Hate Crime is so Gay

Perhaps I shouldn’t use a sarcastic title like this, but I bet you all know what I mean. Or do you? Funny how the word ‘gay’ has been used in recent years, as a term of abuse, implying something of negative value, something bad, damaged, warped, perverted. There’s a whole realm of the sociology of language - actually its called linguistics of course - because the way we use language is highly structured, and highly significant in revealing social relationships.

So its well worth tuning into this interesting programme on R4 - The Report - which looks at the issue of hate crime and discusses, inter alia, the meaning and use of the word ‘gay’.

For teachers, hate crime is perhaps a reallly good topic to start with, or have near the start, when you begin teaching crime and deviance. After all, hate crime involves all those issues of definition and measurement which us sociologists find so interesting and which are so important. Has hate crime increased in recent years - or is it just that the police are now increasingly interested in it? How do you define a hate crime? What does the rising interest in hate crime tell us about contemporary society? Why do some groups get picked on by others, what are the social causes and functions of hatred?

‘Gay’ is only the tip of the iceberg. We often use language as a means of social control. I used to have this useful little handout based on some work by a sociologist called Sue Lees on ‘reputational labelling’. Lees had produced a nice list of the rude and unpleasant words which are applied to women who meet with social disapproval; the only one I can repeat here is ‘slapper’, but you’ll all know the sort of thing I mean. Lees list also included some of the more positive terms we use to describe men and male characteristics. It’s fairly easy to make up your own list - although I think you can find a version of it in Ken Browne’s textbook, published by Polity Press.

Maybe its something worth digging out, or making up your own version. The power of words is really quite amazing. And it is a social process.