From: mmmirash@banshee.ecn.uoknor.edu (Mandar M. Mirashi)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Sexist Language
Date: 18 Dec 92 07:03:54 GMT
Followup-To: soc.college,alt.usage.english
Organization: Engineering Computer Network, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA



g9rwaigh@cdf.toronto.edu (Rosemary Waigh) writes:

>In article <Bz9oIw.AEG@news.cso.uiuc.edu> cburian@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu (Christopher J Burian) writes:
>>pezzillo@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Amy J. Pezzillo) writes:
>>>The only reason that "he" was ever
>>>accepted as denoting everyone was because males USED to be in charge.
>>	Yikes!  A bit misandrist, aren't we?  Are you really
>>	convinced that gender-specific pronouns are part of
>>	a huge conspiracy?
>>
>They do reflect the traditional dominance of men, as you yourself point out
>later on.

No, I didn't point that out.  I pointed out (and someone deleted) that 
the root "man" was gender-neutral and it had both male and female
prefixes.  Who knows why the male prefix was dropped.  (Note: this 
happened before transliteration into English.  As far as I know, the
actual word man has always been sans prefix)

>>	Unlike you, many people aren't disturbed by the use of
>>	traditionally gender-typed nouns and pronouns in neutral
>>	situations.  

>Speak for yourself.

I do speak for myself.  Many can mean two dozen.  Maybe I'm one of
only two dozen who aren't suffering from self-doubt.

>>       The documentation for PGP, a cryptography
>>	program written by a *man* uses she and her in gender-
>>	neutral terms throughout.  Surprised me, but it didn't
>>	make me all uptight and defensive!  I guess I don't 
>>	suffer an inferiority complex.  

>Or could it be that as a man you are less frequently diminished by sexist
>pronouns? 

I simply can't imagine being "diminished" by a pronoun. :)  So I guess
the answer to that is "I don't know."

>How would you feel if this were the default usage?

Wouldn't bother me.  Unless I thought it was some *female comspiracy*.  
Then I would get all uptight and defensive and "diminished".

>>>I never liked hearing about "forefathers" and "mankind" and
>>>"brotherhood" and feeling totally excluded by these terms either.
>>	Does "sisterhood" make you spastic, too?  Sorry to bust
>>	your bubble, but "forefathers" is appropriate because 
>>	there weren't any women politicians in the 18th century. 

>Before you criticized Amy for attributing the sexist usage of "he" to the
>former dominance of men, now you are telling her that we say "forefathers"
>because of the former dominance of men.  I think you are being inconsistent.

Men used to dominate.  Ha, they still do.  That's something to be 
corrected, but nagging about the use of language doesn't solve
anything.  I'm perfectly happy to read he, him, she, her or whatever
when I, the reader, am being addressed.  It just doesn't bother me
one hoot.  Perhaps people irritated by these things need some self-
assertiveness courses.  Firefighter for fireman, police officer for
policeman-- hey no problem.  They sound just fine.  But "longshoreperson"
just sounds stupid.  So do the other "-person"s.

Use sie and hir for your gender neutral pronouns.  I find them
satisfactory when I'm not conversing with neanderthals. Hey, that's
it: go to the museum to see a depiction of the Neanderthal Person!

>Rosemary Waigh             Undergraduate, Computer Science / Linguistics


Chris---