Newsgroups: misc.writing,alt.censorship
Subject: Re: A gender neutral pronoun, was Fundamentalist Nightmare
From: bigbro@netlink.cts.com (Kenneth Sullivan)
Date: Thu, 05 Nov 92 15:26:58 PST
Organization: NetLink Online Communications, San Diego CA

greeny@top.cis.syr.edu (J. S. Greenfield) writes:

> In article <1992Nov4.134114.16362@psych.toronto.edu> grant@psych.toronto.edu 
> 
> >>If you are writing a book about automotive repair, and suddenly
> >>everyone decides that the word "crankcase" has obscene sexual
> >>connotations, you should probably change it to "gearbox," no matter
> >>how stupid you think everyone is.  If you don't, you risk offending
> >>people and distracting them from your true message: how to fix a car.
> >
> >Isn't this a double edged sword? It seems that many people are offended
> >by people using spellings like womyn and wimmin, and prohibitions on
> >gendered pronouns. So, shouldn't the use of these PC terms be abandoned?
> 
> Ultimately, one must decide what they think is reasonable, and what they thin
> is not.  Personally, I would think that objections to the word "crankcase"
> were not reasonable, so unless the opinion was extremely widepread, I'd be
> likely to ignore the issue.  (And I would almost certainly *not* use the
> word "gearbox" as an alternative--since that would be awfully confusing for
> those of us who associate "gearbox" with the transmission! :)
> 
> Personally, I find a preference for gender-neutrality reasonable for two
> reasons: 1) I don't think I would be too comfortable if everything were
> written as gender-specific to women, and 2) because, in reality, we are
> talking about situations in which the ideas I want to express are *in fact*
> gender-neutral--and it is only the limitations of the language that make
> it more convenient and comfortable to write in a gender-specific form.
> 
> That's my personal opinion.  Since I feel that way, it's very natural to
> wish that we has a few additional gender-neutral terms to make life
> easier.  Anyway who feels comfortable with gender-based terms should feel
> free to continue using them.  No one here is talking about compulsion to use
> new terms.  (Although some people may try to *convince* you to use the
> gender-neutral terms.)
> 
> On the other hand, in my personal opinion, concern over things like the
> spelling of "women" is bordering on the non-sensical, and as such, I don't
> think about it at all when I write.
> 
> Agains, it is your perogative to feel and do otherwise.
> 
> 
> But ultimately, anytime you find that someone is offended by something you
> do, the best you can do is to evaluate whether you find the offense taken
> to be reasonable, or to be ridiculous.  If you think it is reasonable,
> then you change.  If you think it's ridiculous, you don't.
> 
> It seems rather strange to suggest that, blindly, one should either always or
> never react to complaints that something is offensive.
> 
> 
> In essence, the stereotypical PC approach is to say that one should blindly
> avoid offending people--without any concern over how *ridiculous* the
> complaints may be.  (And of course, we sometimes associate some sort of
> compulsion to behave this way with the term "PC" too...)
> 
> Now we have some people suggesting that we do the opposite--that is, blindly
> refuse to avoid offending people--without any concern over how *reasonable*
> the complaints may be.  (And some of these folks seem to be suggesting
> some sort of compulsion, too!)
> 
> To me, both of these positions seem equally dumb.
> 
> 
> -- 
> J. S. Greenfield                                         greeny@top.cis.syr.e
> (I like to put 'greeny' here, 
> but my d*mn system wants a 
> *real* name!)                        "What's the difference between an orange

Excatly, in any situation there can be a reasonable explaination and 
solution, but people will always carry it to extremes, and screw it up.  
Like enviromentalists, the enviroment, in my opinion is a worthy cause, 
however I do not feel like admitting it when EARTH FIRST! fools put 
stakes into trees to hurt the loggers....nor can I agree with those who 
are so mad at these extremeists, that the go into thier own little 
terrorists organzations, and take the other extreme.  Any extreme is 
evil.

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