I think everyone pretty much agrees that “master bedroom” does not directly or much indirectly relate to slave owners. Unfortunately, words have a way of being tainted by their other usages. In this case, the history of the word “master” in relation to both slavery and male domination makes the word outdated when used to refer to a role in a 2022 household.
I have no attachment to the term, but I’ve never personally heard someone upset by it. Executive bedroom sounds better anyway.
Because that’s where things get executed. Yes, now I’m interested, tell me more.
In a BDSM relationship they might want to call it a master dungeon with slave quarters.
Well, yes, but that doesn’t mean she was right. She is frequently wrong. Before the election she told me with confidence that Covid is a hoax. So there’s that.
And I still can’t decide whether this sort of reasoning is sensible or ridiculous.
As noted in this thread, we use the word “master” in lots of different, totally legitimate ways. Are we to never use the word again, or just not in this particular context? If the latter, why single this out? If the former, isn’t that kind of silly? “You can’t use this word because it might make some people think about things they’d rather not think about.” Isn’t that uncomfortably close to “You shouldn’t teach about slavery or racism in schools because it might make people uncomfortable”?
As for me, I’m perfectly willing to avoid using the term “master bedroom.” (I’m not even sure I ever have used it.) I’m not so willing to insist that everyone else stop using it, nor to think ill of people who do use it.
I don’t want to use a words or phrases myself that might carry a meaning of my accepting as a norm a state of one human dominating over another. Master machines and parts do not directly relate to human interaction. Master bedroom might mean the bedroom of the master (ruler?) of the other people in the house, not simply the biggest bedroom. And master in that sense is not what I want to say. I’d prefer to use a term that only means the biggest of the bedrooms. It is a seemingly trivial and silly debate, but the issues beneath the surface are not.
I’m not seeing anyone here at least insisting that anyone else cease and desist, nor assuming ill intent by anyone using the word.
It’s not a prescriptivist conversation; more just descriptivist. “Master bedroom” is not in the dustbin yet but increasingly (in some markets and with some demographics more than others) it is becoming a dated term. It is of another time. I suspect at the time that the Sears catalogue first penned “master’s bedroom” it was a conscious marketing appeal to things that did not apply to these catalogue homes: to the fantasy concept and pretense of the man of the (modest) house being the master of an estate, be it with servants as in England or other upper class or with slaves in the old South. Along with subservient wife and dutiful children. Those who actually have little control love pretend play in which they do.
That conceit is long faded and is now archaic.
“Primary” just captures the meaning better. “Master” as in of a skill however is not easily replaced by “primary” or “main” …
Feel free to use the phrase. Many still do. It’s not a big deal. Just language evolution in real time.
I would have to say, ISTM in the OP’s example the other person is engaging in contextual oversimplification: instead of taking exception to the implications of class divides, human subjugation and the history of race relations in the US, the objection becomes folded into just “it’s racist”.
IMO that is the kind of thing that launches the discussion into “but is it - isn’t it?” instead of whether there is a better way to say it.
Already in the 1990s dealing with computer stuff I was saying to myself “hmm… settings for master/slave… this is going to become troublesome soon”.
In my mother tongue, I have the advantage that our cognate equivalent of “master”, used in the sense of someone highly skilled and trained or an academic degree or the person in charge of a workplace or performance, is an entirely different word from the term referring to an enslaver or a pet owner.
(Heck in my community of origin for some reason have adopted the anglicism “el cuarto Master” when we used to and could continue to say “el cuarto principal”)
Note that the term “master” does not necessarily imply “one human dominating over another” in a bad way. A “master” is just a person who is in charge of something or someone, like a headmaster of a school, a scoutmaster of a Boy Scout troop, or a “master and commander” of a ship.
Agreed. But there is a strong and horrible history in this country with regard to “master of the house” as the exact phrase used for a slave holder and for the dominating male over a subservient wife and children. Thus, for me, “master” referring to a role in a household is not my word of choice. YMMV.
What, after all, is a rumpus room?
I’m a single dad. I have the biggest, master bedroom. Yes, I have authority in my house over my children. Mostly I wind up doing more than they do. But I run the household, it is not a democracy. That is parenting.
Primary captures the meaning worse, it’s a diminutation of my household.
Then feel free to use the term and to reference yourself as “the master of your children.”
If you want a hijack over parenting styles I am happy to do so, but for the purpose of this thread I will only submit that your apparent authoritarian approach is not the definition of parenting: many of us prefer a goal of authoritative parenting, in which we set rules and guardrails but for which “master” is counterproductive to the conceptualization of the goal being their developing independence and autonomy over time. We actually encourage some questioning of our rules.
ETA, in case you are interested:
I like to think of myself as the absolute master of my home. I just happen to take all my orders from the mistress of the house.
First off, I’m talking about ‘Master Bedroom’ being a racist term. It’s not, never was, couldn’t possibly be, and there’s not even a racist association to it no matter how you try to make it one. If you think it’s outdated and quaint and it’s time to get with it and call it something else the that’s fine. It’s calling it a racist term that is the problem because too many people don’t care what it means or why and they’ll assume that anyone using a racist term is a racist. And if words could be racist like people can then that might make sense, but that’s not reality. Words aren
This change does seemingly come out of nowhere for many people, probably most. The OP claims to work in property management and hadn’t ever heard the term before. I had once heard the nonsense about the term being racist and assumed no one would take it seriously. Once again I overestimated the intelligence of people. People who think the language should change need to do a much better job of marketing the new words or else stop acting like someone who hasn’t heard of arbitrary language changes has an obligation to do so. And I don’t have any problem with the language changing, I prefer it, but I’m not going to use phony reasons to justify changes I’d like.
My final point here is on top of the one @Mangetout made, there will be plenty of people who think they are being progressive and acting against racism by not using the term ‘Master Bedroom’ when they are doing nothing of the kind. They may not personally like racism but this is not doing anything about it, and they may actually be incredibly racist people using this as a fig leaf. This is something that serves no one well and leads to the regressive harm of most such cosmetic attempts to address a real problem.
All of those imply that others are subordinate to the master, which is rational in those regimented fields. Those that want their households regimented are far fewer now than in previous times.
Pretty broad agreement in this thread that it currently is not “racist”; your statement of impossibility however is simply mistaken.
The swastika was a benign symbol across many cultures with diverse generally positive meanings. Until it wasn’t. What a symbol represents can and often does change.
Would you dispute however that the Sears catalogue’s “the master’s bedroom” was marketing to pretensions of gentility, resting upon the classist structure of white patriarchy?
Clearly it then evolved to meaning nothing more than the parent’s room in suburban tract housing aimed at the classic nuclear family, then as the Boomer children grew up applied to the larger bedroom even in small apartments. Really it has only been a phrase in very common usage for several decades. (Ngram here.)
And now it is apparently beginning to fall out of favor, as some react to its possible connotations of classism based upon white patriarchy. (That phrase “ white patriarchy” is eye rolling perhaps, but it still fits in this case.) Sellers only have to feel that some few more of their target demographic may be turned off by “master” than turned off by or even notice “primary” to switch en masse.
Will it continue its recent drop (peak usage was about ten years ago) or rebound? I don’t know. I suspect it will snowball. But in any case at some point words can become so very dated that usage signifies either extreme ignorance or ill intent. (See “retarded”, “Jewess”, “the coloreds” … so on.) At that point many assume the latter.
As to the persistent silly argument that switching up which word I choose to use gets in the way of me addressing the big real problems? News flash. Using “master bedroom” does not free up a bunch of energy. I’m not fixing the problems of systemic racism either way. I’ll vote and advocate for the candidates and changes that reflect my beliefs the same, unfortunately ineffectual, way, in either case.
That’s just stupid.
Why can’t we use the words “niggling” or “niggard”? Just because other people are ignorant or overly sensitive, doesn’t mean that everyone else should be constrained by their ignorance or special snowflake-ness.
Similarly, master bedroom doesn’t actually have anything to do with race. Nor for that matter does Master’s degree, Master electrician, master/slave asymmetrical communication, or any of the other myriad uses of the word “master”.
It’s unfortunate that some people automatically jump to the slavery connotations as the first and only sense of the word, but that’s not a valid reason for society to stop using a word.
I don’t see anyone at all here “…automatically jump to the slavery connotations as the first and only sense…” for master bedroom.
Where is this happening?