From: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Gender Benders!
Date: 16 Aug 92 22:42:19 GMT
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@nimaster

In article <1992Aug12.181135.10388@constellation.ecn.uoknor.edu> mmmirash@corsair.ecn.uoknor.edu (Mandar Mukund Mirashi) writes:
>      It is time for me to plunge into the debate about gender specific
>words. Most of you seem to be in favour of dropping the usage of these
>words. However, I beg to differ. Aren't our prejudices a part of ourselves,
>rather than the words we use? 

Perhaps, but we tend to *get* them from others, and often through
words.

>Gender non-specific words will hardly ameliorate the situation. 

They often have already.  Why do you say this?

>For example, even if you replace "waiter" and
>"waitress" with "waitron", wouldn't the person who confronts the waitron
>be able to determine the waitron's sex? 

Not the point.  The point is that food-servers *in general* are either
male or female, and that the job is not specific to either sex, ans is
quite the same job no matter who does it.

Also that there's a good deal of discrimination in the food-service
industry: women serve in lower-class establishments, by and large, for
no good reason.  

>We should attempt to efface
>inherent prejudices that exist about the sexes, rather than the words
>which define them. 

So let's begin by drawing people's attention to the prejudices by not
using the words that express those prejudices, hm?  "Kike" and "Jew"
describe exactly the same group of people; are they the same word?  No.
Do they mean the same thing?  No.  "Kike" carries the indication of
prejudice with it.

>Unisex words and unisex clothing styles prevail
>currently. What next? A single gender? (will we then indulge in self-
>reproduction like plants?  :)) 

Well, we *have* a single gender for all things other than people in
English.  We gender-inflect only for people, and then only for some
people.  My MD is a woman, but she's not my doctrix or doctress.  But
the woman who serves me a bagel *is* a waitress.  Why is this?  Why do
we bother with the inflection?  

60 years ago, a woman who flew a plane was an aviatrix.  Now she's a
pilot, just as a man would be.  

>Why can we not accept that the male
>and female sexes are different (physically) 

Why do you say that we don't?  What do physical differences have to do
with, say, food service?

>and not come to terms with these differences? 

Who hasn't come to terms with the differences?  I don't follow.  (Also,
you seem to have an extra "not" in there.)

>Why can we not prevent ourselves from making
>sweeping generalisations such as "Women! You know what they are like!"
>or "But he's a man!"? 

What you mean, "we," kimosabe?  Many of us *can* do just that, and we
*notice* the oddities of having different words based on gender for some
occupations, but not for others.  And some of us notice that the
differences tend to relate to class or economic and social status as
well as sex.

>Gender specific words will continue to 
>(and should be allowed to) thrive as long as there are 2 distinct
>genders. This is because there *are* certain things that women can do
>that men can't and vice-versa. 

Including food service?  You've lost me completely now.

>The concept of sexism is fostered in
>our minds and not in the words that we use. 

Much of what our minds do involves words.  I'm not sure I see your
distinction.

In fact, much of what our minds do involves making associations with
words.  If a word is commonly related to an image of one sex or the
other in a certain role, then an *accurate* speaker of the language will
use a different word when not meaning to convey that association.

>Using gender non-specific
>words would hardly efface these inherent prejudices (unless you assume
>that people in the future would have no actual visual or aural contact with 
>each other - they would only comunicate through filters which would
>cloak the sex of the persons involved; even the process of reproduction
>would take place artificially). 

Last I checked, reproduction didn't involve waitresses.  OR at least,
not necessarily.  

You seem determined to miss the point: why convey information about a
person's sex *when you don't need to* and when it's irrelevant and when
it ties into traditional prejudices and inequalities?  

And why *not* combat these inequalities by drawing people's attention to
them with your use of language?

>Why should the words such as "he" or "she" be considered discriminatory? 

Huh?  Who said they were?  You're making things up now.  A moment ago we
were talking about "waitress" and "stewardess" and the like.

>The discrimination lies only in our minds! 

As opposed to language, I'm sure...

>I am sure this provides food for thought......

Waitron!  There's a fly in my ointment...

Roger