Editing, diversity, and finding meaning

Yesterday Time published its fourth annual list of words to be banned in the coming year, and the internet exploded.

Typically I pay barely any attention to these lists, because A) it's all kind of silly and B) it's usually a poorly disguised reflection of whatever brand of "kids these days" BS people are complaining about right now. See Time's past winners: OMG, YOLO, and twerk, which are really just slang developed by the 13-to-25 crowd and otherwise harmless.

Okay, but now. Apparently the word "feminist" ought to be banned--and Time's measly reasoning for this is "when did it become a thing that every celebrity had to state their position on whether this word applies to them, like some politician declaring a party? Let's stick to the issues and quit throwing this label around like ticker tape at a Susan B. Anthony parade."

I don't need to talk about how ridiculous and infuriating that is--a thousand people before me have already done so, you can Google it--but yeah, I was pissed all day.  

So was Roxane Gay, incredible author of Untamed State (haven't read yet, want to/kind of scared to) and Bad Feminist (holy smokes what a wonderful book), who had a perspective on it that resonated with me in a major way:

(Also Gay said she is going to write her own essay on this whole issue which is going to be perfect and everything we need, and much better than what I am writing here, but I will write it anyway.)

So, diversity. I know it's kind of a boring buzzword ("At HerpDerp Corporation we value diversity because bleh bleh bleh"), and usually I don't care for it any more than you do. But actual diversity is important in real situations, like this fiasco, where the real question is--who let this slide? 

You're telling me that not only did a woman (yeah, I know! A woman!) concoct this embarrassingly racist/ageist/sexist list, but it got vetted by at least one editor? Who was the person who read this and said, "Yup, looks good"? 

Editing is about a whole lot more than knowing where to put your commas or what the difference between "gorilla" and "guerilla"is or when to end this run-on sentence. It is also, as Gay touched on, about being sensitive to what could sound shitty to a particular demographic.

I think about this occasionally when I'm daydreaming about my eventual full-time career in editing (it will happen! It will!), because as much as I sincerely love the itty-bitty details of editorial work, I also have this obnoxious desire to do something "meaningful" and "fulfilling" with my life, with the overall goal of one way or another "making a difference." Fixing other people's grammar sometimes does that for me--it really does--but other times I have to get all Carrie Bradshaw on myself and wonder: what does it all mean? What if I look back at the end of my life with the knowledge that I was always able to support myself financially but the work I did for 40 hours a week was pointless? 

That's perfectly fine for some folks (and a lot of people have no other option; let's be real here). I don't know if it would work for me, but I'm also 27 years old and probably could stand to give myself a break for not being the successful woman I want to be yet. Still, it's something I worry about: maintaining a steady income while managing not to have to look myself in the mirror and laugh at the robot I've become. I would like to, eventually, Be Someone.

And then Time gets totally slaughtered on the internet for letting one of its correspondents write up this dumb-ass article, and I look at that and think, okay, I never would have let that happen. And neither would a lot of really smart people in the world, people who are not necessarily middle-aged straight white men, who might have a different and more careful understanding of words and ideas, who will make your publication or your website or your book better and smarter and more nuanced and less likely to hurt or shame anyone, intentionally or not. 

The more diversity you get in a business--especially a big one, like Time--the better you're going to be at whatever it is you do, unless the thing you're doing is actually like making home furnishings for white supremacists, or what have you.

I am still far away from learning everything I need to learn about people different from me, because for all my good traits I am still a straight white woman who has been given a lot of things in her life and doesn't always realize how good she has it. Intersectional feminism is a vast and difficult field, y'all! But I would also bet my humble savings account that I have substantially more sense and empathy running through my bones than whatever sack of meat decided it'd be okay to leave "feminist" on a word-banning poll.