archetypes & gender

I wish more had been written about how this type of perception affects women as a whole.

Words Mistaken At Face Value

As much as people like to pretend that looks don't matter, there are archetypes ingrained in our subconscious about what certain kinds of people are supposed to look like. And we make assumptions all the time based on those archetypes. When they don't match up, sometimes the accompanying discombobulation can be a pleasant surprise. As when the boy in the baggy pants and bandana turns out to be smartest guy in the class. When the fashion victim announces she has a doctorate in physics. Or when the nerdy talent show contestant turns out to have the voice of a diva.

Savvy folks use stereotypes to their advantage, throwing off the competition or lowering the bar so that when they clear it, it seems that much more impressive.

But recently, those sorts of disconnects have left people distressed. Pundits are perturbed because, in interviews, Elizabeth Edwards displayed little concern for the baby that might be her husband's love child. Comedian Wanda Sykes has been taken to the woodshed because her humor at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner turned pointed. Words alone didn't cause all that aggravation. A lot of it had to do with the person doing the talking. And how she looks.

badly written words

Perhaps because I work with words on a close and intimate basis, I recognized almost immediately that these were sentences that were unfortunately composed:

"Abortion is murder," one protester screamed.

"That's all right," Obama said as the crowd booed.

This could be read that Obama felt that murder was okay, then the crowd booed him. But actually, the protester exclaimed, the crowd booed, and then Obama spoke to the crowd.

Writing well is about putting the right words in the right order. The juxtaposition above is careless to the point of clouding what actually occurred.