sexist language

[Wayne A. Throop]

> gwyn at smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn )
> In English as it existed before the recent politicization of the language,
> there were two genders, masculine and feminine. [...]  Even female
> writers of English literature followed this rule without complaint.

That a discriminatory practice predated the widespread consensus
that the practice was, indeed, discriminatory, in no way indicates
that the practice is worthy of continuation.

> If anything, you could say that this rule discriminates against males,
> because in some cases it can be difficult to tell whether "he" refers to
> a person explicitly male or just to a generic person, whereas "she"
> always unambiguously indicates a female.

Nonsense.  The existance of this ambiguity is no trouble to males in
any way, since it is always resolved in favor of males whenever it is
encountered.  The fact that interesting human activities which happen
to be performed by females must always be called out explicitly while
those of males are included implicitly by this so-called-arbitrary
rule simply means that any female abilities and activities can be
conveniently ignored.

> Folks, it really doesn't matter so long as the rules are consistently
> applied, to maximize readability.

True enough, but the rules do not maximize readability.  They contain
an ambiguity (or several) which is misleading at best, and blatantly
discriminatory at worst.  The lack of a gender-neutral pronoun forces
usage that is open to misinterpretation because of ambiguity, or
clumsy, or explicitly inaccurate.

How many people actually say the more accurate "If a typist has no
current assignment, he should go to the supervisor and request one."?
The more likely (and inaccurate) usage  "If a typist has no current
assignment, she should go to the supervisor and request one." is
nearly universal, and indicates clearly to me that people simply don't
perceive the overloading of "he" as appologists for this usage claim.

So, time-honored though the "sexism" of English is, I refuse to use
the cop-out method of using male gender as inclusive.  I have come to
believe (due to my observations ofexamples of actual usage such as the
above) that people will not correctly understand what I mean when I
use these inclusive and ambiguous forms.  I try very hard to avoid
them, and would rather resort to somewhat clunky usage rather than
"correct" but misleading usage.

--
There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find
defenders among the ablest men.
                                        --- John Dalbert-Acton {1881}
-- 
Wayne Throop      <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw