Mama. Mère. Ina. Mum.
Across every language, culture, and faith the world over, “mother” is a primal utterance. For many, it connotes a comforting presence, recalling the intimacy we experience in the loving in the arms of one who has given us life. We are connected with our mothers inside the womb and outside of it, so much so that most of us will call out for “mama” on our deathbed. This relationship between mother and child seems even miraculous; it transcends both time and generation – each child has a mother, and every mother was once a child herself. Thus, the word “mother” captures a beautiful truth about human beings – we are, by our very nature, always related to someone else. The transcendent relations of family are so important that we use words which not only connect us in intimacy, but recall us in fact. While the family we are born into does not ultimately define us, our relationships within it help orient us in the world beyond. Without words that ground us into the truth of our being, we can find ourselves unmoored, undefined, and unhappy.
On Monday, January 4th, the U.S. House of Representatives decided to rewrite the official House rules, replacing words like “mother,” “father,” “son,” “daughter,” “brother,” “sister” with “parent,” “child,” and “sibling.” Pronouns such as “himself” and “herself” were changed to “themself” and “chairman” is now simply “chair.” As opponents flocked to express their disdain of the new genderless language, Democrat representatives insisted that these changes would not “impinge upon the freedom of any House members to use gender-specific language in the course of conducting the business of the House,” to borrow the words of the so-called “fact-checking” site Snopes. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries opined that “[this change] is just consistent with an effort…to reflect the gorgeous mosaic of the American people… the hopes, the dreams, the aspirations, the fears, concerns, anxieties, in the words of the framers, the passions of the American people.”
Regardless of stated intention, the majority’s rewriting of an entire regulatory document for the single purpose of “gender inclusivity” should not be taken lightly. Its effects will be felt throughout our society, not only by setting a new precedent for the legislative branch, but emboldening other powerful bodies to install and enforce codes with relative impunity. Tabling the possibility of speech restrictions, these changes entail the erasure of the biologically legible and practically necessary category of woman. If the new code of conduct indeed possesses the power to “reflect the gorgeous mosaic of the American people,” does this new document, this new precedent, properly acknowledge those who belong to the biological, legal class of woman? Along with former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, we say no. After all, striking words like “mother,” “sister,” “daughter,” “chairwoman,” erases woman’s identity while forgetting her hard-won achievement of equality under the law.
The intentional ambiguity of genderless language effectively neutralizes the real category of woman, her role as daughter, sister, or mother, and the conditions which she peculiarly faces as a result of her biological nature. The loss, however, is not limited to women and their definitional relations to others. Men make up nearly half the global population, sharing biological characteristics and experiences that no woman could ever claim. As we have seen, erasing words associated with the male sex would mean forgoing the endearments and actual relations of son, brother, uncle, father, and grandfather, all of whom participate in the diverse heritages of family and country. These differences are precisely what the House should strive to recognize if we are to accurately reflect the true hopes, dreams, and passions of the American people, for they are intimately bound up with the relationships we make in marriage and inherit by birth. Gendered language is a beautiful reflection of our country’s motto e pluribus unum, “out of many, one.” To sustain a healthy, thriving society and democracy, we need unity without uniformity, and a diverse set of words to properly express the realities that exist.
