Hello all,
I hope everyone is well and making a good start on our new year.
I find it a bit awkward, but also difficult to refrain from picking up on the patriarchal language employed in this posting. I think that referring to our community as a fraternity is unnecessary and unhelpful in relation to the gendered associations with this term. I hope other colleagues will join me in an appreciation of language that promotes equality. I am happy to hear about alternative understandings of the use of ‘fraternity’ and other words. I understand that fraternity can be taken to mean a group sharing common values, interests and goals, but it is more specifically relating to a brotherhood, and seems to have evolved in language to refer to everyone regardless of gender, in a similar way to how ‘he’ is sometimes used in text as a generic pronoun. I think that in our context this risks ignoring the history of psychological research in which male (often white, often western educated, largely heterosexual) norms are taken for granted as the norm in relation to psychological measurements and standards against which alternative presentations are construed as deviant, and as a result of this, other groups can easily be marginalised, pathologised and disempowered. I know my own use of language is often lazy, uncritical and built on pernicious assumptions, and I do appreciate critique that helps me to reflect on how my words can have a negative effect on others and myself and the inequalities we experience.
Thanks for your thoughts on this (here I will resist referring to you all as my sisters).
With warm wishes,
Wendy
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mark Burton
Sent: 11 January 2016 13:01
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Subject: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Fwd: ICCP2016 Abstract Submission Deadline Extended
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Subject: | ICCP2016 Abstract Submission Deadline Extended |
Date: | Mon, 11 Jan 2016 12:48:07 +0000 |
From: | ICCP2016 <[log in to unmask]> |
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