Gendered Language

Found here

I am currently teaching a class this quarter entitled, "Medicine and Family Therapy." It is a primer on medical procedures and nomenclature for non-medical mental health providers. We talk about collaborative care practices, but the most fun in the class is talking about the actual medical procedures: colonoscopies, bronchoscopies, MRIs, PET scans, biopsies, and the like. Each week we hear two students make presentations about an assigned diagnostic test. They are to explain why a person would need the test, what preparation is required for the individual undergoing the test, what the test actually consists of (complete with online videos--you can find anything on there!) and diagrams, common findings, after care, and treatment based on findings.

Last Wednesday we heard 60-something Tom* give a presentation on Pap smears. It was a most engaging experience. Tom wondered aloud why, in a class of four men and three women, he should be selected for this presentation. Then he cleared his throat, started his Powerpoint slides, and began to describe the procedure in a halting and sometimes fading voice:

"Well, this is a procedure only performed on women. Uh...yeah, because they're the only ones who have a vagina. Um...but we all know that." He scanned the room to be sure everyone was following his comments. "Now, a woman has to be undressed for this because there just isn't a way to examine a woman with her clothes on." There were chuckles across the room and Tom turned a shade of pink.
"Now, uh...this thing here, (he pointed at a diagram of a speculum), this gadget is spring loaded and once it is inserted into the vagina, it pops open so the doctor can get a sample." The men raised their eyebrows in approval. The speculum sounded as if it had an element of danger, which they respected. The women's eyebrows shot up also, but in an expression of bewilderment as they probably wondered if they had ever felt the spring loaded device during their last pelvic exam.
"The doctor will take a wooden stick and scrape the cells off the wall of the vagina and put them on a glass slide. Sometimes she'll use a brush to get the cells." Students winced visibly as he continued. "I'm not sure how they get a brush or a stick up there, but that's what all the literature says, straight up." Everyone's forehead was now furrowed in confusion.
"Uh...this procedure takes between 10 - 30 minutes and there is no preparatory medication given for this. Uh...women don't need to take time off work after this and they can return to their regularly scheduled activities."
He bravely continued, "Now, uh...if the doctor sees some wonky cells, she'll get a black light and look up there so she can see them better. It's the same kind of thing that you use to grow African Violets."
"What?!" one woman whispered. We women looked at one another to check for the light of recognition in anyone else's eyes. What was this guy talking about? A black light? Wonky cells?
"Now, if you think about this, it's a really straightforward test. The doctor can be in and out in a short time." One man guffawed. Tom's rejoinder was an attempt to correct this poorly chosen figure of speech: "I mean, it's just an open and close situation." One of the women giggled, "It certainly is!"
"Well, I'm digging a hole for myself here, so let's look at a video of this procedure."
We then viewed a 3 minute teaching video on pelvic exams made for nursing students. We saw the "stick" and the "brush" and even some "Wonky cells" on the glass slide. As the video stopped, Tom turned toward us triumphant in his videotaped vindication. "Now that takes someone who knows what they're doin'!"
He looked around at us all. "Any questions?"
Dead silence.
"Again, I hope I got this right. If any of you women want to comment on your experience having this done, we men will be all ears." The women visibly drew back, incredulous. Trying to help his cause he plunged on, "I'm sure some of you who are older have had hundreds of these. You're supposed to have one every year if you're sexually active, so I know that some of you have..." he stopped, realizing that he was on thin ice again. "Um... maybe I'll just sit down now."
The class burst into gales of laughter, as poor Tom muttered under his breath, "Makes having to bend over and cough for the doctor a lot more tolerable after seeing this!"

What really tickled my funnybone, aside from his obvious nervousness and awkwardness, was how odd it sounded for a man--a non-medical man--to describe something that a woman would explain in such different terms.

I remember taking one of my Stepdaughters to the doctor for a routine visit involving another part of her body. I explained what a pelvic exam was like, and told her that sometimes the doctor wants to do the exam just to get a baseline. Trying to be the good mother, I asked if she wanted me to be with her in the exam room when she saw the doctor. No, she'd rather have privacy.
So it was funny to me to suddenly receive a call on my cell phone from her just a little while later. "Barbara, she's going to do that exam!" She sounded frantic. "Pray for me!" and she hung up the phone.
That afternoon I took her out for lunch and bought her a box of chocolates to celebrate this rite of passage. She had entered a new phase of life.
This is something that men typically can't understand, what with their rather mechanistic view of procedures and the way they are languaged. Hearing Tom's rather funny discussion about Pap smears made me realize that there are probably a good number of events that happen in the lives of men that I can't come close to understanding or languaging in a way that corroborates their experience. How different we are.
And that's the straight up.