You can hardly turn on the television these days without hearing some politician or chat show host knocking Political Correctness'.
This anti-PC lobby, desperately campaigning to protect the privileges of white, heterosexual men, represents the 'respectable' face of racism and sexism.
PC is accused of destroying freedom of speech, of being narrow minded and dogmatic, and (the ultimate crime) of 'spoiling our fun".
This is the freedom to tell racist and sexist jokes, to sexually harass women and the fun of deriding and discriminating generally, on the grounds of gender, race and sexuality.
The recent attack on 'date rape was accompanied in the media by an attack on 'politically correct ideas.
American college students were ridiculed for issuing sexual conduct charters amidst a concerted effort to place the blame for rape on the shoulders of the victims.
PC cannot replace collective action resulting from a recognition of shared experiences of exploitation. But language is not irrelevant -not only can it reflect oppression, it can play a role in upholding, perpetuating and legitimating it.
How many English words are there for a promiscuous female and how many for a male? How many terms of abuse to put down a black person and how many for a
Developing new terms
free from the prejudices of the old, and finding ways to name our exploitation are political acts which can be used to unite people around common experiences of oppression.
Describing the dissatisfaction of white middle class women, Betty Friedan in the which is it you want -equality ot maternity leave? 'Feminine Mystique' (1963) talked about the 'problem that has no name' Then, tired of being harassed on the grounds of their gender, women campaigning for US civil rights appropriated the discourse of the movement.
Just as there was 'racism' so there became 'sexism'. The word 'chauvinism' (used to apply to American involvement in South East Asia) was applied to men -'male chauvinism'. In developing language that named oppressive male behaviour we gained an empowering weapon in the fight against women's oppression.
PC does not address the material base at the root of our oppression or suggest collective conscious action as a route to liberation.
In fighting for socialism we need to organise around shared experiences of oppression not only of class, but of gender, sexuality and race too.
However, moves to make discriminatory language unacceptable should be supported. There is an ideology which reinforces and legitimises our oppression, and that ideology must be fought at every opportunity.