cariños

its funny how context affects perception

there are a few people from whom i enjoy hearing terms of endearment. my mom & lou, the nice, aunt kath and her daughters. also, people like cope, the gill, my wife (though its always facetiously), probably others i'm not thinking of at the moment.

and at the shore, i got a good helping of some "baby"s from someone whom i don't mind hearing it. but in a lot of cases, it drives me crazy. much like julia penelope, i find it disrespectful, and belittling.

she writes:

"that evening my phone rang, and when i answered it a woman's voice cheerily asked me if i was 'the lady of the house,' i told her no ladies lived in this house and hung up...In the Patriarchal Universe of Discourse, a lady is said to be a "term of respect." In my universe of discourse, however, it is an insult, because lady, in addition to its upperclass overtones, signals assumptions about how women should act-assumptions i find offensive and presumptuous. "ladies" behave in feminine ways: they sit with their legs crossed at the knees, they wear make-up and high heels, they tease, perm, and curl their hair, and they eat daintily. i live in a different universe of discourse, one with different assumptions, different values, and different ways of talking about the world."

(Penelope, Julia. 1990. Speaking Freely: Unlearning the Lies of the Fathers' Tongues. pp. 36-37.)

sure, she's a little off her rocker, but i think her point should be taken seriously. words like "baby" "lady" "darling" and "sweetie" are laden with cultural connotation, which in many cases denote a lack of respect and equality. i would argue that in cases of extreme familiarity and mutual endearment term calling, they can connote just the opposite--a high amount of respect and equality--but in cases in which acquaintances or even strangers are called by such words/names, i take quite a bit of pause in respecting someone who denies respect via their naming.

so, the other day i came across this article in the detroit free press , recounting obama's use of the word "sweetie" a number of times. the original name-calling can even be seen in this video:

and what i think this demonstrates is not necessarily obama's lack of respect for women, but rather the extent to which the PUD is ingrained in our language use. Of course, Althusser, Vološinov, and leapfrog would gasp to hear me assert that this language does not betray underlying ideology. This is not my argument, but what I do think is that this language is revealing ideology that is unconsciously reinscribed. Perhaps I'm being lenient because I like to keep my illinois peeps close, but mostly i just wonder if Obama is completely unaware. in any case, somebody needs to clue him in.