Witches and Wizards

Words aren’t just labels. They come loaded with emotional and historical baggage. Take, for example, “witches and wizards”.

To be sure, both words probably come from similar if not the same proto-European roots, and have not always been gender-specific. There used to be male witches and female wizards, but fairy tales and Hollywood have pretty well put paid to those usages.

It’s the colloquial use of the two words which tells us much about our society. Check the red box, below, to see what ChatGPT regurgitated for me.

All of us are familiar with software wizards, those helpful, sometimes brilliant, assistants that do much of the heavy lifting. Just enter a couple of guiding terms and the wizard will magically produce a finished product, or nearly so. Wizards are smart, helpful, charming, and male.

On the other hand, after a particularly unpleasant female client has left the office, or is at least out of earshot, a conversation will invariably erupt about “that witch!” A notably impudent and malevolent little girl may sometimes be dressed down as “You little witch!” While there are similarly inappropriate terms for little boys, “wizard” is not one of them.

To the best of my knowledge, there are no direct male parallels for floozy, harlot, hussy, slut, tart, vamp, or wench. And yet each such slur requires at least one male partner, who will be called, if at all, a “lucky dog”, a “lover”, or a “player”. Funny, that.

Sexism runs deep in our language and in our psyches. Generally speaking, calling a man a “bull” is complimentary, of sorts, but calling a woman a “cow”, not so much. “An old hen” is a slur without male equivalence. Tailors are men, seamstresses are women, and guess who gets better paid.

Language never changes overnight, but language invariably changes, not so much by edict as by all of us wanting to be cool, and far more by the young than by the old. Interestingly, the first users of new words, new meanings, and new speech patterns tend to be young females. And never for better reason.

While our attitudes follow language, language also follows our attitudes. It’s for this reason that our society will shed its sexist tilt, but only slowly. Provided we don’t elect right-wing dictatorships, our grandchildren will laugh at our funny sexist language.

I’m no wizard. I’m also no young feminist. I’m a grumpy, 75 year old, pretty traditional male. But for the sake of my wife, my daughters and granddaughters, I’ve come, little by little, to realize that it’s time for change, so that the other 50% doesn’t have to live with belittlement.