[net.nlang] nonsexist writing and all that

debray (04/28/83)

In response to my article disputing the theory that English is (or can be)
inherently sexist, Mike Ellis comments :

					"If you do not feel awkwardness
    in the traditional "sexist" language structures that have been
    discussed recently, then that's the reason you are taking a traditional
    stand on this issue. "

As I had said earlier, I do not believe that language structures can be
"sexist" in isolation. Perhaps I did not express myself sufficiently
clearly. To me, "sexism" is a semantic phenomenon, not a syntactic one.
I believe this to be true because sexism can be expressed non-linguistically
as well. If this be so, then the syntactic structures of a language are
free from any sexist bias : the bias is in the semantics, in our minds.
As an example, consider Bengali (a North Indian language derived from
Sanskrit) - its pronouns are genderless, and yet the society is definitely
sexist.
	I am not protesting reasonably natural changes in our terminology
(like the example George Entenman gives, of referring to the females in
his team as "women" rather than as "girls"). What I *am* protesting is the
tendency to take this to an illogical extreme and thereby mutilating the
language with some really ugly constructs. As I've said, I'm not sexist.
When one says "chairman" in a neutral context, I don't (as far as I can
tell) get an image of some hairy male ; "mankind" doesn't evoke in my
mind a picture of a band of males. This makes me wonder whether words
like "chairperson" and "spokesperson" are *really* necessary, whether
every reference to the third person singular pronoun should be changed to
"he or she" ... it *can* get pretty awkward, you know! Time, in a burst
of "non-sexist" fervour last year, even came up with "marksperson" in an
article on the US armed forces. I'm waiting with dread for some innovative
soul to propose "personkind" to refer to Homo Sapiens.

	George says, "What matters is what those women wish to be called."
I agree. Wholeheartedly. What I am proposing is that these women - and the
rest of us - address the *real* issue, that of educating the sexists and
changing sexist attitudes in people's minds, instead of dissipating their
energies "purifying" the language. The argument that such "purifying"
changes to English will force us to change our (sexist) attitudes sounds
suspiciously like the rationale behind Newspeak in Orwell's "1984". The
similarity frightens me.

					Saumya Debray
					{peri!, allegra!} sbcs!debray

mmk (04/30/83)

     Well, some people seem to think that chairperson, etc., is an appropriate
way of referring to various people in a nonsexist way.  But they're wrong!
For, if there is a chairperson, why not a chairperdaughter? :-)