Profanity remains a Paradox of Perfect Propriety. “Dirty words” have become much more accepted in daily speech, online commentary, artistic expression (e.g. popular songs, stand-up comedy, titles of TV shows), etc. — but they’re still thought of as “dirty,” and therefore impolite and . . . unacceptable*. But they are accepted, and even insisted on with defiance by some. The latest front for this debate is, unusually, the crafting community.
Long story short, Feminist Cross-Stitch, a book of cross-stitch patterns by Stephanie Rohr, got pulled from shelves by the craft store chain Michaels after they discovered that about 10% of the patterns included the F word. The crafting community seems an unlikely arena for the culture wars. This is what makes Etiquetteer suspect that the buyers at Michaels never thought profanity might be an issue in retail selection. A little more research would have been helpful.
It’s also probably why Michaels made a poor, hasty decision not just to pull the books from the shelves, but to pulp them. That opened them up to charges of censorship and anti-feminism — “silencing women,” as someone posted on social media**. Ms. Rohr summed it up well in the New York Times: “I think what resonated with a lot of people is that it’s Women’s History Month and feminist books are being showcased, unless it’s one someone objects to and is thrown in the garbage.” “Optics” is a fashionable word right now, and this situation is a textbook example of “bad optics.”
Using a traditionally feminine art form to communicate a feminist, progressive message is a stroke of genius; Etiquetteer admires Ms. Rohr’s work. And there’s no use hiding the profanity double standard. Bernice Bryant summed it up accurately in her Miss Behavior (which Etiquetteer quoted recently): “Swearing is not admired in a boy. It is not tolerated in a girl.” These days men should not get a pass on profanity just because. But it’s disingenuous for anyone to use profanity in any context and not expect a response. That it isn’t the response one wanted is immaterial.
Why is Etiquetteer even bringing this up? Because the cultural changes of the last 50 years or so have left us with more openly divergent opinions about profanity. We never had universal agreement about if/when profanity might be used, but we did have universal acceptance that profanity was Not Really Polite. Loretta Young’s swear jar — she’d fine everyone on the set of any movie she was making a quarter for every swear she heard — was a joke even during her career. Now it’s openly mocked as an effort at Perfect Propriety, as in that famous beer commercial. Battles like Rohr vs. Michaels will continue until there’s a common standard.
Etiquetteer has long said that Freedom of Speech is our most valuable Freedom because it really helps people identify themselves. As to the F word, Etiquetteer has never forgotten what the little boy said of it in Hope and Glory: “That word is special. That word is only used for something really important.” (Go to 02:42 in this clip for it.) And even then, it might gain from judicious employment. The F word should be like Mr. and Mrs. Henry van der Luyden in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. It was of them that the Countess Olenska said “. . . the reason for their great influence [is] that they make themselves so rare.“
*This has not stopped That Mr. Dimmick Who Thinks He Knows So Much from swearing like a [Expletive Deleted] Trooper. Etiquetteer Wags an Admonitory Digit at him daily, but he’s clearly not going to [Expletive Deleted] stop. {Expletive Deleted}!
**Etiquetteer geniunely does not believe that Michaels intended to silence the voice of anti-feminism, and if they did, it was a terribly strategy with all the resulting news coverage. If anything it has proved the opposite, that women will not be silenced.