Labels are helpful and even necessary on some things like file folders and medicine bottles, but I know that some of the labels we use are doing more harm than good.
Why is it deemed necessary to point out the ethnic backgrounds of public figures like government officials, athletes and entertainers when it has nothing to do with the performance of their jobs? Why are female personages identified by pointing out the fact that they are women when nobody finds it necessary to identify their male counterparts as being men? There was a time when America, in its “Dark Ages” viewed men as superior, as the only people who could run the nation, manage progress, advance learning or understand business matters. Now we know better and have accepted that women are equally capable of those things. Yet we continue to self-consciously point out the fact that some are women, even when it is no longer uncommon and deserving of comment. And it’s not always the women who are short-changed in such matters. We’ve finally accepted that many doctors are women and no longer feel it necessary to point that out, but we still feel obliged to mention gender when we encounter a nurse who happens to be male.
We have long stressed the fact, to no realistic purpose, that someone was the “first Native-American senator” or the “first Afro-American mayor” even “the first Catholic president.” What earthly difference does it make when they were clearly elected by, and represent, a mixture of fellow citizens from many ethnic backgrounds in addition to their own? By pointing out someone’s ethnicity, we bring that rather insignificant fact to the foreground and make it an issue. A great many of such claims are made proudly by other members of the same background, which puzzles me. If a person or group wishes to be accepted as equals, why do they persist in pointing out how they are different?
A primal part of human nature warns us to be wary of those people who are very different from ourselves in ways that seem to naturally separate us from each other. Language, religion, social attitudes have always varied from culture to culture, and those traits have been used to describe and identify individuals. German and Irish immigrants were absorbed into the great American melting-pot more readily than African, oriental and Jewish people were because they weren’t as easily identified by appearance and the traditions, religions and values of their homelands were more similar to those of people who were already here. It seems we collectively forgot that we all were once immigrants. In the event of two world wars, we even succumbed to a fear of those Americans who were descendants of immigrants from countries we were at war with. An unforgivable shame that can’t be righted.
As a nation, we are slowly nibbling away at some of the outdated labels of past generations. The word “actor” now includes those formerly referred to as “actress.” “Poetess” and “authoress” have pretty much become obsolete terms, as have “aviatrix” and “songstress.” I find it awkward to refer to presidential wives and husbands as “first lady” and “first gentleman” and hope someone will come up with a more graceful term that could refer to either. First spouse, maybe? Or presidential consort? We must remember that not all presidents have been married or will be in the future, and it’s possible that we could have a president or vice-president in a same-sex marriage. I know it sounds rather far out, but why do we need a label for the person married to our president? Couldn’t we just refer to them by their name, or simply “the President’s wife” (or husband?)
I’m aware that language changes through popular usage; and not all those changes are for the better. I do believe, though, that the elimination of many popular labels would not only improve language but would help eliminate prejudices.
Let’s save the labels for pickle jars and shoe sizes and quit trying to stick them on people.