4.1140 Language and Gender (8/195)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Thu, 7 Mar 91 17:44:37 EST
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 1140. Thursday, 7 Mar 1991.
(1) Date: Tue, 5 Mar 91 19:50:20 CST (12 lines)
From: nm1@Ra.MsState.Edu (Natalie Maynor)
Subject: Re: 4.1127 Language ... and Gender
(2) Date: Tue, 5 Mar 91 21:23 EST (15 lines)
From: Matthew Wall <WALL@campus.swarthmore.edu>
Subject: On the subject of language and values...
(3) Date: Wed, 06 Mar 91 03:01:52 EST (73 lines)
From: Lesli LaRocco <OZVY@CORNELLA>
Subject: Re: 4.1127 Language, Words, Grammar and Gender
(4) Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1991 15:45:24 EST (17 lines)
From: TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU (Tom Rusk Vickery)
Subject: RE: 4.1125 Gender Yet Again
(5) Date: Wed, Mar 6, 1991 9:30:18 AM (44 lines)
From: Adam Engst <ace%tidbits.UUCP@theory.TN.CORNELL.EDU>
Subject: Re:4.1127 Language and Gender
(6) Date: Tue, 05 Mar 91 17:08:25 GMT (7 lines)
From: viden@logos.class.gu.se (Gunhild Viden)
Subject: Re: 4.1127 Language and Gender
(7) Date: Mon, 04 Mar 91 12:09:26 GMT (12 lines)
From: DEL2@phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk
Subject: Re: [4.1118 Language and Gender]
(8) Date: Wed, 6 Mar 91 15:35:34 EST (15 lines)
From: dthel@conncoll.bitnet
Subject: correction (On Words and Gender)
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 91 19:50:20 CST
From: nm1@Ra.MsState.Edu (Natalie Maynor)
Subject: Re: 4.1127 Language ... and Gender
Francine Wattman Frank and Paula A. Treichler's -Language, Gender,
and Professional Writing: Theoretical Approaches and Guidelines for
Nonsexist Usage- (New York: Modern Language Association, 1989) makes
a good case for avoiding sexist language and offers practical
alternatives.
Natalie Maynor (nm1@ra.msstate.edu)
English Department, Mississippi State University
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------22----
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 91 21:23 EST
From: Matthew Wall <WALL@campus.swarthmore.edu>
Subject: On the subject of language and values...
I'm somewhat confused as to why sex-specific honorifics are somehow more
objectionable than ones which are specifically meant to create an
intellectual hierarchy, such as "Doctor." Why PhDs, Physicians, and
Politicians should have such honorifics, and why they are necessary is
not obvious to me. It seems to this poor PhDless brain that "Dr." is
meant to divide people into two classes much the way some correspondents
have suggested gender-specific terms do. Perhaps someone could educate
me.
- Bachelor Matt Wall
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------73----
Date: Wed, 06 Mar 91 03:01:52 EST
From: Lesli LaRocco <OZVY@CORNELLA>
Subject: Re: 4.1127 Language, Words, Grammar and Gender
I meant no disrespect when I used the title "Ms." to respond to Dr.
Peterson. I did my undergraduate work at a university where professors
were always referr ed to as "Mr." or "Ms." and here at Cornell, it seems
to be up to the individua l. In any case, I meant no offense.
As for my use of [sic], I was simply trying to point out that someone
more radical might well consider Dr. Peterson's very name to be sexist
(consider its origins!). I have no wish to force my views of language
on my students or fellow contributors, but I expect the same respect in
return if I choose to use words like "ombudsman" instead of
"ombudsperson."
I have spent nearly the last ten years of my life studying the
literature, language, and history of the Soviet Union and Russia, and
so, perhaps, I am particularly sensitive to anything which strikes me as
censorship or as dictating what one can write and how. That is how the
APA guidelines strike me, along with the whole issue of gender-free
language.If the content or form of what I write is offensive to some or
many, then I will be forced to face natural consequences. But I will
not be told what or how to write under the guise of improving the lot of
women.
The issue of gender-free language simply does not strike me as
important. We in the university atmosphere sometimes forget that little
of what we do makes its way into the population at large. Such will
certainly be the case with gender-free language. I will be candid: I
have two sisters, both in their twenties, neither of whom chose to
attend college. I know the problems women without education and job
skills face: they work for low pay, they hop from job to job, and when
the economy suffers, they are the first to be unemployed. I cannot
afford to forget about these all-too-real problems. I face my sisters
(in the literal sense) every time I go home. But, I am realistic enough
also to face the fact that they made a poor choice in not going to
college. We are fast becoming a society which does not pay a living
wage to uneducated workers. Young women raised in traditional families
today are at a double disadvantage: education is not stressed, nor is
ambition, but, at the same time, few men are willing or able to
financially support a family single-handedly.
I apologize if my comments on this issue are abrasive. But it strikes
me as diletttantism to worry about gender-free language whose use in the
academic sphere will do nothing for the women who need help the most.
I'm not even sure that such changes will help women in the university.
It is frustrating to see women like my sisters graduate from
middle-class subur ban high schools functionally illiterate. It is
frustrating to see them lose their jobs. It is frustrating to see them
at a loss to know how to improve their lives. But I will not
romanticize their situation: it is also frustrating when they are
working and earning, to see them spend their money on car phones and
larger television sets rather than night school classes or training which
would help them find more stable jobs. (All of this, by the way,
applies to men as well; it is not only women who are in this situation.)
That, in a rather large nutshell, is why this issue irritates me. It is
so peripheral to the reality faced by most women that I cannot even
begin to consider it as other than a hobby for those who have already
overcome most of the problems women face.
As I see it, the most urgent problems faced by women in this country are
problems shared by men as well, and first on the agenda is education.
It is perhaps even more urgent for women, however; women end up as
single parents more often than men (either through misfortune or poor
choices), and so women must be more prepared than men to support a
family.
Education in the US is, of course, a whole new topic ...
Lesli LaRocco (OZVY@CORNELLA)
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------33----
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1991 15:45:24 EST
From: TVICKERY@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU (Tom Rusk Vickery)
Subject: RE: 4.1125 Gender Yet Again
Hear! Hear! Lesli LaRocco put it splendidly!
Let's quit wasting time and energy on symbolic trivia and get on
with the business of achieving equality. Were one to devise a
conspiracy to keep women from getting their due in a democratic
society, one could do no better than to distract them from the
real issues and get them to devote themselves to linguistic
marginalia. Not only would this divert their energies, it would
irritate needlessly many who, otherwise, would be their strongest
supporters.
T.
(5) --------------------------------------------------------------59----
Date: Wed, Mar 6, 1991 9:30:18 AM
From: Adam Engst <ace%tidbits.UUCP@theory.TN.CORNELL.EDU>
Subject: Re:4.1127 Language and Gender
A number of people have said that they are surprised at the extent to
which the rest of us don't realize language has shaped our world. While
I certainly wouldn't want to minimize the force of language, shouldn't
we also consider the opposite - the extent to which our world has shaped
our language? The slang and jargon about which so many complain
required no active thought to make their way into the language, as do
the suggestions (or association guidelines) for removing gender-specific
words. Perhaps the fact that our world has not shaped our language
sufficiently to remove gender-specific words indicates that the world as
a whole is not all that concerned about it. That's a hypothetical
statement and does not reflect my views on sexism by any means, so
please don't flame me for it.
I'm no linguist, but it seems to me that language is a constantly
evolving organism that adds words for new concepts and sloughs off
others when the related concepts no longer apply. Take the last
sentence in the above paragraph as an example. I'm willing to bet that
most of you know specifically what I mean by flame, and if not, you have
a pretty good idea. That's not a new word, but it is being used with a
new meaning (as verb meaning, to insult for making a stupid statement in
an electronic discussion, roughly). In contrast, how many of you know
what a heddle is? I certainly didn't before I turned to it by random in
my dictionary. It's one of the sets of cords or wires which compose the
harness to guide the warp threads in a loom. Good word, but given the
relative importance of looms in today's society, it's relegated to the
depths of Websters and in a few hundred more years will almost certainly
be in the Webster's Dictionary of Completely Obsolete Words Which You
Only Use If You Are Being Pretentious In Mixed Company. When
gender-specific words have no more use in current society as heddle does
today (or fall into the same category as ethnic derogatories for most
people), that's when we will be rid of them.
So if I'm wrong, and Language really does rule the world (and not the
other way around), I'd be interested in hearing the arguments for that
position. Perhaps the best way of stating my impression is that
language reflects the world and if language is hurtful or soothing, so
is the world.
cheers ... Adam
(6) --------------------------------------------------------------17----
Date: Tue, 05 Mar 91 17:08:25 GMT
From: viden@logos.class.gu.se (Gunhild Viden)
Subject: Re: 4.1127 Language and Gender
Learning a new language to perfection is always a hard task, which
obviously goes for non-sexist language as well. In all consequence,
Sigrid Peterson's title must be doctor [sic].
(7) --------------------------------------------------------------21----
Date: Mon, 04 Mar 91 12:09:26 GMT
From: DEL2@phoenix.cambridge.ac.uk
Subject: Re: [4.1118 Language and Gender]
On the increasingly arid discussion on words and gender, may I
suggest that participants read something scholarly on the subject
before writing? I suggest for instance the rather misleadingly-titled
"The Semantics of Biblical Language" by J Barr (London, 1961)--misleading
in that it covers far more than the bible.
Douglas de Lacey,
Cambridge University.
(8) --------------------------------------------------------------18----
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 91 15:35:34 EST
From: dthel@conncoll.bitnet
Subject: correction (On Words and Gender)
Apparently the e-mail gremlins (non-gender specific, I trust) nibbled
away at part of my response regarding the origins of gender
classifications. Two errors crept in: Protagoras named the kinds
(genos) of nouns "male, female, and things"-the last term never made it
to the posting. Secondly, after referring to Aristotle's designations
in the Poetics "masculine, feminine, and in-between" I mentioned that a
cursory reading of his Sophistical Refutations 173b seems to give his
reasoning behind "in-between" that these words shared some of their
endings with the other two genders. This reference also was deleted,
perhaps a gremlin preference for a sexed/gendered world over one of mere
inanimate objects. Dirk t.D. Held, Connecticut College