Growing up, some of the men in our lives were the best examples of feminists we could have asked for. Particularly a certain Leonard Commet Krill, English teacher, step-father, and role model to many. Well, this weekend he blew our minds with this video, which, it turns out, he’s been using with his high school students for years.
The video looks at the Whorfian Hypothesis—the idea that languages affect our understanding of the world in such a way that speakers of different languages think and behave differently because of it—and how it applies to the way we speak (and consequently think) about gender.
We wish we could get Leonard to give the presentation himself, because he does it so well, but here’s the gist: English has evolved so that linguistically, women are clearly a subset of men. Where humankind was once “humanus,” now it is just “man.” And where men and women were once “masculus” and “feminus,” now we are, obviously, “men” and “women.”
And file under, DUH, why didn’t we ever think about this, Leonard points out that upon marriage, we are pronounced “man and wife.” The husband keeps being a “man,” while we become “wives.” Likewise, words once associated with female power are now derogatory: mistress (formerly the feminine mister), witch (female wizard), madam (female sir), and so on….
Leonard says that his students—both male and female—immediately get all of this. We’re bursting with pride that our dear man is setting off so many click moments for his young students. And also sorta wishing we’d studied linguistics.
