My Top 5 Politically Correct Terms and Why I Use Them

Justice is blind, but also emo.

I often find politically correct terms to be dreary and somewhat awkward, but there are a few terms that I have made staples of my day-to-day vocabulary. I choose to use them instead of their more common counterparts because I believe that words in general have great power, and that changing the world starts by first opening your mouth and *saying* something.

That said, here's my list of top 5 PC terms:

5) I say asian/caucasian/etc. instead of yellow/white/etc. I figured I'd get this out of the way early since matters of race will inevitably come up during talk of PC terms, and I choose to use these words because I dislike reducing people to the color of their skin.

It is universally understood that racial slurs (i.e. Flip instead of Filipino) are unacceptable, but labels such as "black" or "white" are fairly common. While I don't believe there is anything too earth-shatteringly wrong about calling a person a certain color, I feel slightly uncomfortable doing so. African-Americans often refer to each other as black, but when I was hanging out with some of my African-American friends, I felt extremely uncomfortable when saying the word out loud. I had the same experience when conversing with my caucasian friends (of both American and European origins).

I'm not sure how I'd react if someone called Filipino people "brown", though I must admit it does sound somewhat awkward to my ears. Calling a Japanese or Chinese friend "yellow" just seems plain rude to me, (probably because of books and movies where the term is used as an insult rather than a label), so I pretty much decided to just stop using colors to describe everyone in general.

4) I say partner instead of girlfriend or boyfriend. At the risk of sounding like a complete wanker, I prefer genderless terms to describe people whom I have relationships with. I like the word 'partner' because it implies an equality to your relationship, a certain level of maturity, and again, is completely genderless.

Asking a friend who their partner is passes no judgement, while asking them if they have a girlfriend/boyfriend implies that I'm automatically assuming they're gay or straight. The term "lover" is also genderless, though it implies that a relationship is of a sexual nature and again, I'd hate to pass any sort of judgement. ;)

It should be noted that the genderless term "bitsy pookum" is also acceptable.

3) I say commitment ceremony and life partner instead of wedding and husband/wife. This is a tricky one because these are actually 2 very different things. While I believe in the former but dislike the latter, it is important to call an apple an apple and an orange an orange. Commitment ceremonies are pretty much like weddings, though there is no priest (or if there is, the ceremony isn't binding in legal church terms), and you don't sign any papers (i.e. civil wedding). In other words, it's two people saying that they're going to be together for the rest of their lives, with no legal bullshit "making sure" that they do.

I like commitment ceremonies because it's all about love and not about selling the woman to the man. You may say that the father "giving away" the bride is sweet, but I'll be damned if it doesn't remind me of a prized cow being traded off. Of course, more progressive weddings now have the bride walking down the aisle alone (joined by her parents at the altar), but in the end it's still all about signing those all-important contracts.

I don't think these terms are interchangeable, however, because when I say I'm going to a wedding, it means I'm going to a wedding. 'Life partner' is what you end up calling your partner after the commitment ceremony, though I do think some progressive married couples use the term as well.

Either way, I use these terms as much as humanly possible in order to subtly brainwash the people around me. So far, I've been to almost a dozen weddings and no commitment ceremonies, so perhaps it hasn't worked yet. :(

2) I say Gay or lesbian instead of fag or dyke. I use these terms for the same reason I use the terms in #1. While the LGBT community freely uses the latter terms, I find it uncomfortable because they have been used in books and media as slurs.

I once used the term "third sex" to refer to the homosexual community in my senior thesis, and a gay friend of mine told me that he preferred I change that term. He explained that to call gay men and lesbian women members of the third sex implies that there is a first sex and a second sex, and that they shouldn't be rated. I thought about it a little and realized that he was right, and in the end used the imminently longer 'homosexual community' which made my thesis a little longer than it should have been. Yay! :D

1) I say Pro-choice instead of Pro-abortion or Baby killer. This one may seem like a no-brainer, but there are plenty of people out there who presume to pass judgment on women who choose this route. My personal belief is that every woman has the right to choose whether or not to be a mother. Medical science has allowed us to make a choice, and it is no one's right to impose their moral and ethical views on anyone else.

An impregnated rape victim, for example, should have the right to choose to abort her child. No priest, moral crusader, or random indignant house frau should have the right to tell her otherwise. Likewise for teen pregnancies, drug babies, pregnancies which risk the woman's life, and fetuses which harbor genetic defects. Now, the latter issue has been debated to death already, but let me reiterate that I am neither for nor against this. I am simply saying that mothers *must* have the right to make their own decisions without prejuidice.

Coming from a country where abortion is illegal (and so is divorce, embrassingly enough), I find this law both insulting and ridiculous. A woman's choice is her right, and no government should take that decision away.

*Due to her use of politically-correct terms, Lizz takes 5 seconds longer to say anything.