‘Elderly’ label stereotype
Like Jill Stansfield (June 20) I dislike being called ‘elderly’. It’s a classification that forces complex human beings into separate boxes based on a single factor. That’s a stereotype. Stereotypes reduce the human kaleidoscope to shades of grey. Usually one box is darker grey than others, embodying the fear, and sometimes contempt, the speaker or listener feels for that category. Thankfully New Zealand newspapers have ceased labelling people by their ethnicity, but they still mostly do so by age.
‘Wheelchair-bound’ is a journalist’s cliche that used to make me gag. Now I can see the funny side — a cartoon of someone trapped in a contraption of metal, canvas and rubber, welded together so they can’t get out even to go to the loo. A reporter approaches with nose-peg firmly in place. I’m a wheelchair user only when it’s relevant to the story. My age and gender almost never is.
‘Elderly woman injured in car crash’. Here the reporter or police officer at the scene has chosen two boxes based entirely on visual clues, including the stereotypes already built into a driver’s licence. Every time people fill a form they have to choose which boxes they fit. I, like many others, don’t identify myself as New Zealand European, Pākēha, or Māori. Most forms give me no alternative but ‘other’, then I have to find the language to describe my ‘other’. I’ve chosen ‘4th generation Kiwi’. Until late last century, Kiwi farmers’ wives unthinkingly entered ‘Housewife’ in the Census occupation question. Most could equally well have chosen ‘Farmer’ or ‘Bookkeeper’. There is still no category for a combination of all three.
‘Politically correct’ (actually ‘respectful’) language often looks clumsy, but there’s no need for that. If you want to write about me, just use my name. (I see the Kāpiti News already does this). Somewhere in the story you will need to choose a personal pronoun for me. The choices are ‘he’, ‘she’, or the grammatically clumsy ‘they’. Easily fixed. Te reo Māori is an official Kiwi language. We could adopt its gender-neutral pronoun ‘ia’. The rest of the English-speaking world might catch on, its so neutral and simple. KAREN
BUTTERWORTH
WAIKANAE