Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.
That childhood retort is false, as those of us who carry the wounds of verbal taunts within us can verify. Words can be as violent an attack as a physical blow.
This brings me to the highly publicized event at the Oscars when Will Smith struck Chris Rock for insulting his (Smith’s) wife. I yield to no one in my abhorrence of violence and Smith has been rightly condemned for his out-of-control behavior. But his blow wasn’t the only attack that night. What about Rock’s crude “G I Jane” joke? His victim had to sit there humiliated as her medical condition was ridiculed in front of millions of viewers..
Women are used to being the butt of jokes. Anecdotes about nagging mothers-in-law and parodies of the “Jewish mother” have long been staples of comedians. But the mockery doesn’t end with comedy routines; it doesn’t even begin with them. I have a haunting memory of a woman I knew as Miss Maher. She was my 8th grade English teacher and inspired a lifelong love of poetry in me. I still see her standing in front of the class, trying to read Keats or Shelley against an undercurrent of snickers from the adolescent boys, because of her deformed posture. One shoulder was higher than the other. The boys called her “the hunchback” and chalked that word on school walls and in the playground. With impressive dignity Miss Maher ignored the taunts. But who knows how much “hunchback” echoed in her mind during her lonely nights?
How do you get over hurts like that? You don’t. I know women who are attractive and slim, yet see themselves as obese because they (and I ) hear within ourselves the “fatso” taunt of childhood. Even Princess Diana is known to have resorted to bulimia, unable to see the reality of her slender adult self.
These are all slight stories compared to the countless tragedies of teenagers driven to suicide by verbal and written bullying. As an author I revere the power of language. I also believe that anyone with the ability to write books or compose songs or make movies – even perform stand-up -comedy- has a responsibility to avoid gratuitously shaming another human being.
The indisputable truth is that words are frequently wounding and too often lethal. We all need to use those weapons carefully.
WEBSITE: www.annehosansky.com
BOOKS: COME AND GO – available through BookBaby.com, WIDOW’S WALK –iUniverse.com; TURNING TOWARD TOMORROW –Xlibris.com, TEN WOMEN OF VALOR and ROLE PLAY- available through CreateSpace.com and Amazon.com; also Amazon Kindle.