From: rugi@cie.uoregon.edu (Russ Gilman)
Subject: Re: QUESTION: Looking for "women's" rpg.
Organization: University of Oregon Campus Information Exchange
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 15:04:00 GMT

In article <1685C13035.MHART00@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU> MHART00@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (mason hart) writes:
>In article <Bu8yE2.DM@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
>dart@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Dartanyan the Witchling) writes:
> 
>>        I like my language the way it is thank you.
>>        Fuck You.
>>        No offense, but that IS my standard reaction to anything
>>        "PC"
>>        Besides Player Characters, that is.
>>        And often to them.
> 
>I shudder to think of the flames you're getting off of this one.
>Well, anyone so inclined had better bounce a few my way, because
>I'm gonna back Dartanyan up on this one.  "Womyn" ?!  Every time
>I run into this, I feel a perfectly human urge to break something
>into little tiny pieces.
> 
>Ladies and gentlemen of the feminist mob, language does not define
>its culture.  Rather, the reverse is true.  Yes, there are elements
>of our society that discriminate on the basis of sex, even as there
>are those that discriminate on the basis of color, religion, and
>other equally meaningless things.  These attitudes are fading.

I must disagree here rather strongly.  The LA race riots had more violence
than the Watts riots "years" ago.  This violence must have come from some-
where.  These ~attitudes~ are .not. fading away.  They may actually be getting
worse as a result of a pendulum swing after the 60's and 70's.  
Language does not define a culture, that is true.  But by telling women/womyn
that they cannot get some form of satisfaction by defining their language,
you are telling them that they are not part of the culture that shapes the
language- you are denying them that right.  They are trying to find a place for
women/womyn with less of an emphasis on the "men".
 


> 
>Your insistence upon an alternate spelling for one among millions
>of lexical items is futile, childish, and downright irritating.  The
>use of the male gender in a neutral sense is an established
>characteristic of the language, not a calculated slur against half
>the population.  I'm sorry to have to pull your soapbox out from
>under you, but it's true.  If our culture demands a change in the
>language, then that change will occur naturally and in due time.
> 
Wrong!  I resent that, and I'm a male.  Women resent it because there's 
no general possibility (for someone not as enlightened as yourself) for
a "neutral" noun for an unknown person.  I resent it because by making
the male pronoun "he" stand-in for a neutral noun "it" or "them" you take
the masculinity from the "he".  In other words, if the "he" is neutral,
what is the masculine pronoun?  

>Not that I expect you'll listen to me, or credit my opinion if you
>do.  I am, after all, only male, and couldn't possibly understand.
> 
>"If it don't kill you, it can only make you stronger."
>-- mason hart
> 

Well, this didn't seem to kill you, but I doubt it made you stronger.  
It is very hard to change someone's mind with argument.  

OB gaming: I just got the Al-Kazim (is that right>) MC supplement!

-- 

Cthulu in '92!  Why Settle for the Lesser of Two Evils!

rugi@cie-uoregon.edu
Xref: sparky rec.games.frp:25148 rec.games.frp.misc:5413