The Other L Word Follow Up

Yesterday, in the bathroom at the AWP Writers' Conference, I overheard a woman talking to herself in the stall next to me. "Ladies who pee on the toilet seat aren't ladies," she declared. "They're big fat pigs." This last part of the sentence was delivered with slow deliberation, as though she were deciding on precisely the right word to describe women who have committed the unspeakable act of imprecise urination.

A number of people responded to my previous blog entry about the word "lady" with vehement disagreement. Perhaps, in fact, this word can be redeemed for a younger generation. After all, gen Xers did effect a lukewarm reclamation of the world "girl" (though I would argue that it's still problematic). But for this woman, a generation older than I am (I looked when she came out), the word "lady" is inextricably--and apparently for her, unproblematically--linked to the idea of well-controlled female behavior. The misogyny of the statement is as stunning as the speech act itself: a public/private declaration meant, no doubt, to deliver the voice of judgement from a safely anonymous locale. I would argue, again, that this is the function of the word, at least in certain contexts.

Oh yes, and she splashed water on me while we were washing our hands at the seat. Thanks, lady.