What do you think of the word "unladylike"?

[Summer Hathaway]

316. I am concerned

as are many of us here, about the women whose circumstances I've described.

That's why we don't waste our time, or anyone else's, carrying on about what WORDS should be eliminated from our vocabularies as opposed to what ACTIONS are necessary to address real concerns.

"Ladylike is indicative of a traditional mindset, an idea premised in a notion that women should behave a certain way, and that is way that is inferior."

Exactly WHO decided that the word 'ladylike' is meant to render a woman 'inferior'? I think Obama conducts himself in a 'gentlemanly' way - does that mean I think he is inferior? On the contrary, I believe his ability to act as a gentleman in the face of what the GOP throws at him, on a daily basis, speaks to his strength, not his inferiority.

"Calling people by racial epithets and invoking racial stereotypes was and is accompanied by more systemic discrimination and even racially motivated violence."

You want to go there? Okay, let's.

Reading the constant complaints from the self-appointed 'feminists' on this board about the need to eliminate certain words and phrases from our discourse is as inane as a civil rights worker, going to Mississippi in the sixties to register black voters, seeing people black people kidnapped, tortured and murdered, their churches, schools and homes being burned to the ground, the lives of their children being threatened, and coming out of it saying, "You know, I heard black adult men being addressed as 'boy' and THAT is the real problem here. Once we address the language being used, all will be well."

I DO see such nonsense as being trivial in the great scheme of things. What I DON'T see as trivial is self-appointed spokespeople for women's rights on this site insisting that THEY are indeed the be-all and end-all where women's rights are concerned, and that using words like 'ladylike' have any influence on eliminating the REAL challenges that women are forced to overcome.

But as I've said before, you are completely free to attempt to make yet another molehill into a mountain, while ignoring the real issues.