From: smith@ctron.com (Larry Smith)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp,rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: QUESTION: Looking for "women's" rpg.
Date: 10 Sep 92 19:20:00 GMT
Reply-To: smith@ctron.com
Followup-To: rec.games.frp
Organization: Cabletron Systems, Inc.

In article <BuAvxx.JI2@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>, dart@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Dartanyan the Witchling) writes:
>In article <18jsfoINN96n@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> cb317@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Stephanie J. Kessler) writes:

>>You are right on that point... society will tend to mold what is
>>acceptable.  However, remember that it was the feminist  movement
>>which now seeks to change words and phrases such as  woman,  women,
>>freshmen (at least one  school has changed it to  "first-year
>>students") that originally called for a gender-nil term for women
>>such as  Mr. is used for men.. Ms. was created, and is commonplace
>>today.  Many complained about it at the time, but it is accepted
>>now by most people...

>	Ms was created because there was no existing word.

Of course, the idea of creating a corresponding word for _men_ to indicate
their marital status was just right out, wasn't it?  Instead of removing an
entire class of social blunders from the male side, we instead install that
same class on the female side.  If women want that kind of equality they are
more than welcome to it.  I, for one, would have been quite happy adopting a
new title when I found Miss Right and made her Mrs. Smith - and MRS. Smith
_is_ just the way she wants it, too.

>	Sure, there was Mrs. and Miss, but there was no reason people
>should have the right to know whether someone (ANY PERSON - male just happened
>to already be that way) was or was not married.

It's not a matter of "right", it's merely a social courtesy, like "please" or
"thank you".  Sure they are semantic nulls, and meaningless most of the time -
just as Miss or Mrs both are to a married guy, or to any unmarried guy is not
likely to "show interest" because of personal considerations.  But to some
people, those titles might make the difference between a polite conversation
and an annoying or embarrassing correction when someone discovers the other
person is not - or, at least, should not be - "available".  Sure we could live
without it.  We could live without "please" and "thank you", too, but it would
make life a little less pleasant.

>	Are you so concerned with being a "Womyn" that you are forgetting to be
>a YOU?  I think you are missing the entire point of equal rights -- it is not
>coming up with euphemisms for words in the language

Ah, but that IS the entire point of the Politically Correct movement.  As is
common with people who cannot rationally analyze their own motives, PC people
have fallen into the classic semantic trap: they mistake the symbol (a word)
with the thing it represents.  By changing the word, you change the thing it
represents.  This verbal voodoo is an important element in George Orwell's
Newspeak language in 1984.  In both cases, the idea is to remove the word, so
as to make it harder for people to think the idea the word used to mean.  As
a gamer you have seen this before, it's the basis for magic.  And magic is
what it truly is.

What PC people don't realize is that they are fighting a chimera - even when
they succeed (like when "Negros" became "blacks") they are doomed to long-term
failure when the replacement word takes on the same objectionable connotations.
So now we don't have "black" people any more, we have "African Americans".
I've seen at least one confused but Politically Correct commentator refer to
Bishop Tutu as an "African American" - which is half-right, I guess.

Of course, sooner or later the new word "wears out", it's picked up all the
"bad" connotations the old word it replaced had in the first place (because
you really can't eliminate the idea, take away the word in either the replace-
ment gets the same loading or it pops out in some other innocent word) and
then, of course, we must have another one.  It's an ongoing verbal shell game.
Play it fast enough, and you can get some of the effect Orwell outlined.
That's why it's so popular.  And besides, it makes such a _wonderful_ cosmetic
bandaid.  After all, when we've got "womyn" and "men", clearly we don't need to
worry about prejudice against "women" any more! <cough> <cough> <gag> <choke>
...sorry - I can't quite swallow that even for irony.  But it certainly seems
to make the PC people happy, and it's cheaper than solving the real problems...

Larry Smith (smith@ctron.com)  No, I don't speak for Cabletron.  Need you ask?
-
How about we all do something reasonable?  I bet that'll confuse 'em!
Xref: sparky rec.games.frp:25147 rec.games.frp.misc:5403