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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mom never told you. From how supports

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen

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Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline, or should I say hey ladies, Welcome

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Speaker 1: to the podcast. Hey ladies, ladies. We are going to

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Speaker 1: talk about ladies, ladies, ladies today as we well, we

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Speaker 1: always talk about ladies. We always talk about ladies, but

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Speaker 1: today we're actually talking about calling you ladies. And if

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Speaker 1: if that's okay, is that okay? I hope it's okay,

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Speaker 1: because hey, ladies, is what our sminty tote bags say. So, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, if if we can't, then I'm going to

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Speaker 1: have to. We're gonna have to make some holes in

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Speaker 1: some tote bags, I know. And then it won't tote anything.

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Speaker 1: We'll only tote very small things or one large thing.

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Speaker 1: They won't slip through exactly. But anyway, but anyway, this

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Speaker 1: topic came from a listener letter, which once we read it,

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Speaker 1: we were like, oh my god, this is a great

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Speaker 1: topic of conversation. Why haven't we talked about this before.

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Speaker 1: It was a listener writing in saying that she finds

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Speaker 1: herself calling referring to herself and to her friends who

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Speaker 1: are girls or girlfriends as ladies, and how she knows

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Speaker 1: that her second wave feminist mother would be horrified by

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Speaker 1: the thought. She's saying that growing up in her household,

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Speaker 1: lady and especially lady like were bad words, Oh for sure.

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Speaker 1: And I and I totally get that the whole, the

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Speaker 1: whole explanation around that kind of generational difference. I know,

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Speaker 1: my mother, who was part of No Wave, uh, calls

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Speaker 1: herself a girl, calls her friends girls. I mean, she's

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Speaker 1: in her you know, she's in her mid sixties. But

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Speaker 1: what about lady lady? No, I do definitely use the

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Speaker 1: term lady. I think of it as a term of endearment,

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Speaker 1: and I totally get that it probably has ironic roots

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Speaker 1: among our generation. But yeah, I totally use the word lady.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of a term of endearment. Yeah. And there's

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Speaker 1: been a lot of talk of this resurgence of lady

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Speaker 1: and ladies, particularly among our generation of women. You have

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Speaker 1: Lady Gaga, for instance, two thousand and eight, the Beyonce

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Speaker 1: single All the Single Ladies, which will now be stuck

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Speaker 1: in my head for the rest of the day. Then

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Speaker 1: there's more recently the Book of Jezebel, which is subtitled

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Speaker 1: the Encyclopedia of Lady Things, and over at the New

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Speaker 1: Republic there is the journalist and freedman who posits that

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Speaker 1: lady the word lady, the term is kind of serving

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Speaker 1: the purpose of filling that limbo space between girlhood and womanhood.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it's a softer term. It's more all encompassing for

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Speaker 1: our generation, and it fits well with the Britney Spears

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Speaker 1: two thousand two songs, Uh not a girl, not yet

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Speaker 1: a woman? Well yeah? And also think about for guys,

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Speaker 1: they have guys. You don't have to say, choose between

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Speaker 1: calling a group of adult males boys or men, or

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Speaker 1: boys to men. But whereas with adult women in particular,

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Speaker 1: you have the more formal women. And it does feel

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Speaker 1: formal to say hello women, yeah, even though that's proper.

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Speaker 1: But at the same time, girls can be infantilizing, particularly

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Speaker 1: if it's not a girlfriend you're talking to, right, And

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Speaker 1: I do have to make a conscious effort to try

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Speaker 1: to stay away from saying girls, or I was hanging

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Speaker 1: out with this girl, or oh I know this girl.

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Speaker 1: It's just it's second nature. It just comes out of

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Speaker 1: my mouth like that. And I and I absolutely recognized

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Speaker 1: that I should get away from that, and so in

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Speaker 1: a way, lady helps out. It's sort of the the

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Speaker 1: female analog to guy. But let's go back in time.

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Speaker 1: Let's unload this very old and loaded term that is lady,

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Speaker 1: because we'll lead up to why people of say, our

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Speaker 1: our listeners mother's generation, who went through the women's literation

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Speaker 1: movement might not take so kindly to ladies. Right. I

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Speaker 1: love I love etymology in general, but I love the

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Speaker 1: origins of the word lady. Okay, So it emerges around

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Speaker 1: the year twelve hundred from the old English term meaning quote,

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Speaker 1: mistress of a household, wife of a lord. Okay, that

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Speaker 1: makes sense, right, But it's literally taken from the word

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Speaker 1: for a woman who needs bread, also loaf eater. And

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Speaker 1: of course I immediately saw that were like woman who

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Speaker 1: needs requires bread because she likes the tasty snack, not

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Speaker 1: needing as in massaging the dough with your hands. When

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Speaker 1: I told dude roommate about that, he was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: who needs it like loves bread And I was no

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Speaker 1: pushing it around with your hand. All the side note

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Speaker 1: on how delicious bread is and women's shoes with bread

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Speaker 1: these days, Oh lord, I know with my thyroid stuff

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Speaker 1: that I'm trying to cut back on gluten and it

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Speaker 1: is a tragedy. Yeah, maybe that's another episode bread ladies

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Speaker 1: and bread and ladies and Christans. Um. Yeah, I I

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Speaker 1: really love that image of women historically just hanging around

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Speaker 1: massaging balls of dough. Uh. But then once you get

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Speaker 1: into the early fourteenth century, there's a chivalry twist on it,

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Speaker 1: so you have lady implying a woman as an object

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Speaker 1: of chivalrous love. And the fifteen eighties that's when we

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Speaker 1: see the term lady like emerge. So we can we

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Speaker 1: can pin a lot of bad things to the fifteen eighties. Uh.

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Speaker 1: In seventeen eighty four the term ladies man emerges, Hello

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Speaker 1: the old ladies man. And then by the late eighteen hundreds,

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Speaker 1: lady has been commonly adopted as a term of address

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Speaker 1: for a woman, and its specifically though suggests quote a

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Speaker 1: woman whose manners and sensibilities befit her for high rank

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Speaker 1: in society. So there's a lot tied up with lady

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Speaker 1: in terms of class, social rank, and even implied among

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Speaker 1: that talking about race as well, right and background. This

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Speaker 1: time in Ladies Home Journal looks into this issue and

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Speaker 1: decrees that woman meant merely an adult female of the

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Speaker 1: human race, Lady meant someone wellborn and consequently well bred.

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Speaker 1: In other words, lady grew to mean a woman plus education, refinement, dignity,

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Speaker 1: and culture. And so from that people who might think, well,

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Speaker 1: what's wrong with lady? What wouldn't what woman wouldn't want

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Speaker 1: to be considered an educated, refined, culturally astute woman lady, Well,

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Speaker 1: probably women who don't want to be pigeonholed and forced

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Speaker 1: to act in a certain way. Yeah, because that's the thing.

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Speaker 1: If you think about agency in lady and how that's

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Speaker 1: constructed being lady, like I imagine a woman sitting with

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Speaker 1: her hands in her lap and her ankles crossed. Whereas

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Speaker 1: if you look, for instance, at lord, the you know,

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Speaker 1: the male analog to lady, it's very active. It literally

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Speaker 1: means going back to the dough kneading and all these

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Speaker 1: bread bread words. It literally comes from a word meeting

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Speaker 1: one who guards the loaves. So the lords are doing

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Speaker 1: the loaf guarding and the ladies are doing the loaf

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Speaker 1: needing and eating. I love it. Yeah, but yeah, so

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Speaker 1: so you can see right there that there is an

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Speaker 1: active role in a more passive submissive role tied up

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Speaker 1: in this whole lady business. Um and Elizabeth read Boyd

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Speaker 1: in her book Lady Still a feminist four letter word

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Speaker 1: highlights the double bind basically of being put up on

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Speaker 1: a pedestal and yet still expected to be that submissive character. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Linguists Robin Lakeoff, who we said it before in the podcast,

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Speaker 1: wrote a paper all about this in nineteen five called

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Speaker 1: Language and Women's Place, and it comes up a lot

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Speaker 1: this paper does in this conversation around women in more

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Speaker 1: of a feminist context, because Lakeoff writes, quote, if she

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Speaker 1: refuses to talk like a lady, she's ridiculed and subjected

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Speaker 1: to criticism as unfeminine. If she does learn, she is

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Speaker 1: ridiculed as unable to think clearly, unable to take part

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Speaker 1: in the serious discussions in some sense, as fully less

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Speaker 1: than human, right exactly. And she also points out that

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Speaker 1: the word lady is tied into job titles that uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, traditionally are more blue collar. Uh, and this,

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Speaker 1: she says, underscores their low status things like cleaning ladies,

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Speaker 1: garbage ladies, lunch ladies, et cetera. And she says, hey,

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Speaker 1: there is no there's no equivalent for men. You don't

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Speaker 1: have a garbage gentleman. Right, you just have a garbageman, garbageman,

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Speaker 1: John Garbageman, John Garbageman, or a salesman. So this is

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Speaker 1: one of the main reasons that this more recent reclamation

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Speaker 1: of lady by millennials. And we'll talk to this this

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Speaker 1: actually isn't as new as we might think, um, but

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Speaker 1: this reclamation of lady is upsetting to second waivers, some

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Speaker 1: second waivers at least like Robin Lakeoff, because in the

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Speaker 1: pursuit of women's rights and gender equality in the nineteen

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Speaker 1: six season seventies, part of that was actively striving to

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Speaker 1: get rid of the term lady. They did not want

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Speaker 1: to be referred to as ladies because of all of

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Speaker 1: those passive connotations, right. And Lakeoff was quoted in stories

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Speaker 1: about this recently, and you know, they were like, well,

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Speaker 1: you wrote all this stuff about language about women. You know,

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Speaker 1: what do you think about this this upsurge in calling

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Speaker 1: women ladies or women calling each other that? And she said,

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Speaker 1: I you know, its alarm bells go off. It's it's

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Speaker 1: something that in my generation we always considered considered it

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Speaker 1: a problem. We had to overcome it, we had to

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Speaker 1: get rid of that word. And now our daughters and

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Speaker 1: granddaughters are throwing it around basically, right. She was basically saying,

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Speaker 1: if you have been around forty years ago and walked

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Speaker 1: in our shoes and bell bottoms, you'd get what we're

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Speaker 1: talking about. Gloria Steinham also has been quoted as talking

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Speaker 1: about how she has a fear of quote unquote looking

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Speaker 1: lady like. It's like one of one of the worst

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Speaker 1: possible things Um and then interviewing feminist writer Catha Polite

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Speaker 1: for her new Republic Peace and Freedman, quotes are saying

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Speaker 1: that ladies like lady parts, lady, business, lady writer, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: Started out as quite humorous and ironic, but overuse has

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Speaker 1: made it cliched and affected. I don't know, do you agree.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's definitely everywhere, But I mean

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Speaker 1: Catha Polite is another person of like Robin lake offf

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Speaker 1: and Lord Asygnum's generation who has been around to see

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Speaker 1: this evolution of lady from being a mantle that they

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Speaker 1: cast off actively to being one that you and I

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Speaker 1: now casually adopt. Right, But I'm wondering, like I wonder

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Speaker 1: if we can think of this in a parallel way

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Speaker 1: to remember when we did our episode on up speak,

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Speaker 1: you know, and how both men and women of kind

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Speaker 1: of all ages, but really of kind of older generations

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Speaker 1: look at that as a an immature way of young

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Speaker 1: women and younger generations speaking, even though it's not really

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Speaker 1: confined to just young women. I wonder if it's being

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Speaker 1: dismissed as affected or clich because younger women have embraced

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Speaker 1: the use of the word lady, right, because I can

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Speaker 1: understand how using lady and up speak all the time

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Speaker 1: can seem like maybe it's undercutting yourself. There you go,

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Speaker 1: You see what I'm saying. But I do think there

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Speaker 1: are still some holdovers, lady holdovers that could be considered

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Speaker 1: problematic still today, for instance, there was a column in

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Speaker 1: USA Today by Christine Brennan talking about how we need

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Speaker 1: to retire lady from sports team names. So, for instance,

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Speaker 1: the University of Tennessee has the Lady Balls, or you

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Speaker 1: have the LPGA Tour. I mean, these aren't ladies out

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Speaker 1: on the basketball court. And yeah, they're not still wearing

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Speaker 1: their woolen skirts that fall to the fall to their shoes.

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Speaker 1: You know. These are these are athletes. These are women

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Speaker 1: who could snap me in half and beat me up

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Speaker 1: if they wanted to, like these these people are are

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Speaker 1: accomplished athletes. Yeah. Well, and so that's the case where

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Speaker 1: it's that more formalized use of lady that that seems

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Speaker 1: like something that's okay to get mad about. You know,

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Speaker 1: as far if we're talking about the you know, using

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Speaker 1: the term lady and when and how to use it,

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Speaker 1: it seems almost dismissive. And you know, like that you're

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Speaker 1: patting me on the head for being a tennis player

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Speaker 1: or a golfer. Um. You know, I want to be

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Speaker 1: if I'm a professional freaking athlete, I want you to

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Speaker 1: call me a woman. I'm a woman. It almost seems

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Speaker 1: like labeling me like a ladies tennis player. That's I'm

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Speaker 1: I'm just going to eat cucumber sandwiches all day. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's the whole thing too. If you're a professional athlete,

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Speaker 1: you probably just want to be called an athlete or

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Speaker 1: a tennis player rather than a lady whatever or a

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Speaker 1: woman whatever. And there's this blog called female Science professor Um.

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Speaker 1: She talked to a bunch of her students about this

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Speaker 1: topic and it really her blog past really highlighted the

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Speaker 1: generational divide I think in this argument because a lot

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Speaker 1: of the women in her classes, the ladies in her

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Speaker 1: classes in their twenties and thirties, women who are smart, accomplished, savvy,

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Speaker 1: all of that great stuff, they still call themselves girls.

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Speaker 1: They call their friends girls. And not only that, but

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Speaker 1: they think of their male peers as guys or the boys,

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Speaker 1: you know. And these are women who are smart, you know,

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Speaker 1: these are are women that she came to to be like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: what what do you think? You know, I trust you

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Speaker 1: to be smart women and give me a smart answer,

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Speaker 1: and they're like, yeah, you know, we really don't think

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Speaker 1: of it like that. Whereas the blogger, the female science

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Speaker 1: professor um said, I must be in an in between

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Speaker 1: generation then, because my my grandmother and my my older

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Speaker 1: aunt they call themselves the girls, they call their friends

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Speaker 1: the girls, Whereas I UM am of this generation where

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Speaker 1: you know, that's just not what you do. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: And you could look at that too in the context

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Speaker 1: kind of like with athletics, where stem is another area,

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Speaker 1: as we've talked about so many times now on the podcast,

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Speaker 1: where even today it's often more male dominated, and so

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Speaker 1: especially in environments like that, there's usually been historically more

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Speaker 1: of a persistent struggle to shirk off those female specific identifiers. Sure, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and she points out that, and some of her commenters

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Speaker 1: also point out that one of the problems is not

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Speaker 1: so much women calling each other girls or ladies, but

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Speaker 1: when you have male faculty who are calling their female

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Speaker 1: students the girls, and their male students men or young

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Speaker 1: men things like that. Yeah, I mean, I feel like

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Speaker 1: girls is almost a whole another conversation because I have

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Speaker 1: no problem usually with men, even if I don't know them,

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Speaker 1: and even in professional context, referring to women as ladies.

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Speaker 1: But if I don't know you, and especially in a

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Speaker 1: professional context, if you call me a girl, I will

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Speaker 1: not be happy about that and I might say something

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Speaker 1: to you about that. Um So, just a little side note.

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Speaker 1: So in our conversation up to this point, we've been

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Speaker 1: talking about this reclamation of lady is kind of a

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Speaker 1: given fact as something that has already happened, And going

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Speaker 1: into this episode research, I assumed that the whole lady

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Speaker 1: fest going on was a more recent product, maybe um

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Speaker 1: perpetuated by the lady blogs like Jezebel, the Gloss, the Hairpin, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: But it's actually been happening for a lot longer. So

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Speaker 1: we're gonna get into that reclamation of lady, how it

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Speaker 1: happened and who really started it when we come right

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Speaker 1: back from a quick break and now back to the show.

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Speaker 1: So we've given you the history of where lady, the

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Speaker 1: term lady comes from, why people are totally in the

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Speaker 1: right to be upset about the use of the word

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Speaker 1: because it indicates a whole lot of baggage. It's kind

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Speaker 1: of a loaded word. It's very loaded, very loaded. But

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Speaker 1: let's let's move forward into the eighties when the term

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Speaker 1: lady first started to be reclaimed. Yeah, this was something

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Speaker 1: that I found over at Idiot magazine and it talks

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Speaker 1: about how in nineteen nine, Queen Latifa's single Ladies First

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Speaker 1: was an early and significant reclamation of the word, and

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Speaker 1: particularly considering it's racial implications, because one thing that we

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Speaker 1: haven't really touched on in our conversation about lady up

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Speaker 1: to this point is how Yeah, there's obviously a lot

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Speaker 1: of class tied into it, but there's also this racial

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Speaker 1: component where a lot of times historically ladies would be wealthy,

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Speaker 1: upper class white women. Right. Yeah, if you think I

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Speaker 1: know that I have that stereotype when I think of

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Speaker 1: the word lady, not in terms of a term of

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Speaker 1: endearment for my friends, but I tend to think of

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Speaker 1: like a Victorian white lady with her hair in a bun. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And Juliana Escobado Shepherd, writing over about this in Rookie Magazine,

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Speaker 1: says that it as in the use of lady in

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Speaker 1: Queen Lativa's Ladies First, democratize the use of the term

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Speaker 1: for Black women and also queered the meaning of lady

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Speaker 1: through lyrics and dance that confronted and defied rather than

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Speaker 1: charmed and seduced. And I do want to say a

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Speaker 1: side note, if you need a little feminist pump up,

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Speaker 1: just don't only listen to Ladies First, but watch a

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Speaker 1: video because it is nine fantastic. Uh So that's that's all,

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Speaker 1: just just my music minute. So in a way, Queen

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Speaker 1: Latifa's Ladies First was almost a dual reclamation because I mean,

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Speaker 1: if you if you go back into the racist history

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Speaker 1: of how white society conceptualized black women, particularly in like

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Speaker 1: Reconstruction America, as not ladies at all. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: have the hyper sexualization of black men and also the

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Speaker 1: hyper sexualization of of black women as well. So, um,

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Boyd writing in Lady is It's still a four

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Speaker 1: letter word? She talks about how the term black lady

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Speaker 1: has been deeply embedded in the cultural imagination as the

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Speaker 1: moral icon of the race, embodying and upholding African American respectability.

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Speaker 1: So the term lady has been quite significant in the

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Speaker 1: African American community. And so then in nine when you

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Speaker 1: have Queen Latifa kind of flipping and reversing it to

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Speaker 1: borrow Missy Elliott, Uh, it was it was pretty significant because,

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Speaker 1: I mean, think about it when she talks about how

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Speaker 1: they are ladies who will kick it and with a

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Speaker 1: rhyme that is wicked. I mean they're like playing with

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Speaker 1: it so much and using lady not just as this primoralizer,

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Speaker 1: but someone who is active and you know, like Shepherd

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Speaker 1: says in Rookie, defying norms and standards rather than following norms. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: lady can be a source of strength. You can be

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Speaker 1: a lady and be strong. That that is the new meaning.

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Speaker 1: I would think, yeah, absolutely, and and certainly Alison Wolf

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Speaker 1: would agree. She is a riot girl. We've talked about

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Speaker 1: the riot girl movement on the podcast before and lead

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Speaker 1: singer of rat Mobile, and she talks about how in

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Speaker 1: her women's studies class during her freshman year of college

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Speaker 1: she would always use the terms girl or lady in

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Speaker 1: reference to women, and she says, I can't tell you

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Speaker 1: how often I was corrected in class by other female else.

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Speaker 1: Finally I just stood up and said, Hey, I'm in

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Speaker 1: my teens and girl is what I choose to call myself.

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Speaker 1: Isn't this about self representation? Yeah? This was out of

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Speaker 1: an article in Bitch magazine from the early two thousand's

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Speaker 1: about the reclamation of lady but more tying it to

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Speaker 1: riot girl because the girl with three RS and riot

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Speaker 1: girl is it was a more forceful but a similar

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Speaker 1: kind of reclamation obviously of the term girl for feminist uses,

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Speaker 1: and so this article was sort of charting how riot

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Speaker 1: girl might have been evolving a little bit, perhaps as

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Speaker 1: these riot girls like Alison Wolf were aging into ladies.

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Speaker 1: So the author sites things like Lady Fest, which was

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Speaker 1: the Riot Girl reunion gathering in Olympia, Washington in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and then you have a riot girl ish band

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Speaker 1: Slater Kenny in instance, with ballot of a Lady Man

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Speaker 1: and talking about that queering of the term lady. You

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Speaker 1: also have Mr Lady which is a lesbian run record label.

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Speaker 1: It's tossed around in all sorts of communities. Now it's

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Speaker 1: obviously not just a rich white woman sort of tea

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Speaker 1: party word. Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting that

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Speaker 1: this is also happening amid uh discussions of fimphobia. You know,

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Speaker 1: we we've talked about fimphobia on the podcast before. And

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Speaker 1: for for women like the Riot Girls girls to reclaim

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Speaker 1: girl and make it their own, for for women to

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Speaker 1: call themselves ladies and reclaim that as a word of strength,

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Speaker 1: as a multicultural word of strength, not just reserve for

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Speaker 1: upper class, elite white ladies. Uh. You know, I think

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Speaker 1: that's also reclaiming uh maybe gender, reclaiming being a woman

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Speaker 1: and not being afraid of things that are female and feminine. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and really quickly, I do want to clarify that what

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Speaker 1: I just said a white tea party word. I was

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Speaker 1: referring to like tea parties with tea and not the

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Speaker 1: political party, So not to confuse any listeners, um, but

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Speaker 1: I was surprised to read this quote from a book

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Speaker 1: written by Jennifer baumb Gartner and Amy Richards called Manifesto

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Speaker 1: Young Women Feminism in the Future that came out in

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Speaker 1: two thousand, because again, this is preceding the whole lady

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Speaker 1: blog thing, and they're already at that point talking about

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Speaker 1: how lady is quote a casual alternative term for a

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Speaker 1: woman or women, not only those who adhere to pressy,

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Speaker 1: white glove, upper krusty stereotypes. Yeah. I think back to

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Speaker 1: one of my earliest uses of the word lady, uh,

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Speaker 1: and clearly I must have had some ideas about what

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Speaker 1: it meant, even as a three year old. I was

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Speaker 1: on a trip with my parents, you know, and I

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Speaker 1: we stop at a grocery store to pick up some food,

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Speaker 1: and my dad and I are waiting in the car

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Speaker 1: for my mom to come out, and my dad looks

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Speaker 1: over and says, who's that lady? And I stand up

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Speaker 1: in the backseat and I say, that's no lady, that's

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Speaker 1: my mommy. Oh really, that story doesn't tie into much

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Speaker 1: of anything, but I was like there was a distinction, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and my little three year old brain, I was like, no,

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Speaker 1: that is someone familiar and warm and loving, not a lady.

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Speaker 1: Not a lady. But the question now, though, is whether

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Speaker 1: or not lady has been fully reclaimed, because we still

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Speaker 1: have a lot of women who are not okay with

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Speaker 1: its use at all. And then there's still a lot

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Speaker 1: of women and also guys who use a lady in

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Speaker 1: the sense of prescribing women submissive roles, especially when we're

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Speaker 1: talking to little girls about being lady like. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, go back and listen to our our cursing podcast,

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Speaker 1: Women and Cursing. I mean that whole thing sprang out

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Speaker 1: of me over hearing a conversation where a woman was

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Speaker 1: talking about how cursing is not lady like. And not

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Speaker 1: to sound like I'm obsessed with Pinterest or something, but

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Speaker 1: I just pinned this thing the other day for our

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Speaker 1: stuff Mom never told you account and it was you

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00:24:02,480 --> 00:24:06,360
Speaker 1: know those like inspirational messages that are pinned and they

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00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:09,520
Speaker 1: travel very far and wide. Well, there was one about

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Speaker 1: how to be a lady. And I thought that it

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00:24:12,920 --> 00:24:16,199
Speaker 1: would be ironic or funny or whatever. Oh no, it was.

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Speaker 1: It was legit, like wear high heels and R s

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Speaker 1: v P and and all of these weird things. And

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Speaker 1: I just thought, I just I literally recoiled and found

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Speaker 1: it gross. Oh absolutely, there was some. I mean, you

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00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:31,680
Speaker 1: can easily google how to be a Lady, and there

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00:24:31,720 --> 00:24:38,920
Speaker 1: are approximately one point five ba jillion, Yeah, how to posts? Well,

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Speaker 1: can we not? Here's what I would love? Can we

402
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Speaker 1: not separate these things? How about instead of saying, Kristen,

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Speaker 1: I really think you need to be better at being

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Speaker 1: a lady, and have that be so loaded and mean

405
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Speaker 1: that you need to like shape up or something. Can't

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Speaker 1: we just ask people to be polite or like, can't

407
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Speaker 1: we use different terms for this? Well, we can, but

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Speaker 1: I mean the fact that we haven't fully reclaimed It's okay, Well,

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Speaker 1: it's interesting that lady has been reclaimed in this more

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Speaker 1: ironic in groups sense, among particularly women of our generation

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Speaker 1: who self identify as feminists, because I would pose it

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Speaker 1: that women who talk about lady like and really adhere

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Speaker 1: to things like that pin of how to be a

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Speaker 1: lady and put on their pearls and high heels. Nothing

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Speaker 1: against pearls and high heels, own both of them, but

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Speaker 1: they probably would not self identify as feminists because we're

417
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Speaker 1: still living in a society where bossy is a bad

418
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Speaker 1: word for women, where lady can mean so many different things,

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Speaker 1: and we are not all on the same page about

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Speaker 1: what a woman should look like an act like yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna should go burn my soapbox. Excuse me, but

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Speaker 1: I will say that if you are ever wondering what

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00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:05,520
Speaker 1: to call a female in front of you, particularly if

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Speaker 1: she is an adult or a group of adult females,

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00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:15,320
Speaker 1: lady is so much better than girl. Yeah, oh absolutely,

426
00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:18,480
Speaker 1: And you know, just remember the context you're in. When

427
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:20,960
Speaker 1: Kristen and I were looking up stuff to talk about

428
00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:24,880
Speaker 1: in this episode, I came across so many like etiquette

429
00:26:24,920 --> 00:26:29,760
Speaker 1: advice columns where men were honestly saying, I'm I'm afraid

430
00:26:29,800 --> 00:26:31,520
Speaker 1: I'm going to offend someone no matter what I say.

431
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 1: What should I call the women I work with? And

432
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:38,720
Speaker 1: it's like, really, I mean, just just you use your sense.

433
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:42,240
Speaker 1: Think about it. It's it's weird probably to start an

434
00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 1: email to your colleague saying hey girls or hey women,

435
00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 1: Both of those sound pretty pretty strange. You could just

436
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:52,440
Speaker 1: say good morning. Yeah, we there's the you know, the

437
00:26:52,480 --> 00:26:56,080
Speaker 1: old standby of first names, but that gets clunky at me.

438
00:26:56,160 --> 00:26:59,480
Speaker 1: But that's also where the fact that we have the

439
00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:04,359
Speaker 1: word guys, it's so much easier. That's why I also

440
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:07,080
Speaker 1: sometimes referred to groups of women as guys. You know,

441
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:11,600
Speaker 1: it's almost becoming interchangeable because there isn't a convenient and

442
00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:17,760
Speaker 1: unloaded in between word for women, which is quite curious

443
00:27:17,920 --> 00:27:20,159
Speaker 1: if you think about it, and why is that? But

444
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:23,679
Speaker 1: one quick question though, before we wrap up, Caroline, is

445
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:28,520
Speaker 1: lady better than ma'am? Oh? Well, I mean I guess

446
00:27:28,520 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 1: that depends on who you refer to. Okay, if how

447
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:36,399
Speaker 1: do you feel about guys in particular referring to women

448
00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 1: as ma'am? Because from I think it's I think it's

449
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:42,880
Speaker 1: a lot older. Yeah, I feel like with that when

450
00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:47,960
Speaker 1: you get into though, the tricky age. Yeah, I know.

451
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:52,199
Speaker 1: My mother isn't a fan of it, which is interesting,

452
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:54,560
Speaker 1: But then again she also prefers to call herself and

453
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:57,400
Speaker 1: her friends girls. Yeah, yeah, I mean I think for

454
00:27:57,480 --> 00:28:00,919
Speaker 1: the again for the in group thing referring too, I

455
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:04,680
Speaker 1: refer to girlfriends of mine as girls or girl, Hey girl,

456
00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:09,520
Speaker 1: hey lady. Well, now we want to hear from ladies listening,

457
00:28:09,520 --> 00:28:12,040
Speaker 1: and gentlemen, gentlemen, we also want to hear from you,

458
00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:15,159
Speaker 1: that's right? Yeah, what do you? What do you call yourself?

459
00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:19,280
Speaker 1: Your mother? Your girlfriends? Yeah? And how what do we?

460
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:22,199
Speaker 1: Where do we go from here? Too? Though, Caroline, because

461
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:26,760
Speaker 1: in a way, lady has been reclaimed for feminist purposes,

462
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:29,320
Speaker 1: but there is still so much of that old guard

463
00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:35,399
Speaker 1: all that loaf needing and eating still happening. So do

464
00:28:35,480 --> 00:28:38,240
Speaker 1: we just keep calling each other ladies and sort of

465
00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 1: sticking it to the the lady man? I mean, I'm fine,

466
00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:46,520
Speaker 1: I'm fine with it. I'm fine with lady too. I

467
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:50,360
Speaker 1: I I think it's it's totally fine, and I appreciate

468
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:55,360
Speaker 1: the implied uh endearment, but I do. I think it

469
00:28:55,480 --> 00:28:58,640
Speaker 1: says a lot though about where we are at this

470
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 1: in between phase, perhaps even of feminism in general, of

471
00:29:03,440 --> 00:29:07,240
Speaker 1: moving on from maybe the more serious and and that

472
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 1: might rub some people the wrong way, but a little

473
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:13,920
Speaker 1: more serious second wave women's lib era where there was

474
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:16,160
Speaker 1: no there was so much progress that needed to be made,

475
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:18,640
Speaker 1: there was no room for irony. And now I got

476
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:22,080
Speaker 1: a little room for it. But we haven't come all

477
00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 1: the way yet. Sure, so send us all your lady

478
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:29,600
Speaker 1: lady thoughts. I didn't notice, I didn't say lady like thoughts.

479
00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:32,120
Speaker 1: All the stuff at Discovery dot com is where you

480
00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:34,760
Speaker 1: can send your letters, and hey, if you want to

481
00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:38,400
Speaker 1: see all of the sources we cited for this episode,

482
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:40,600
Speaker 1: head on over to Stuff I've Never Told You dot

483
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:43,959
Speaker 1: com and click on the podcast link on the homepage

484
00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 1: and for with every new episode that we published, we

485
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 1: also include our episodes sources so that you can read

486
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:53,240
Speaker 1: more about each topic. And we have a couple of

487
00:29:53,320 --> 00:30:00,480
Speaker 1: letters to share with you right now and fitting. Both

488
00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:03,320
Speaker 1: of our letters are in response for episode on women

489
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:07,880
Speaker 1: and cursing. So first up, I've got one here from Kim,

490
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:11,880
Speaker 1: who writes Greetings, I recently started listening to your podcast

491
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:14,120
Speaker 1: and I'm already a big fan. Well, thank you, Kim,

492
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:17,160
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. She writes, Your podcast on

493
00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 1: swearing made me think of my coworker, who was trying

494
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:21,760
Speaker 1: to cut back on cursing. Her four year old has

495
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:25,440
Speaker 1: been repeating certain embarrassing phrases in public. We work at

496
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:28,680
Speaker 1: an interior design firm specializing in corporate office space, and

497
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:31,040
Speaker 1: part of our job has us on site and on

498
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 1: the phone with contractors. Since interior design is a field

499
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:37,360
Speaker 1: primarily populated by women and construction as a field dominated

500
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:40,160
Speaker 1: by men, I think my coworker uses curse words to

501
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:43,440
Speaker 1: blend in with our contractors. Curse words have probably been

502
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:45,880
Speaker 1: part of her vocabulary for a long time, but my

503
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:50,000
Speaker 1: hypothesis is that she curses so contractors take her more seriously,

504
00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:53,720
Speaker 1: and after seeing her in action. I think that it's effective,

505
00:30:54,520 --> 00:30:57,800
Speaker 1: So thanks for that workplace observation, Kim So. I have

506
00:30:57,840 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 1: a letter here from Don who said that after listening

507
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:05,360
Speaker 1: to the Curse of Swearing Women episode, she rushed home

508
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:09,120
Speaker 1: to ask her British Icelandic husband if he thinks that

509
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:13,160
Speaker 1: the turn off when she swears. She says, obviously, if

510
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 1: I am cursing at him, that's another story. But he

511
00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:18,000
Speaker 1: really thought it was a strange question. He grew up

512
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:20,320
Speaker 1: in a rough part of England and Newcastle and his

513
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 1: father literally curses like a sailor because he was one.

514
00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:27,200
Speaker 1: My non American husband sees no big deal in women cursing.

515
00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:30,200
Speaker 1: Is that because he is not from puritanical sensor to America?

516
00:31:30,560 --> 00:31:33,640
Speaker 1: I think so my feeling about swearing in the workplace

517
00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:36,400
Speaker 1: maybe a bit prudish. Though I do not curse and

518
00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:38,920
Speaker 1: don't like others to curse because I find it unprofessional,

519
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 1: regardless of gender. I am a teacher, so that brings

520
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:44,280
Speaker 1: a different set of expectations to the table. But many

521
00:31:44,320 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 1: of the military parents I meet with bring their four

522
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:49,560
Speaker 1: letter words to school. As long as it's not directed

523
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:52,040
Speaker 1: at me, I cope, but I am not comfortable swearing

524
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 1: at work. Because I have a professional persona that I

525
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:57,960
Speaker 1: like to maintain once I leave work. That's another story.

526
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:00,760
Speaker 1: I love swearing in expletives and get a kick out

527
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:03,600
Speaker 1: of my kids using taboo words because they always use

528
00:32:03,680 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 1: them correctly. Like the quote unquote adult words you mentioned

529
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:09,479
Speaker 1: that some parents used to label this category of words.

530
00:32:09,520 --> 00:32:12,880
Speaker 1: We use the term bathroom words for things our youngsters

531
00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 1: need to say out of public range. They literally are

532
00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:19,000
Speaker 1: only permitted to use certain words in the bathroom. It

533
00:32:19,080 --> 00:32:21,000
Speaker 1: works well for our boy and our girl, and the

534
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:24,719
Speaker 1: bathroom words include things like stupid and shut up and

535
00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 1: what the and other derogatory terms more than so called

536
00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:31,320
Speaker 1: bad words. My son grew up with this model and

537
00:32:31,360 --> 00:32:34,280
Speaker 1: easily transitioned into understanding that some people did not like

538
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 1: to hear certain words. So now that he is nine,

539
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:39,960
Speaker 1: he knows to check his audience. He knows it is

540
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:41,880
Speaker 1: fine to use four letter words and such with my

541
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:44,719
Speaker 1: husband and me, but not when Grandma is visiting. He

542
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 1: knows to change his language in tone when talking to

543
00:32:46,920 --> 00:32:49,840
Speaker 1: friends versus teachers. I am confident that as our four

544
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 1: year old daughter gets older, she too will figure out

545
00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 1: these nuances. In the meantime, she has been known to

546
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:57,880
Speaker 1: curse like a sailor, and my non American husband and

547
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:00,760
Speaker 1: I are fine with that, so thank you very much. Done.

548
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:03,720
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll start to use bathroom words to just in

549
00:33:03,760 --> 00:33:06,479
Speaker 1: the bathroom. Well, thanks everybody who's written in to us.

550
00:33:06,640 --> 00:33:08,880
Speaker 1: Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is where you can

551
00:33:08,960 --> 00:33:11,840
Speaker 1: email us. You can also tweet us at mom Stuff

552
00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 1: podcast or send us a message over on Facebook as well.

553
00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:18,360
Speaker 1: And Hey, for everything stuff Mom Never Told You related,

554
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:21,720
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555
00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:25,360
Speaker 1: all of our social media presences, there's one place to go.

556
00:33:25,960 --> 00:33:32,720
Speaker 1: That's Stuff Mom Never Told You dot com For more

557
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:35,000
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, Does it How

558
00:33:35,080 --> 00:33:44,680
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