The AP Stylebook is a continuously updating guide to how journalists can write stylishly, precisely, and grammatically. Familiarity with AP style is a job qualification for writers and editors, even if they aren’t working for the Associated Press itself. And the power has gone to its head, apparently. On May 8, the AP Stylebook tweeted a bulletin:
“We now say not to use the archaic and sexist term ‘mistress’ for a woman in a long-term sexual relationship with, and financially supported by, a man who is married to someone else. Instead, use an alternative like companion or lover on first reference. Provide details later.”
I suspect the unmentioned but proximate cause of this change is British epidemiologist and male mistress Neil Ferguson, champion of the Imperial College model. He was made to resign from an advisory position on U.K. coronavirus policy after he was caught breaking the lockdown rules he helped to create to sleep with a married woman. But, there was a plot twist much of the scandalized reporting left out. She is in an open marriage.
Close watchers of linguistic trends will have already noted that marital infidelity is a lurking cultural obsession right now. Think of the proliferation of the seedy insult “cuck” on the alt-right. These days, the prevailing moral position on sexual matters is licentious. We should get behind as many different ways of expressing ourselves and relating to one another sexually as you can think of.
But on language? God forbid anyone have fun with language, or use it outside of closely prescribed ways. And our moralism reaches its peak over gender issues. Any usage that doesn’t take some sort of active pains to signal that it is as gender-inclusive as the marriage of Ferguson’s lover is treated like some sort of attack on women. I remember well the first time I heard the term “herstory” used by people who imagined they were scoring some sort of point against the male-dominated societies of the past by pretending that the word “history” has anything to do with the word “his.” It was 6th grade, and everyone stopped thinking it was clever by 7th.
But now I see this in the New York Times: “I think we should go ahead and call this a ‘shecession,’” said C. Nicole Mason, president and chief executive of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, in a nod to the 2008 recession that came to be known as the “mancession” because more men were affected. (Note: Nobody called it the mancession.) In a U.N. Foundation press release, there was this: “Women are leading the way in solving problems and creating change. They are our heroes. Or, as we say, (s)heroes.”
I think “(s)hero” probably is sexist, being the moral equivalent of a little pat on the head. I don’t think “mistress” is archaic or sexist, though there’s no direct male equivalent. Real-world language users are very resourceful, and any number of rap songs can supply you with words for a “side piece” or a “misteress” if you really have deep moral concerns about the gender equity of terms for people to cheat with. But these are not copy issues; they’re social issues.
H. L. Mencken famously defined puritanism as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.” We may be a lot less sexually puritanical than the characters from The Scarlet Letter, but here we are still moralizing over adultery. Today, as the Associated Press shows, we’re linguistic puritans — haunted by the fear that someone, somewhere, may be writing well.
