Drama Queen, Moaning Minnie, Jailbait?
Drama Queen, Moaning Minnie, Jailbait?
What's in a label?
Shockingly, but also intriguingly, a body part of the mountaineer Sandy Irvine has been found on Mount Everest. He disappeared in 1924, and the find consisted of a boot and a sock containing the remains of his foot. We only know his name because of the embroidered name label neatly sewn into his sock.
Those of us of a certain age will have mixed memories of name labels. Schools frequently demanded that they be attached to all garments, including those compulsory and terrible navy-blue knickers required for girls’ PE lessons. Shoes also had to be identifiable, and regular inspections ensured compliance. Name labels were as much a part of school life as textbooks covered in wallpaper and tiny bottles of tepid milk at break time. And of course, they are still quite useful for schools and other institutions, although now they are more likely to be adhesive and come in a variety of colours with added images of footballs, unicorns or whatever takes your fancy.
It’s rather nice to know that name labels are still being produced – they can be helpful to your relatives if climbing Everest is your thing, and the woven ones have a certain quaint elegance about them. Eventually we will probably all be chipped, like cats and dogs, and the name weavers will go the same way as the slubber doffers, the lamp lighters and all the other mysteriously named craftspeople of history.
Labelling Theory
There are darker sides to labelling, though. Labelling Theory, developed during the 1960s and 70s, suggested that labels used to describe or stigmatise people can influence the behaviour of those people.
'To be cast as a thief, as a prostitute, or more generally, a deviant, is to further compound and hasten the process of becoming that very thing.' (David Matza)
To label people is a way of making them seem to be abnormal, deviating from accepted values and norms. The sociologist Erving Goffman, for example, wrote about ‘the modern nation state's heightened demand for normalcy. Today's stigmas are the result not so much of ancient or religious prohibitions, but of a new demand for normalcy’.Now, fifty or sixty years later, we are experiencing unchallenged use of social media, and a world where values and beliefs are often highly polarised. Labelling has become a nasty, but useful tool for politicians, the media and the generally disgruntled. In fact, for some, it has become a full-time occupation – one Donald J. Trump comes to mind here, of course. His labelling of migrants as ‘aliens’ for example evokes a sense of unknown danger and fear.
Bimbos, Frumps, Gorgons and Slags
Unpleasant words for women are abundant and we have become wearily familiar with them. Nevertheless, it comes as a bit of a shock to find that the Association of British Scrabble Players has lists of ‘pejorative terms’ that players can trawl through. The list, entitled ‘pejorative terms for females’ has hundreds of words. No doubt the revered ABSP can justify its strange collection, but frankly, it is an unnerving thing to come across – as are some of the other categories – in the context of a word game for goodness' sake! Check it out and see what you think.Reclamation and Re-appropriation
Women are good at fighting back and reclaiming the insulting labels. Donald Trump called Hillary Clinton ‘a nasty woman’, which quickly became a rallying cry for her in the 2016 US election. When J.D.Vance, the current Republican candidate for the US Vice Presidency, spoke contemptuously of ‘a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too’ he provoked a torrent of reactions, including responses from mega-stars like Taylor Swift and Jennifer Aniston. A range of T-shirts with slogans like ‘America needs childless cat ladies’ immediately hit the markets.There is a strangely comforting history of abusive names and labels that have been re-appropriated; where negative terms have become positively and proudly brought back into use. In the 17th Century, both Cavalier and Roundhead were derogatory labels. Cavalier was positively re-adopted, but calling someone a Roundhead remained a punishable offence. Other originally contemptuous terms that have been reborn include Tory, Suffragette, Methodist, Quaker, Impressionist, and, more recently, Queer.
Labels should stick to tins
As a final thought, have you noticed that the present government often describes the population as ‘strivers’ and ‘hard-working families’? These labels are not offensive, but they do indicate approval of certain types of behaviour. Not good news if you are single and rather enjoy a bit of idleness! Is it time to look busy? How about sewing name labels into socks?
October update on our MK Fawcett campaign for a Safer, Healthier, Fairer Milton Keynes
- We have circulated background papers with baseline evidence of the need for making MK Safer, Healthier and Fairer
- We have had preliminary meetings with all three MPs for Milton Keynes (Emily Darlington, Callum Anderson and Chris Curtis) to discuss the issues raised in our campaign
- We have also agreed the date of a future meeting with the MPs, to take place in February 2025
- We will be meeting the Milton Keynes Youth Cabinet in November 2024 to describe our work
- We are monitoring and collecting further evidence to support our campaign
- We will continue to promote the manifesto campaign and encourage people to become more engaged with the political process
To see the papers we have produced, or if you have any queries, please contact us at miltonkeynesfawcettgroup@gmail.com
