The Evolution of Grooming
Jun. 8th, 2022 08:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutI don’t know that I totally believe this, but I _mostly_ believe this:
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=groom
In general, I think of grooming as: offering and providing small, personal services of a mildly intimate nature. So dog groomers wash and blow dry dogs. Companies have “grooming standards”, which is, make sure _somebody_ does your small, personal services of a mildly intimate nature to go with wearing “clean and neat” clothing and being clean in general. They don’t feel like they can legislate the details of what you do with your hair any more, but they are going to draw your attention to it because other people at work will also be looking at it. If you look for images of primates grooming on google, you’ll get a _lot_ of images of lice-picking.
We definitely would like to be sure that our coworkers are insect-pest free, for sure.
The replacement language for HR groups that would like to eliminate the word “grooming” from a company are problematic. “Attire” is fine instead of dress. And “hygiene” seems safe, if obscure. Invoking Hygeia is generally fine. But what to do about “grooming”? Appearance is probably a little too vague! And I’m not sure anyone wants to say, “bug free”, and further, shouldn’t that be covered by “hygiene”? Who even knows.
Getting rid of problematic computer related terminology is always a good idea. I had _so_ _much_ _fun_ pointing out how insane a lot of that terminology was when I was in college. (Altho a lot of what I pointed out is still there, but never mind that now.) Replacing “data grooming” with “curating data” or “cleaning up the data” doesn’t seem _that_ impossible as a replacement. You could also invent something fit for purpose if you have something specific in mind that isn’t covered well by curation or cleaning or filtering or sanity checking (actually, maybe _don’t_ use sanity checking), or or or.
Here’s the real problem with corporations and other institutions recoiling at the word grooming. Pedophiles _groom_: they offer and provide small, personal and somewhat intimate services. This causes them to be regarded with trust and affection and allows them to get physically close to their potential victims _and the people who are protecting those potential victims_. If “grooming” becomes _only_ what pedophiles do, and loses all of its other meaning of offering and providing personal care, we’re going to lose sight of how pedophiles convince people to let them into trusted spaces. They will once again become Oh He Would Never I Totally Trust Him. They will once again become monsters with incomprehensible magic. By calling it “grooming”, when “grooming” means offering and providing small, personal and somewhat intimate care, we rip down the shield. We show how the trick is done. They are exposed.
Banning the use of the word grooming outside of pedophile’s actions is _providing cover_ where we worked hard to blast out all the cover.
This isn’t going to stop people doing it. People didn’t stop using the word grooming because they intended to protect victims from pedophiles. People stopped using the word grooming because they didn’t want people to think of pedophiles. And denial is _super_ standard.
I’m just pointing it out, in hopes that this observation will help you spot the same trick as it is done over and over, with word and phrase after word and phrase. As we work incredibly hard to make clear how the Bad People are doing the Bad Thing and the words and phrases are changed rather than fixing the actual problematic behavior. Or, you know, making an example of the problem people.
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=groom
In general, I think of grooming as: offering and providing small, personal services of a mildly intimate nature. So dog groomers wash and blow dry dogs. Companies have “grooming standards”, which is, make sure _somebody_ does your small, personal services of a mildly intimate nature to go with wearing “clean and neat” clothing and being clean in general. They don’t feel like they can legislate the details of what you do with your hair any more, but they are going to draw your attention to it because other people at work will also be looking at it. If you look for images of primates grooming on google, you’ll get a _lot_ of images of lice-picking.
We definitely would like to be sure that our coworkers are insect-pest free, for sure.
The replacement language for HR groups that would like to eliminate the word “grooming” from a company are problematic. “Attire” is fine instead of dress. And “hygiene” seems safe, if obscure. Invoking Hygeia is generally fine. But what to do about “grooming”? Appearance is probably a little too vague! And I’m not sure anyone wants to say, “bug free”, and further, shouldn’t that be covered by “hygiene”? Who even knows.
Getting rid of problematic computer related terminology is always a good idea. I had _so_ _much_ _fun_ pointing out how insane a lot of that terminology was when I was in college. (Altho a lot of what I pointed out is still there, but never mind that now.) Replacing “data grooming” with “curating data” or “cleaning up the data” doesn’t seem _that_ impossible as a replacement. You could also invent something fit for purpose if you have something specific in mind that isn’t covered well by curation or cleaning or filtering or sanity checking (actually, maybe _don’t_ use sanity checking), or or or.
Here’s the real problem with corporations and other institutions recoiling at the word grooming. Pedophiles _groom_: they offer and provide small, personal and somewhat intimate services. This causes them to be regarded with trust and affection and allows them to get physically close to their potential victims _and the people who are protecting those potential victims_. If “grooming” becomes _only_ what pedophiles do, and loses all of its other meaning of offering and providing personal care, we’re going to lose sight of how pedophiles convince people to let them into trusted spaces. They will once again become Oh He Would Never I Totally Trust Him. They will once again become monsters with incomprehensible magic. By calling it “grooming”, when “grooming” means offering and providing small, personal and somewhat intimate care, we rip down the shield. We show how the trick is done. They are exposed.
Banning the use of the word grooming outside of pedophile’s actions is _providing cover_ where we worked hard to blast out all the cover.
This isn’t going to stop people doing it. People didn’t stop using the word grooming because they intended to protect victims from pedophiles. People stopped using the word grooming because they didn’t want people to think of pedophiles. And denial is _super_ standard.
I’m just pointing it out, in hopes that this observation will help you spot the same trick as it is done over and over, with word and phrase after word and phrase. As we work incredibly hard to make clear how the Bad People are doing the Bad Thing and the words and phrases are changed rather than fixing the actual problematic behavior. Or, you know, making an example of the problem people.