When Girls Swear

Swearing/profanity/cursing/cussing, whatever you call it is a pretty fascinating phenomenon.  I distinctly remember the first time I told a joke with a swear word in it.  I had overheard my dad telling it to his friend.  I thought it was the rudest and dirtiest joke because it had the word “bloody” in the punchline.  The joke was:

A woman is at a supermarket and loads her groceries onto the checkout.  She buys one carrot, one sausage, soup for one, one potato and one bread roll.  As the cashier scans all the items he says to the woman, “I bet you’re single”, and the woman says, “Why yes I am, how’d you know?”  To this, the cashier replies, “Because you’re so bloody ugly.”

In hindsight, it’s a terrible joke.  It’s not funny and rather sexist, but it was the first time I think I ever swore. 

Back to swearing! When you’re young being allowed to swear means being grown-up and we long to be part of that community.  When we’re older, swearing, when used appropriately might help us fit in with different groups of people by making us seem “real” and not stuck up.  When used inappropriately it might make us seem rude or crass.  I personally love swearing.  I don’t swear a lot at all, but I choose my moments.  I swear to make a point that I am really angry or hurt, and sometimes I swear when I want to prove that I’m, for want of a better word, tough.  This is usually with my dad and brother, but also if someone makes a comment about women not being able to swear.  

The gender divide in coarse language really interests me. Why are men perceived to swear more than women?  As I said before, I don’t swear much and many people in Australia are shocked if I ever do swear.  That’s why I found it really strange that when I was in Canada people said I swore a lot “for a girl”. 

From a feminist perspective, it can be argued that women are denied power by not having strong words, including swear-words in their feminine vocabulary (Lakoff 1973, p. 51) as humans are socialised to expect men and women to behave and speak in certain ways deemed appropriate to their sex (Lakoff 1973, p. 53).  Lakoff explains that women are faced with a difficult situation:

So a girl is damned if she does, damned if she doesn't. If she refuses to talk likea lady, she is ridiculed and subjected to criticism as unfeminine; if she does learn, she is ridiculed as unable to think clearly, unable to take part in a serious discussion: in some sense, as less than fully human. These two choices which a woman has - to be less than a woman or less than a person-are highly painful (Lakoff 1973, p. 48).

Now we need to remember that Lakoff was working in the 1970s and was influenced by the full swing of second wave feminism, but I think she definitely has some good points.  Some more recent psychological scholarship has proposed that biological or genetic influences may also have a role in explaining observed sex differences.  Ginsburg, Ogletree & Silakowski argue that from a Darwinian perspective vulgar language usage might be tied to aggression threats, dominance displays, or group cohesion on males (2003, p. 112).  In my opinion, even if biologically male traits started people swearing, it has certainly become a social and linguistic tool.  Swearing feels a little bit naughty, and can be used to signal that you’re really angry or hurt or even to lighten the mood.  I’ll leave you with a youtuube video that illustrates rather nicely how profanity can bring people together.

References:

Ginsburg, H, Ogletree, S and Silakowski, T 2003, ‘Vulgar Language: Review of Sex Differences in Usage, Attributions, and Pathologies’, North American Journal of Psychology, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 105-115, accessed 2/10/2012, http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/docview/197982883

Lakoff, R 1973, Language and woman's place, Language in Society, vol. 2, no. 1, pp45-49, accessed 2/10/2012,  http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/10.1017/S0047404500000051