saladinahmed did a funny thing. It made me do a doubletake. See if you can spot it.I almost forgot to mention that the mighty Cat Valente is responding to this whole mess in truly constructive fashion -- by, as it were, editorially hosting a celebration of Arab and Muslim SF/F writers and poets in the November issue of Apex. I'm happy to announce that my story of retinal-screen spam and semi-post-apocalyptic Muslim piety, "The Faithful Soldier, Prompted" will be a part of that issue.
Did you catch it? It's all in the adjectives. His was "mighty" and not "lovely." To you, insignificant. To me, illuminating.
squirrel_monkey pointed out on her blog some time ago that the epithet "lovely" is way overused in the blogosphere and almost exclusively used to describe women, especially female authors. "I had lunch with the lovely Cat Valente" "another book out by the lovely Cat Valente" "the lovely Cat Valente is reading at x tonight." I see it all the time.
It's a generalized comment on looks, yes, and one that also neatly implies kind and charming, but hardly anyone describes male authors that way. "the lovely Nick Mamatas is reading at x tonight" "another book by the lovely John Scalzi" etc. It sounds weird. And yet it i so often used to describe female authors that it's become nearly invisible. It makes us sound soft and beautiful and gentle and yet at the same time it contains no actual information. If you want to say an author is talented, you say so, or beautiful, ditto. Lovely is just stuck on there--even "lovely and talented" because it makes reassuring noises about the femininity of the subject being discussed. (I've never cared for talented either, to be honest, as it feels like something that implies potential, not actual accomplishment. Kids are talented. They are in talent shows to show what they might be. The show isn't America's Got Accomplished Professionals, you know? Grown ups who work actively in their field are accomplished, or maybe something else. Same with ambitious--if you use the word ambitious in the review I always think that the book didn't measure up to its ambition, or you'd just say it was a masterpiece. Anyway.) "Lovely" sounds like a compliment but really, it's empty. If a writer was ugly people would probably still say "the lovely so and so" because it's so knee jerk when describing women in text. As
squirrel_monkey says, we insist on all women being beautiful, even if they're not, even if they don't care about being beautiful. Ditto personality--I can be lovely, even if I'm sarcastic and cranky. It's just the word that goes with the fact that I am a girl and also a writer.I doubt anyone actually means to do any of this. It's just weird an automatic and I do it myself sometimes. But ever since reading that post I see the word "lovely" everywhere, literally everywhere, tacked on to women's names like some kind of delicate mandatory tail. It is so ubiquitous that when I see a sentence structure that goes "the ______ My Name" and "lovely" doesn't fill in the blank, I do a doubletake. Because "mighty" isn't "lovely." It's a boy word, a word people use to decribe boy writers. "the mighty Tobias Buckell" doesn't sound weird.
But I have become so accustomed to being lovely (lovely---feminine---invisible) that my heart beats faster when some other adjective manages to slide in there. Maybe it's because I'm an editor now, which is a position of power, and not a Bronte
I call for a hiatus on calling female writers lovely in write-ups, blogs, and articles. We are writers. This kind of thing does not become us.
2010-09-25 04:30 pm (UTC)
2010-09-25 04:30 pm (UTC)
2010-09-25 04:34 pm (UTC)
Note the subject line!
Well, my almost typage above confirms that in my experience, I do see "lovely" connected to men, and I tend to use it that way. I don't think it's meaningless; I think it means "I really like this person who is charming, enchanting, and kind."
Nonetheless, that is not to say that you are not right; merely because I use it that way for both male and female friends does not mean that there isn't a larger, more common, sexist usage.
2010-09-25 04:39 pm (UTC)
That's a cool antho--I wouldn't even know where to begin with my own stuff, it's all about monsters.
2010-09-25 04:38 pm (UTC)
2010-09-25 04:47 pm (UTC)
2010-09-25 04:41 pm (UTC)
2010-09-25 04:42 pm (UTC)
When I use lovely, I use it to mean "worthy of love". Not many people are worthy of my love because that implies an implicit trust that they won't harm me, and at least like me a little. It does NOT mean that they are unworthy of love at all, but my love is always earned and not easily given, but when it is, it is given with all of me. I will use "lovely" for both males and females, but only with a select few that I could probably count on one hand.
However, I totally see your point here. Something I also wanted you to know is the main adjectives I have in my brain for you are powerful, influential, amazing, fantastical, and yes mighty. You have seriously touched lives, made things happen, and built an army/tribe/empire that you don't "rule" over but are a part of, just as much as any of the rest of us.
2010-09-25 04:45 pm (UTC)
2010-09-25 04:43 pm (UTC)
2010-09-25 04:46 pm (UTC)
2010-09-25 04:49 pm (UTC)
2010-09-25 04:50 pm (UTC)
Sparky thinks you're lovely. I think you're mighty. Especially when you make those mad mascarpone muffins. Dizzamn!
2010-09-25 05:02 pm (UTC)
2010-09-25 04:51 pm (UTC)
2010-09-25 04:51 pm (UTC)
I, personally, use it for both males and females. And inanimate objects. It's a lovely play, your brother was absolutely lovely at the party last night, you're such a lovely singer...
Am beginning to think I just use 'lovely' too much, ha.
2010-09-25 05:06 pm (UTC)
And I've been waiting for years for just such a sentence!
2010-09-25 05:14 pm (UTC)
2010-09-25 05:29 pm (UTC)
2010-09-25 05:17 pm (UTC)
2010-09-27 04:25 am (UTC)
2010-09-25 05:18 pm (UTC)
....I think my own big gender-slip-of-the-tongue has to do with referring to women I like as 'my dear.' Aaaaand I'm now realizing that I used that phrase in a post on Kathy Sedia's LJ this morning. Oops.
2010-09-25 05:21 pm (UTC)
I try not to say my dear or other endearments online because they often rub people the wrong way. Especially in debate.
2010-09-25 05:19 pm (UTC)
2010-09-25 05:24 pm (UTC)
"The lovely [fill in girl writer's name."
2010-09-25 05:27 pm (UTC)
I tend to use "lovely" to describe anything that truly charms me and makes me react in a certain emotional way. But it's usually creations-- a piece of music, a dress or a piece of fabric, an especially gorgeous machine. A breathless "oh, that's lovely". But now I think about it, I rarely use it on people. I think maybe on someone whose beauty I found unusual and startling-- "wow, she's really lovely!" It's kind of a word for emotion that gets startled out of me.
It's funny how a word can change meaning even with one user. I have used the phrase "the lovely and talented X," but only when I'm intentionally being silly, because to me that's an old stock phrase that's become a cliche-- fit for situations where no modifier is called for, because it kind of *is* no modifier. Like, when asking who all will be coming to the family dinner, "will your lovely and talented boyfriend be joining us?"
So yeah, in that latter sense, using "the lovely X" non-ironically is... well, as you say, empty.
*ponder*
Edited at 2010-09-25 05:31 pm (UTC)
2010-09-25 05:29 pm (UTC)
Although, I'd have used the adjective 'awesome' myself...as in to inspire awe which is both accurate and true.
2010-09-25 05:31 pm (UTC)
2010-09-25 05:47 pm (UTC)
2010-09-25 06:00 pm (UTC)
personality like a chainsaw," which accurately describes me much of the time.
Talented is a word I use for someone who actually has a talent. One can be an accomplished professional and really have no talent for the work. The work is done as a matter of willpower and determination, without any guiding genius or real ability to make it more than pedestrian.
2010-09-25 06:05 pm (UTC)
2010-09-25 06:02 pm (UTC)
I do also tend to use it for general aggregations ("the lovely people at Subterranean Press" being an example). I do use the adjective a lot not relating to people -- it turns out I've had a number of lovely times in lovely places with lovely people over the last few years. Good for me, I say.
I would be delighted to be described as "lovely," incidentally. This fact does not negate the validity of your general observation.
Edited at 2010-09-25 06:03 pm (UTC)
2010-09-25 06:06 pm (UTC)
So. I will do better. Because you are mighty. And fierce. And loveliness, physical or otherwise, has nothing to do with talent.
2010-09-25 06:12 pm (UTC)
2010-09-25 06:16 pm (UTC)
But you do raise a good point- in journal entries where I talk about meeting up with an LJ person, I usually say "the lovely so-and-so" without even thinking about it. I suppose I'm trying to be complimentary, but you're right in that "lovely" in and of itself has become meaningless. Next time I'm writing up an encounter I'll have to expand my vocabulary. Thanks for provoking my thoughts, mighty Cat!
wyrds
2010-09-25 06:22 pm (UTC)
you do good work, and it's nice to see people are recognizing your obvious exceptionalness (not a real word, but it fits)
Re: wyrds
2010-09-25 06:24 pm (UTC)
Dons the sociolinguistic hat
2010-09-25 06:23 pm (UTC)
This is not about *whether* you use a specific construction to refer to both genders, it is about relative frequencies of a certain construction being used. Statistical searches on this usage would likely reveal that "lovely" and "beautiful" are more frequently used to modify female writers than they are to modify male writers. In addition, and perhaps even more importantly, adjectival modifiers such as "mighty" and "powerful" are disproportionately more frequent with male referents.
I refer you to the research done by Lera Boroditsky on these matters. Here is a quote:
"For example, when asked to describe a "key" — a word that is masculine in German and feminine in Spanish — the German speakers were more likely to use words like "hard," "heavy," "jagged," "metal," "serrated," and "useful," whereas Spanish speakers were more likely to say "golden," "intricate," "little," "lovely," "shiny," and "tiny." To describe a "bridge," which is feminine in German and masculine in Spanish, the German speakers said "beautiful," "elegant," "fragile," "peaceful," "pretty," and "slender," and the Spanish speakers said "big," "dangerous," "long," "strong," "sturdy," and "towering." This was true even though all testing was done in English, a language without grammatical gender."
NPR article about Boroditsky's research on gender;
and a more general article on Boroditsky's research.
Re: Dons the sociolinguistic hat
2010-09-25 07:13 pm (UTC)