Power, Gender, and Profanity 粗口 By Lisa Yau
During the PhilWP Summer Institute, after many heated discussions about gender, power of language (or language of power) and how to be culturally responsive to our students, especially in regards to their home codes, I ponder what degree of dominance men and boys have over women and girls when both genders interact and use language as power.
This question triggered a childhood memory. When I was about ten years old, I discovered for the first time how offensive profanity could be. I had an emotional response of disgust in my stomach when two men were swearing in Cantonese Chinese, my native tongue. Looking back with my adult eyes, the vulgar swearing was like bullets shooting out of their mouths and bodies, and I felt like I was a helpless target of this aggression. This happened when I was with my late mother riding the bus in the busy streets of Hong Kong. There were so many other noises around me, so it was difficult to comprehend what the two men had said, but not difficult to “feel” the impact of their cussing. Why did I react this way? I was even somewhat embarrassed by my own female body. I was a child then. Today I realized I had heard the phrase “f**k your mother’s stinky c**t” in Chinese repeated over and over again while I was sitting close to my mother.
Recently, as an adult, I was in a crowded SEPTA bus forced to listen to two young, college-aged women talking about nothing. One of them used a swear word in every single sentence. She had one of those sweet, honey-coated voices. So it was ironic to hear so much vulgarity spitting out of her mouth as if she was innocently singing a dirty tune. I did not feel threatened, but extremely annoyed. I wished they would just “shut the f**k up” and stop talking about nothing. Why was I subjected to this type of “sh*t” in a public space? Why does it affect me so differently when a woman swears? I was angry with the two women swearing. In contrast, I had been fearful and felt in danger with the two men swearing. Why?
I began to examine my own cursing behavior. Basically, I don’t curse. I can’t even write a curse word without substituting the cussing with symbols (grawlixes) like in a cartoon. Is it because I have never granted myself the permission to use language in this powerful, emotional, and gutsy way? I think society automatically views a woman with a foul mouth with sexual promiscuity like she has the tongue of a prostitute. In comparing the five most common swear words in Cantonese Chinese (廣東話一門五) and the seven most common English swear words, what do they have in common? Both seem to degrade the female body, and objectify women as inferior.
I wonder about my students’ cursing behavior. When a boy curses, why is it more acceptable? When a girl curses, why does it make her “unladylike” and “dirty”? What is the relationship between gender and profanity? I read about an incident where a teacher told a group of female students in a U.S. high school to take a pledge to not swear because it would show them to be sweet and ladylike (Hillary Di Menna, 2014). Guys in the same school were allowed to swear as they wished because boys will be boys. Basically, girls should watch their mouths, and boys are free to express their boyhood, especially when they are angry, like in a football field. Another example is even more disturbing. Rebecca Davis, a journalist for the Daily Maverick in South Africa, tweeted “So [Don Steenkamp] raped his own sister? F**king hell.” Davis did not use grawlixes like I had done. She was quickly chastised for her use of profanity; she received arguably more public scrutiny than the rapist who had raped his own sister.
I know my fifth grade students, and I know some of them curse. I also know that they know to not do it in my presence. So I’ve not witnessed the gender differences on how profanity is used in my own teaching practice. According to two podcasters (Cristen and Caroline) from the website Stuff Mom Never Told You, most children encounter their first set of swear words at the age of two. Some studies show that girls develop their “dirty lexicon” more rapidly until both genders reached the age of three. Somehow boys pull ahead and the disparity widen into adulthood. After the mid-1970s when the feminist movement was gaining momentum, the profanity gender gap changed, with more women cursing in the workplace. I remembered a former female boss of mine angrily cursing at her male staff in the 90s. Today cursing remains a masculine habit, and women are still considered to be “experts of euphemism” due to the sociolinguistic danger of women swearing. WTF? Did I gain a bit of “sister power” by writing about gender and profanity? Definitely!
Lisa Y. K. Yau teaches 5th Grade at Kirkbride Elementary School in South Philadelphia. Lisa joined the Philadelphia Writing Project in 2016 attending the Invitational Summer Institute.