X-To: PO%"WORDS-L@UGA.BITNET"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Date:         Fri, 14 Aug 1992 17:33:27 EST
From:         Entropy Warrior <AUSBROOK@UCS.INDIANA.EDU>
Subject: RE: Gender

>>   It's a *political* argument--more than a
>> linguistic one, anyway.
>
>Of course it's political.  But does that make the argument less important?
>Lots of things about language are political -- standard dialects, for
>example.  Standard English is determined by political and social forces,
>not by linguistic ones.

I didn't say it makes the argument less important.  It just means
that it's nonsense to say that sexism is "embedded" (certain
possibilities there) in the language, as if the language exists
"out there" someplace objectively for sexism or anything else to
be embedded in.  The language isn't sexist.  Your and others'
reactions to the language--its conventions--make it (arguably)
sexist--for you, anyway.

>> If we all agree that he/his isn't
>> sexist, then it isn't.
>
>And if replace generic "he" with generic "she" and agree that it isn't
>sexist, then it isn't.  But we don't all agree.

Just because some folks--mostly women--and a few men who have
pretensions to having had their "consciousness raised"
(quotations for definition and not derision)--decided they didn't
want to.  A line of attack suggested by the coincidence of male
he/him and the unsexed he/him.  So far, politically, I'd say it's
about a draw--except for the push in professional-speak to do
shit like alternate chapters with generic he/him and she/her.

>>      It may be that he/his is marked for sex in some contexts and
>> not in others--and as native speakers *we* all know the
>> difference,
>
>Oh?  Did "all men are created equal" mean to include women?  That's one
>example that's highly debatable.  And look back at Carol's example of
>Neanderthal Man.

I didn't see Carol's ex. of N. Man.  And "all men are created
equal" didn't *mean* anything.  Jefferson meant something when he
wrote it.  People understood it to mean something.  Are we bound by
what others understood in a sentence?  Probably don't have a
choice but to understand it differently, in fact.  As a native
speaker of English, I have to say that in high school or whenever
I read or heard the sentence for the first time, it was obvious
to me that "all men" *meant* [womeant ?!?] all folk who walk on
two legs and are ungrateful (thanks Fyodor).
     Now come folk saying that that is sexist, that it excludes women.
It didn't when I read it.  News to me.  My consciousness has not
been raised by the observation.  It makes me think that those
folks have had their consciousness lowered in a way--hunting
around for holes in the whole, as the Poles say.  Would you say
that because "person" in the Constitution did not include black
people that it is now racist to use person in connection with
someone who is black?

>>   But I *do* take issue with the idea of
>> consciousness raising in this context.  It's like saying
>> someone's consciousness has been raised when they agree to play
>> first-ball-in in tennis.

>I don't get the analogy.
>
>   --Natalie (maynor@ra.msstate.edu)

FBI is not part of the rules of tennis.  When one person proposes
that he get FBI and the other agrees, the rules have been changed
and the second person's consciousness has been raised with
respect to FBI--especially if he did not even know about the
possibility.  And a perfectly legitimate reaction is, "sorry,
that's not how the game is played."

Or something like that.

Am I making sense with raising (too many) hackles?

-Mka
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