A few days ago, I was very surprised to discover that the word “ladies” had in fact an undermining meaning amongst British Women.
The woman I was talking to told me how much she hates being called “ the ladies”, finding it pejorative.
The term “ladies” had been used in various context where it was not valuing the woman at all.
Men are called men.
Following the women’s liberation movement in the late sixties, the women wished to no longer be refered as ladies or girls but only as women.
I am glad I discovered this subtlety, being French living in the UK. Although I have not a bad command of English, I would have missed on this one, which could have got me into misunderstanding.
You are either a real Lady with a title or a woman, she said.
The other woman approved completely.
Both are British, educated women, around 60 years old.
As we were chatting, I did not immediatly make a link between our conversation and the -Female Pressure-
Now refering to the “Ladies night DJ”, they would probably find it patronising.
This is perhaps a minor point in the ground scheme of this but it would be interesting to know when for the first time the Ladies night appeared in the DJ scene and who designated the event with such name...
Bye for now
PS: I am not a DJ ( even though I recently spinned a few vinyls) but a producer/composer
based in West Sussex, UK
speak later
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interesting. we were talking about this recently... personally, i don't really feel addressed when people talk about "girls" or girl djs etc - since i'll turn 44 this year ;-)
ReplyDelete"ladies" is not neutral to me either - i can totally understand the point of view you described here. but the meaning has been partly reassigned through ladyfest in the music scene.
http://ladyfest.tv/
the scene i am coming from - indie, ladyfest - now also called lad.i.y-fest (which i prefer) - took lady as a reference to the riotgrrrlz - who started to deny the term girl (in all variations) as no longer useful in the fight against discrimination - cause girl went into a fashionable term, and also excludes women who do not feel like girls (like myself almost 41 years old) -
ReplyDeletethe british lady adresses a person very established in the role, - like bourgeosie, aristocracy .... i wonder if democracy helped that?
i think it is always up to what the promoters want - often as we see, ladiesnights have nothing to do with emancipation -
btw: i also have problems with terms like "frauenmusik" or in another field "black music" (or do you see in recordshops stalls called "white music")?
interesting about Ladyfest...
ReplyDeleteinteresting about LadyFest which I had heard of
lad.i.y-fest
contains DIY +lad
I understand that with "Ladyfest", it’s all about reappropriating and diverting the term by the community itself, being controversial.
When with "Ladies night", it has nothing to do with emancipation but sounds awfully patronising over here.