Search-Engines writes:
“Exactly 50 years ago yesterday, a girl scout living on a farm near this Clarke County town 100 kilometres from Washington wrote a letter to the White House. It was a time of rising racial tension in Virginia and the country. Drew Gilpin, without telling her parents, decided to seek help from the president.
“Dear Mr. Eisenhower,” she wrote in careful block letters, “I am nine years old and I am white, but I have many feelings about segregation.”
“Lady Prez”?
Could you have simply referred to Drew Gilpin Faust as the “New Harvard President”? It would have taken the same number of characters as the condescending “lady prez”.
Headling Abbrevs 101
No, it’s less informative. Like it or not, she is making more headlines than a typical new uni head would because she is the first woman president Harvard’s herstory.
And I don’t see how using the word “Prez” is “condescending” — unless you’re looking for it.
Re:”Lady Prez”?
Yes. It gave me pause when I saw the original article’s titled “As a child, Harvard prez fought segregation” and that you added Lady to qualify Prez. I assume no chauvinism was intended and agree that her gender is making news. But I don’t think it should.
When we say “lady prez” instead of “prez” there is an implicit connotation that a normal prez is a man. While this is accurate in describing the current patriarchal climate, it doesn’t necessarily serve to change that climate. Is the medium (language, in this instance) not the message?
thank you.
Re:Headling Abbrevs 101
Trust me, John, you don’t have to use an equally condescening “Headlines 101” in your reply to me. The article the original poster linked to didn’t qualify Faust’s gender in the headline, so why should it be done so here?
Also, “prez” isn’t the condescending word I was talking about. “Lady” was. There are lots of other words one can use to identify Drew Gilpin Faust’s gender – and lady is one of the more condescending ones. You say that she’s the first woman president, and I say EXACTLY. The term “lady” has a lot of social baggage attached to it.
Language matters.
Re:Headling Abbrevs 101
I agree that the gender of Harvard’s president is irrelevent but the word ‘lady’ now has baggage? Would that we would use words like ‘lady’ and ‘gentleman’ a little more often and always appropriatly, then maybe people won’t get in such dithers over words like ‘articulate’.