muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) (05/02/91)
I read somewhere (it may have been on the net or in the paper) recently a discussion of how people feel a strong need, at the beginning of a conversation about another person, to determine what the gender of that person is. It suddenly struck me that one reason we (now) have to do this is because we do not have a pronoun which refers to a person of indeterminate sex. People can use "it" (which is considered to be insulting) or "they" (which sounds strange because it is generally used as a plural). Anyway, I don't want to get into the debate of whether we developed one pronoun for people of each gender because we just had to know what the gender of people were, or whether we need to know gender now so we can use the "correct" pronoun. (Although if anyone has any references on this, I wouldn't object to hearing about them.) What this train of thought led me to, though, was a question of how people would feel about and react to a genderless pronoun. I do not think that I feel any need to know what the gender of someone is. I have heard, though, that some (many?) people automatically assign gender to their "mental image" of the person/people being discussed. So, I was wondering whether now we "need" to know what gender someone is. It has been pointed out to me that it is useful, if you are discussing one man and one woman, to have the separate pronouns, but since this is such a specific case, I don't know that it's all that useful. Does it make people uncomfortable if they do not know the gender of someone being discussed? Does it only matter in certain circumstances, such as if an attraction or intimate relationship is being discussed? Could "he" and "she" be eliminated altogether (theoretically, not practically...*grin*) if we had a pronoun which didn't specify gender, or would this somehow be taken (or come to be taken) as primarily meaning male, as "men" has? For example, how would people feel if "xx" was the genderless pronoun in sentences like: "My boss walked by my office today, and xx commented on how tight my t-shirt was." "I have this great resume on my desk. I think we should talk to xx." "I was out at a party last night and met this wonderful person. Xx said xx'd call me next week." "I just talked to Pat and xx said xx'd have the last bug fixed by tomorrow." (In this last example, assume that the person is referencing themself, not some other person who will be fixing the bug.) Do you care about the gender of the speaker or the person being referred to? Why or why not? Muffy
farmerl@handel.CS.ColoState.Edu (lisa ann farmer) (05/02/91)
In article <MUFFY.91May1140408@remarque.berkeley.edu> muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) writes: > >For example, how would people feel if "xx" was the genderless pronoun in >sentences like: > >"I was out at a party last night and met this wonderful person. Xx said >xx'd call me next week." > >Do you care about the gender of the speaker or the person being referred >to? Why or why not? I love this idea! I think there are so many positive things to come from it. One particular example ( I am thinking of it because there was so much contro- versy on this campus about gay/lesbian/bisexual week) would be that if you do meet someone of the same sex you would not have to "come out" to someone that you didn't want to or if you were talking about your S.O. etc. Most of the time it isn't important whether the person you are talking about is a male or female; all it does is put preconceived notions into someone's head! And while we are on the subject, does anyone have a good phrase to replace "you guys" when talking to a group of people? I don't like "folks" because it just isn't me. Lisa farmerl@handel.cs.colostate.edu
mlm@cs.brown.EDU (Moises Lejter) (05/02/91)
In article <MUFFY.91May1140408@remarque.berkeley.edu> muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) writes:
From: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Date: 1 May 91 21:30:55 GMT
Organization: Natural Language Incorporated
[...]
What this train of thought led me to, though, was a question of how
people would feel about and react to a genderless pronoun. I do not
think that I feel any need to know what the gender of someone is. I
have heard, though, that some (many?) people automatically assign gender
to their "mental image" of the person/people being discussed. So, I was
wondering whether now we "need" to know what gender someone is.
[...]
Does it make people uncomfortable if they do not know the gender of
someone being discussed? Does it only matter in certain circumstances,
such as if an attraction or intimate relationship is being discussed?
Could "he" and "she" be eliminated altogether (theoretically, not
practically...*grin*) if we had a pronoun which didn't specify gender,
or would this somehow be taken (or come to be taken) as primarily
meaning male, as "men" has?
I suspect there's two issues here - one of them is whether people will
assign gender to a person, lacking definite information about it; the
other one is whether this must be represented by language. If the
first issue is true, then any neutral pronoun introduced may
eventually come to mean whatever the default gender happens to be. If
the first issue is false, then a neutral pronoun would reflect a
"natural" class of people - those for whom no gender is known.
For example, how would people feel if "xx" was the genderless pronoun in
sentences like:
[1] "My boss walked by my office today, and xx commented on how tight my
t-shirt was."
[2] "I have this great resume on my desk. I think we should talk to xx."
[3] "I was out at a party last night and met this wonderful person. Xx said
xx'd call me next week."
[4] "I just talked to Pat and xx said xx'd have the last bug fixed by
tomorrow."
(In this last example, assume that the person is referencing themself,
not some other person who will be fixing the bug.)
In Spanish, all examples but [2] could be written/spoken in such a way
that no pronoun is needed in place of the "xx" (basically, pretend the
sentences are correct and mean what they do now even though there is
nothing where the "xx"s are). People are still free to assign any
default gender they wish to, but one's assumption as to the gender of
the referent need not affect one`s audience.
Moises
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USmail: Moises Lejter, Box 1910 Brown University, Providence RI 02912gt4115a@prism.gatech.EDU ("HARDIE,PETER THOMAS") (05/08/91)
In article <14639@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> handel!farmerl@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU (lisa ann farmer) writes: >And while we are on the subject, does anyone have a good phrase to replace >"you guys" when talking to a group of people? I don't like "folks" because it >just isn't me. Why not "y'all"? It's got a good history, is accurate ('you all'), and will drive anyone from the North crazy :-) -- Pete Hardie Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!gt4115a Internet: gt4115a@prism.gatech.edu
scholl@uvmark.uucp (Kathryn Scholl) (05/08/91)
In article <MLM.91May1204313@tahoe.cs.brown.edu> mlm@cs.brown.EDU writes: > > For example, how would people feel if "xx" was the genderless pronoun in > sentences like: > > [1] "My boss walked by my office today, and xx commented on how tight my > t-shirt was." > > [2] "I have this great resume on my desk. I think we should talk to xx." > > [3] "I was out at a party last night and met this wonderful person. Xx said > xx'd call me next week." > > [4] "I just talked to Pat and xx said xx'd have the last bug fixed by > tomorrow." > > (In this last example, assume that the person is referencing themself, > not some other person who will be fixing the bug.) For each of these examples, I could (and have), used the word(s) "they/them". I have used it intentionally when wanting to not mention the gender. It works. -- Kathryn Scholl ..uunet!merk!uvmark!scholl