minow (05/05/83)
The continuing battle in net.women (and elsewhere) on what sort of
pronouns the language ought to have in order to be "non-sexist" has
begun to remind me of one of Brechts "stories about Herr Kreuner":
It seems that Herr Kreuner was arrested for stealing some groceries
and brought before a judge. "What do you want, the civil oath
or the religious oath?" asked the judge.
"I want a job." was the reply.
People, please: while you are spending your intellectual energy worrying
about what sort of words the language has, you are choosing not to
worry about day care centers for working women, equal pay for equal
work, equal opportunity for advancement, and a whole host of other
real, serious problems in our society.
The proper time to worry about pronouns and linguistic gender is when
women themselves feel they are "fully equal" to men.
Martin Minow
decvax!minowkarenw@tekid.UUCP (05/26/83)
I'm glad someone brought up the fact that genderless pronouns really don't help women with the everyday problems we face. Let's get back to discussing things relevant to working women (and non-working too) rather than trying to discuss which letter salutation we should use to be non-offending. I have received enough phone calls from solicitors asking for the man of the house (if they deal with investments, etc.) that I get really tired of it (by the way, I own my own house and run my own small business on the side), but to me there are more important things than genderless pronouns that need to be changed first - such as general attitudes of society. The little details can wait till later.
leichter@yale-com.UUCP (Jerry Leichter) (06/02/83)
RE: Callers asking for "the man of the house" I'd just like to point out that the same thing cuts the other way: I cook, clean, sew, etc. for myself, but I get callers who want to speak to "the lady of the house" (to sell vacuum cleaners or whatnot - I usually say she's not in - or just "I'm not interested" - and hang up). C'est la vie! -- Jerry decvax!yale-comix!leichter leichter@yale