I had a short facebook discussion this week with Brent Oleson, author of The Marion Contrarian blog and member of the Linn County Supervisors. I initiated the discussion after I read a post by Brent and took exception to his use of the phrase “prima donna” in a post that was critical of a certain female state lawmaker.
I began the discussion as an educational exercise because I believe that many of us are guilty of using words that infer something we never intentioned. For instance, do we want to “man the desk” or are we “staffing the desk”? Is the gem man-made or is it synthetic? Is the person who leads a team of workers a foreman or a supervisor?
In each of my examples, the words and phrases used essentially hold the same meaning. Their differences lie in the eyes of the beholders.
Brent stated that he viewed the term “prima donna” as gender neutral — a position he said was backed up by a quick check of the dictionary. I haven’t taken time to double-check his assertion, because it ultimately isn’t germane to the discussion at hand. As writers, especially blog writers who often produce inasmuch to sway as to inform, we need to be able to see our word choices through the eyes of readers and set aside those that tend to muddy our key point.
When I clicked over to Brent’s post, I was greeted by a picture of the female legislator followed immediately by a photograph of the villain character from the Wizard of Oz. I cringed, but was at least thankful that Brent hadn’t pulled the lawmaker’s face into the Oz graphic — or had otherwise gone in search of a silly photo her family had posted on facebook. Then I read Brent’s direct comparison of the female legislator to “the wicked witch of the west” — I guess because the two graphics weren’t explicit enough.
When I finally began to hit the main point of his post (sixth paragraph) I was sidetracked by the prima donna phrase. At that point, I was no longer paying much attention to the information Brent was presenting. I was still reading, mind you, but my brain was going through a mental flow chart to determine whether or not the writer — someone I believed to be a basically good person — was intentionally using sexist imagery to bolster his position.
I didn’t and don’t want to think that is the case, but for better or worse the seed has been unnecessarily planted. Brent has a legitimate beef against the lawmaker based on policy, but he chose to preface his argument with the subject of gender. There is no doubt he scored a few “good ole boy” points and likely a few laughs for his “cleverness,” but only at the detriment to the thoughts he really wanted to convey.
In that respect, he not only perpetrated an injustice against the lawmaker, but an injustice to the cause that he hoped to represent.
