprise that changing our language is integral to fighting oppression. This very reasonably explains why many feminists aim to create an awareness about the effects of our words, and from there shape social discourse to reflect the end goal of equality. So often people shield problematic opinions with their “right to free speech”, and aside from the fact this shield quite literally doesn’t exist, those opinions can and should be called out in order to further discourse on a topic.

We should be in a position today where instead of being constantly held back by “the devil’s advocate”, we should be able to push our discussions further and further, gradually bringing awareness to more and more issues which have spent literal centuries being silenced. We could never have a powerful and highly respected trans woman receive a prestigious award if we spent all our time having to go back and explain why women are capable of more than cooking and childbearing. It is necessary to push boundaries, because we are most definitely not in a post-oppression society. Refer to the rest of this blog for proof of that one.

And yet often this progress is held back by voices stirring up issues thought to have been left behind in the 70’s. Of course those opinions have a right to exist, but so does criticism of them. In fact, the latter is actually extremely helpful in educating society and shuffling forwards towards the ever elusive post-oppression society.

Even if you wish to argue that this criticism isn’t constructive, there is no denying that criticism of personal or social opinions does not infringe on an individual’s right to free speech.

Being asked to change your language because thousands of people suffer every day from fear and violence because of a history marked by the word “fag” “slut” “n*gger” “trannie” is not reflective of an Orwellian government, and hence does not come anywhere near your free speech.

Being educated on the impacts of microaggressions and being advised to avoid inflicting them does not stump your political right to critiquing the government.

There are many ways to define privilege. One of them is:

Privilege is being in a position where requests from marginalised people to respect and acknowledge their oppression is an inconvenience. 

xx Hannah

Language is Powerful

Why are those damn SJW's always nagging about the words we use? I mean honestly, why do they always demand we never say things that are just verbal ticks, like "slut", "n*gga", "that's so gay"? Why do they think they have the right to attack us for the expressions we use, or the jokes we make?

Because language is significant. It has the power to both create and deconstruct oppression, and we need to be conscious of they way we communicate and the subtle effects of our words. That's why.

Firstly let's characterise what I mean by "language". In any discussion about oppressive vocabulary, the argument usually works off an understanding of the mechanisms and impact of language in human society. Without going too meta-postmodern-etymologic-philosophical-theory, we need to consider that society was conceptually built with words; this explains why humans have a more complex social structure than other species who have less sophisticated forms of communication. It is this communication that creates the expectation and mores of modern society (by modern I mean post cave-people era). The vocabulary we use has a specific purpose to communicate meaning with other people, and to create or consolidate social norms which we construct to live communally.

Basically, words have meaning because they are tools of communication, and communication collectively establishes social expectation and norms. So it makes little sense to claim that words are empty, and they only carry the meaning an individual chooses to place in it. The word "slut" is not harmless because you as an individual chose to make it so; it is inherently associated with the patriarchal paradigm of sex because society collectively established this when it chose to use those four letters to communicate disgust at female sexuality.

Alright, so words are largely slave to their connotations regardless of contextual use, but why is it so important to monitor our personal languages?

What we need to achieve is a safe space for oppressed and marginalised people to express their experiences, feelings and perspective on issues that affect them. When people argue that reverse racism/sexism etc. exists because there is no true reason to differentiate between "prejudice" and "oppression", rather than loyally serving the holy English language they are actually denying oppressed people a space to express themselves. If we do not recognise a difference between "discrimination/prejudice" and "oppression/--ism", we block any marginalised person from being able to describe their experiences of disadvantage caused by a power majority. For example, if an African American person was denied a job opportunity because their natural hair was deemed inappropriate for the workplace, they would say they were a victim of racism. However if we established that there is no different connotation between "racism" and "prejudice", a white person who was denied a job based on their race (unlikely) could also say they were oppressed by racism. But this erases the collective experience of black people who exist under and institutionalised expectation that black people are less intelligent and less valuable to the workforce than white people. Both people in this scenario were unfairly treated and discriminated against, but by giving different connotations to be assigned to "discrimination" and "racism", we allow the black person to express their experiences within a wider context of oppression, as opposed to erasing this background by viewing their rejection as being "the same situation" as their white counterpart.

Jokes also need to be monitored, as humour is often used as an excuse for blatant oppressive language. The joke about the Japanese tourist is not funny because it is an example of quality humour, it is funny because we have been conditioned to view Asian stereotypes as ridiculous and laughable. The joke about the woman who can't fix her car isn't funny because of its clever wit, it is funny because we view women as ditsy, dumb, helpless and unskilled at "masculine" activities, and it plays on those assumptions. By telling these jokes, we enforce that process of communication outlined above. If we use language to perpetuate oppressive tropes, even if we don't mean to be offensive, we validate oppression by using our words to communicate the legitimacy of these tropes.

We need to make a space within language for gay people to express their identities without it being associated with something negative ("oh man, that's so gay!"). We need to make a space within language for women to speak about their experiences with sexism. We need to make a space within language for People of Colour to embrace their cultures without it being appropriated and bastardised.

And we need to give that language respect.

xx

Hannah