Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Date:         Sat, 15 Aug 1992 06:32:01 CDT
From:         "Natalie Maynor" <maynor@RA.MSSTATE.EDU>
Subject: RE: Gender
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu

> All I'm saying is that seeing sexism in the use of he/his
> generically is the same as giggling at the pronunciation of
> Uranus.  Make sense?  In the end, the gigglers won (for a while)
> and when voyager was flying by Uranus it was with a different
> stress.

I can't remember whether I replied to this last night.  I was especially
sleepy at the time.  I still don't see much similarity between giggling
about pun-material like the sound of Uranus and the belief that generic
"he" is sexist.  I realize what your point is:  that both cases involve
the listeners' reactions, that the speakers do not necessarily think
about YourAnus or the sexism of "he."  I don't see that similarity as
having much to do with the topic at hand, though.

> Why not?  I thought it was pretty much right on target
> considering the example of "all men are created equal."  But
> really, why not?  Where does the analogy break down?

I think I answered this last night, didn't I?  To me man/woman is
not analogous with person/black.  I do see how the question of marked
terms could enter the picture, of course.  Newspapers, for example,
tend to add the word "black" before "person" (or "man") when they don't
add the word "white."  Although that's another topic worth discussing,
it's not exactly the point here.  Have you ever filled out a form that
asked you to check a box for male or female?  Isn't that sort of like
man or woman?  Have you ever filled out a form that asked you to check a
box for person or black?  Was that choice of terms offered on forms in
the 18th or 19th century?

> even almost no clubs.  Now you bid a short club--you tell me what
> it means to you.  Has my consciousness been raised?  I guess it
> has with respect to what *you* mean by a bid of one club.  But
> why should you assume that when *I* bid a club I've joined the
> convention.  When I use he/him generically, I mean everybody.

I still don't see the tennis example and the bridge example as being
relevant.  Sure, your consciousness has been raised -- on the
superficial level of knowing what I meant when I bid a short club.
You've learned that some people use certain bids as special codes.
Cards and tennis balls aren't people.

> sympathize with.  I return to Uranus.

Oh dear.  What was that you said about popping out of my computer screen?

> Thanks btw for the cite for instruction on better strategies to
> deal with gender-neutral language.  I actually deal with it
> pretty well when I have to bother--when I know my partner's
> likely to be playing a short club and I'm dealing from a full
> deck.  But I'll look it up.

It's not necessarily the "best" treatment of the subject.  I don't go
out of my way to look for books about sexist language.  The reason I
thought of that book was that I was asked to review it a couple of years
ago, thus read it :-), and remember thinking that it made some good
points, argued its positions reasonably, and gave some good suggestions
for avoiding exist language.  I can't remember many of the specifics
now and don't remember what journal I reviewed it for (altho I probably
have an offprint crammed somewhere in a very messy filing cabinet in my
office).
   --Natalie (maynor@ra.msstate.edu)
     who is supposed to play tennis at 8:30 and who does not plan to
     follow the first-ball-in rule (having been ignorant of that
     convention until her consciousness was raised on it last night
     and seeing no particular point in it now that her consciousness
     has been raised)...
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