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Captains and Stewardesses
11/01/01
I teach public speaking as part of my graduate assistantship. One idea I have recently been trying to teach my students is that of cultural barriers. Cultural barriers are references a person makes in speaking that exclude those who are not a member of the speaker's culture. This can happen on a very broad cultural level, say from country to country. Like, the British word for drunk is pissed, and pissed has a very different meaning for us. However, cultural barriers also exist on a much smaller level, say heterosexual vs. homosexual, black vs. white. I explain to my students that they probably won't be able to avoid all cultural barriers in their speeches, but they should try to avoid as many as they can, because cultural barriers affect the listening comprehension of the audience. These ideas seem very simple to me: just try to be inclusive and respectful. So, I tell my students not to assume that their entire audience is heterosexual or Christian, and I also remind them to use gender inclusive language because this is probably one of the biggest cultural barriers that people unthinkingly use on a regular basis. I am thinking about these issues as I watch George W. Bush's address to airline employees in Chicago. Although I am not at all a Bush supporter, as I watch him, I am just about to give him credit for really improving his speaking skills. Just as I give him an inch of credit, he falls back a mile. Bush tells the airline employees that they are fighting terrorism just by doing their jobs. Then he goes on to list those jobs, beginning with "stewardesses and captains." How hard is it to use the word flight attendant? I was not just offended because it was obvious that the picture he had in his mind was of a male captain, and obviously, female stewardesses. But, I have a lot of male friends who are flight attendants as well. Most of them are not Bush supporters, and I bet they have another reason not be now. Next
Karma Chavez graduated from Hastings College in May 2000 with degrees in religion and communication, and is in her first year of graduate school in communication studies at the University of Alabama. Contact: ilove4n6@yahoo.com
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