{"id":1110,"date":"2020-03-04T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-04T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=1110"},"modified":"2020-03-04T09:09:31","modified_gmt":"2020-03-04T09:09:31","slug":"its-the-way-we-tell-em-engendering-sex-by-michael-higgins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2020\/03\/04\/its-the-way-we-tell-em-engendering-sex-by-michael-higgins\/","title":{"rendered":"IT\u00b4S THE WAY WE TELL \u00b4EM Engendering Sex \u2013 By Michael Higgins"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Engendering\nSex \u2013 By Michael Higgins<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dialect\nand Discrimination at Touchstones in Rochdale               <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine\nthe howls of protest that would ensue if a museum or art gallery announced they\nwere excluding girls from an artistic survey of changing patterns of language\nor \u2018dialect\u2019 in any town in Britain. Imagine if the reason for it was that Eve\nate of the forbidden fruit in Eden and caused the downfall of man, and that\ntherefore all daughters of Eve were cursed. Imagine if girls were deemed not\nimportant, or that Mary Shelley was accused of stealing her husband Percy\u2019s\nnovel Frankenstein and changing all the homophile undertones. It is maybe\neasier to imagine (with perhaps a more defensible reason) that the current over-emphasis\non girls and women as a part of equalising the sexes has resulted in boys now\nbeing disadvantaged in schools etc…and enough is enough.\u2019  The howls would be loud indeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Jasleen Kaur<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

So imagine my outrage when I read an information leaflet at Rochdale\u2019s Touchstones Art Gallery And Museum describing a projected school dialect survey which excluded boys. The reason for excluding boys it seems was because Jasleen Kaur, the artist planning to use the field recordings she would be making for an exhibition at Touchstones to be held in October, believed that the \u2018father of Lancashire Dialect\u2019 John Collier, (alias Tim Bobbin 1708-1786, see our cover \/ heading picture) had written a \u2018dictionary\u2019 in the 18th<\/sup> century which \u00b4favoured men.\u2019 Therefore she was, she said, correcting the bias by interviewing girls only as part of the schools section. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Michael Higgins<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I had gone along to Touchstones to record a set paragraph on food (another love of the artist) with other members of the Edwin Waugh Dialect Society as part of this project aiming to record how Rochdalians of all backgrounds now speak local English. Strangely adult men were allowed and this puzzled me, seeing that the info sheet barred boys. As soon as I could I asked about the seeming discrimination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nman overseeing the interviews added that the artist only included girls because\n\u2018that\u2019s what she does.\u2019  Jasleen Kaur is\nan artist often described as \u2018Feminist\u2019, but I, as chairman of the Edwin Waugh\nDialect Society, (EWDS) and Ron Williams, as the Society\u00b4s President, were\nflabbergasted that Tim Bobbin\u2019s work as a whole, never mind his \u2018Dictionary\u2019,\ncould be deemed Sexist and be used as an excuse for reverse Sexist action.  I think the man was actually referring to\nTim\u2019s View of the Lancashire Dialect<\/em>\n\u2013 a glossary to his humorous tale Tummus\nand Meary.<\/em> The interview facilitator then widened the blame to male dialect\nwriters in general who in the past have far outnumbered women. This tactic got\nme even more agitated as one could say the same thing for any literature all\nover the world in the 19th<\/sup> century. But in any case any question of\nwho writes the words, a man or a woman, whether standard or dialect, doesn\u2019t\nstop anyone reading it. In any case speech is learnt from families which\ncomprise both men and women and certainly all those dialect writers did not\nlearn and use words peculiar to men. All those male writers used language\ncommon to all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nany case over half of the contestants in this year\u2019s EWDS writing competitions\nare women. What is Feminism\u2019s problem?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nbecame so frustrated by the seeming Feminist party line being promulgated\nagainst innocent writers of the past and equally innocent schoolboys of the\npresent that I stormed out of the interview and said I would complain. The\nfacilitator never once hinted that the issue would be looked at afresh and the\npolicy might change and I felt something had to be done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\ncomplain I did, with the help of another member and ex Mayor of Rochdale, poet\nRobin Parker, through the council and its Link4Life outreach service, and\nTouchstones itself. The outcome was that schoolboys are now included in the\nproject and no one now officially thinks Tim Bobbin is sexist. Hooray! In that\ncase I suggested that they change the info sheet handout inviting only girls to\ntake part. This they promised to do.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During\nthe few days of correspondence between councillor, facilitator and the artist\nherself I assured them that the sexes should indeed be \u2018exalted\u2019 and exhibitors\nshould be free to glorify either men or women, but not at the expense of\nsociety, or to skew a dialect survey purporting to represent Rochdale as a\nwhole. That was something the EWDS could not support.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor\nshould innocent writers be maligned for being the wrong sex or schoolchildren\nof either sex being punished for the alleged sins of their parents. While I\nused the word sex<\/em>, referring to\nhumans, of which there are only two, male and female, the correspondence from\nTouchstones referred to gender<\/em>, a\ngrammatical term, of which there are three. Gender determines whether a noun is\n\u2018masculine\u2019 \u2018feminine\u2019 or \u2018neither\u2019 (neuter) \u2013 always listed in that order – a\npeculiar grammatical arrangement which has nothing to do with human sexual\ndifferentiation. Yet no one ever refers to \u2018genderism<\/em>\u2019\nas a slur when bemoaning sexual bias. Here sex remains le mot juste. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nreduction of humanity to abstract grammatical terminology has alas brought us\nto my other complaint about galleries and museums becoming the home of\n\u2018mollycoddled cranks\u2019 with a politicised view of society, a biased sense of\nmission and an urge to spur on social engineering. In other words, institutions\nencourage an elitist world view against what most folk prefer to see as\nunderstandable polyglot art and sculpture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nthis I have form, having given a talk and recital at Touchstones in June 2018,\nbased on Tim Bobbin\u2019s works, as part of an exhibition by artist Marcus Quaife\nentitled \u2018 While England Mourns\u2019. Mr Quaife\u2019s work  consisted of repeat images of a lady rioter\nhurling a brick during the Paris student riots of 1968 imposed on a dozen or so\ninsulation boards, with each board\u2019s surface \nbeing peeled away to reveal the duplicated image. Not much about England\nmourning here. One board did have a Tim Bobbin illustration imposed but apart\nfrom a passing reference to some satirical and mock biblical lines by Tim on\nthe 1757 Shudehill corn riot there was nothing to link Tim to anything. Though\nbilled by Touchstones as being based on Tim\u2019s legacy the man himself never took\npart in a riot nor ever proposed to. In short the exhibit had nothing\nwhatsoever to do with Tim or England but I went ahead and did my best to draw\nattention to Quaife\u2019s work as part of my reading. As I wrote elsewhere at the\ntime, Tim might have taken a dim view of the insulation boards (he painted inn\nsigns and Hogarthian caricatures) but hey- art is art! The exhibition was part\nof a Touchstones\u00b4 wide range of exhibits and performances celebrating folklore\nand holidays. After my recitations a mummers group came into the gallery to\nperform and almost knocked over one of the insulation boards. An attendant\nintervened just in time. Tim Bobbin would have loved it as a new form of\nperformance art I am sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nmy talk on Tim I stressed his comic ridicule of both sexes, exemplified in the\nhalf dialect doggerel  poem Squint Eyed\nNan, about an ale loving peddler-woman \nwho persuades a farmer worried about the fall in the price of corn to\nbuy spoons from her on the basis that \u2018spoons win be spoons\u2019 whatever the price\nof corn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nalso set a tune to Tim\u2019s equally doggerel verses, Three Country Bumpkins. The\nlatter being three rustic youths vying as to which is the ugliest. I also set a\ntune to Tim\u2019s parody of a John Wesley Hymn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\nso it was in the course of defending Tim with these two examples of Tim\u2019s\nsupposed \u2018sexism\u2019 that I performed the pieces at an Off The Rails Event in\nPreston a few days after the schoolboy issue dispute blew up. The performance\ndid attract howls, not of protest, but of laughter when I related the tale of\nSexism at Touchstones.  Ironically Sid\nCalderbank, the champion of Lancashire Dialect, was there but could not sing or\nrecite that day due to a sore throat so I had no rival on the dialect scene.\n\u2018Hurray!\u2019 some cruel wags cried out in mock joy.  I was shocked and wondered what might be said\nof me afterwards. In the real world there may be plenty of cranks but at least\nthey are not mollycoddled. Tim would have loved this too I am sure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Lahee book cover<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

And as for the dialect daughters of Eve, discussed at the start of this sad tale and sadly left out by Jasleen Kaur and Touchstones, I did remind the Off The Rails audience of Rochdale\u2019s celebrated Margaret Rebecca Lahee (1831-1894) whose face graces the Dialect Writers\u2019 Memorial in the town\u00b4s Broadfield Park. I only hinted at her sexuality in quoting her \u2018intense womanhood\u2019 but she gained a short notoriety after her death in 1895 when the Archdeacon of Rochdale refused her and\u00a0 Susannah Rothwell Wild\u2019s request to be buried in a joint grave under a gravestone reading\u00a0 \u2018They were lovely and pleasant\u00a0 together in their lives and in death they were undivided\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nif that was not enough feminity I also referred to D.U.R of blessed memory\n(Dorothy Una Ratcliffe 1861-1967) the woman who for many years absolutely\ndominated Yorkshire Dialect writing, and fellow Tyke lass Florence Tweddell\n(1824-1899) whose lyrics I also like and have set tunes to.  As I have written elsewhere in dialect\u2019 \u2018It\u2019s\nnot t\u2019quantity tha wants but quality\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
dialect writer\u00b4s monument
Broadfield park, Rochdale<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Indeed all we as writers want is good writing for as Miss Lahee is quoted on the dialect writers\u2019 memorial it does not matter who writes or weaves, only that in the final judgment it matters not what we call ourselves either but \u2018what sooart of a piece we\u2019n woven, an how mony floats there\u2019s in it\u2019. (what sort of a piece we\u2019ve woven and how many defects are in it).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\nin her weaving she had time to praise Tim Bobbin in verse too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amen.\nAnd good sex!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editor\u00b4s\ncomments. This seems like an interesting debate but it ought to be said that\nJasmeen Kaur is a well established and respected artist. Her work is described\non her web site as  being an \u00f3ngoing\nexploration into the malleability of culture and the layering of social\nhistories within the material and immaterial things that surround us. Her\npractice examines the hierarchy of histories and labour, using a range of\nmediums and methods including sculpture, video, conversation and cooking. Her\nwork is part of the permanent collection of Touchstones, Rochdale and she has held\na number of well received exhibitions and has received numerous awards and held\nsome prestigious residencies at venues such as Ipswich Museum.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael\u00b4s\nargument seems well made but Sidetracks and Detours all across the arts would,\nof course, be happy to publish Jasmeen\u00b4s response if she were to replay to us\nat normanwarwick22@yahoo.com<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Engendering Sex \u2013 By Michael Higgins Dialect and Discrimination at Touchstones in Rochdale               Imagine the howls of protest that would ensue if a museum or art gallery announced they were excluding girls from an artistic survey of changing patterns of language or \u2018dialect\u2019 in any town in Britain. Imagine if the reason for it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1115,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aata","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}