From: bickis@skmath3 (M. Bickis)
Subject: Re: The "his", "he" Issue
Organization: University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 18:10:59 GMT

In article <1992Aug26.232646.7789@leland.Stanford.EDU> 
farthing@leland.Stanford.EDU (ljf) writes in reply to Mike Best:
>>I don't have any problem with the use of "she" or "her" except where it
>>makes the language less precise.  If the use is clumsy or awkward I don't
>>want to see it used, and this can be the case simply due to our culture.

>Less precise?  But using masculines only doesn't make the language
>less precise?
>
>How does it sound awful?  Saying firefighter instead of fireman may be
>awkward at first,  but when you get used to it (and see the courageous
>firefighters who happen to be female), it's worth the effort.

Using masculine pronouns does make the language less precise, (i.e.
ambiguous) because we use the same form for exclusively males, and for
mixed gender situations.  Valid arguments against (s)he, s/he, or he or
she, etc. are based not on precision but esthetics.  Rigorous use of
such constructions can become very awkward, particularly when speaking.
It becomes a balance between precision and elegance, and I think each
writer should be able to make the choice him- or herself.  The political
climate, however, tends to swing the balance, sometimes leading people
to greatly revise their syntax to avoid *any* singular pronouns, which
is conducive to neither clarity nor eloquence.

I can see no objection to a word like 'firefighter' save that it is a
bit longer than 'fireman'.  Aside from being free of the taint of
sexism, 'firefighter' is more descriptive of the occupation, and has a
nice alliterative ring to it.  I find it harder to defend expressions
such as 'foreperson', 'concert mistress', or the taboo on words like
'alderman' or 'fellowship'.  The argument that the suffix '-man' is
sexist or exclusive is specious, since the suffix does not derive from
the noun 'man' meaning a specifically male human being, but from 'man'
meaning any person, which I understand is the original Anglo-Saxon
meaning of the word.  (The same suffix appears in 'woman', which is a
particular kind of 'man'.)  The pronunciation should clue us, since we
don't say e.g. "chair-MAN", but "chairm'n", to rhyme with "wom'n".

Words such as 'foreman', 'alderman', 'concert master', 'fellowship' are
no less precise than 'foreperson', 'councillor', 'concert mistress', or
'community', since the former words are never used to designate a
particular sex, even though the persons designated might be
entirely male.  'Chairman' applied to a woman is no more sexist than is
'doctor' applied to a woman, or 'nurse' applied to a man.

>>Only the Thought Police would seriously consider what effect the use of
>>the male as the neuter has on the thoughts of our citizens.  This is 
>>wholy un-liberal and yet the modern Liberals espouse it quite often.
>
>Duh.  And only the most foolish would not seriously consider the
>effect language has on the thoughts of people.  :)

True, but only the Thought Police would not only consider, but
*prescribe* what these effects *must be*, and therby *proscribe* certain
forms of syntax.

> If many whites get together and
>say, "Since the US is mostly white, let's use the word white for all
>US citizens.  African Americans, Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans
>will be included in the word." would you be happy with that?  Would
>you defend white as being a legitimate word since we've, by
>definition, de-raced it?  Or let's say that this isn't a new idea, but
>one that has been around 200 years.  Would you defend the usage by
>tradition, by saying that "everyone, regardless of their color, knows
>that they are included."?
>
>This isn't a perfect analogy, but it comes close.

But not close enough.  If there were, in English, different grammatical
rules when speaking about whites than when speaking about blacks, the
analogy might have some bearing.  And I think in that case I *would*
defend it.  Suppose that in English, the word "white" also meant "human
being", but that that word had never been used to refer to non-European
races, since they were not considered human.  In such a case I would
*definitely* support the use of "white" to refer to a person of any
colour, as an affirmation that I consider them to be no different from
myself. (Yes, Sheheryar, I am a white male.)  After all, many so-called
American blacks are hardly "black", and their connection to Africa is
tenuous, so to call them, collectively, blacks or African-Americans is
scarcely more accurate then to call them white.

Christian churches which have only a distant mythical link with Israel,
still refer to themselves in prayers, psalms, and hymns as "Israel". 
Lutheran and Anglican (that's Episcopalian in US) worshipers call
themselves "catholic" every Sunday.  Noone feels excluded.  Yet these
same churches have recently become upset about the sexist implications
of referring to God as "King", or about references to "mankind's" salvation.
These are not issues about precise language, but cases of people
bending over backwards to *misinterpret* the language and metaphors of
an earlier time.

>So, things can change, right?  If medicine were to become a mostly
>female profession, we'd change the pronouns from masculine to feminine?
>If nursing were to become a mostly male profession, we'd change the
>pronouns from feminine to masculine?

That seems to have happened with 'secretary'.

>Every usage I've seen of herstory has made a play on the word.  It
>points out how little we know of what women were doing while "history"
>was being made.  Since history is usually taught and reported as what
>the powerful men were doing, herstory tells what women were doing.

And it would be a delightful word-play, were it not that the same people
who use it have made "non-sexist" language such an issue, that it is
hard to imagine them being playful instead of deadly serious.


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>bickis@math.usask.ca<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Mik Bickis       \,,,       .*#*.  \    University of Saskatchewan
Department of        \,,,  ^\\|//^  ```\   Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Mathematics & Statistics \   )|(        ```\   Canada      S7N 0W0
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<S|A|S|K|A|T|C|H|E|W|A|N|>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

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