The Scourge of the Feminist Word Police
If you’ve ever felt a twinge of anxiety at hearing someone use “humankind” as a substitute for mankind, or if you’ve winced at the proliferation of the politically correct suffix “person” — as in “chairperson,” or “policeperson” — when the more traditional “man” would be perfectly suitable, chances are you’ve suffered from the corrupting linguistic legacy of feminist writer Kate Swift. Swift, who died last week at 87, was one of a squadron of feminist language police whose crusade to remake language to suit their political agendas has wreaked havoc on everyday English.
Feminists had tried to reform language long before Swift and her fellow word scolds arrived on the scene. In 1949, feminist icon Simone de Beauvoir charged that language was “inherited from a masculine society and contains many male prejudices.” She advised that “women have to steal the instrument” and “use it for their own good.”
Swift and her co-author, Casey Miller, attempted precisely such a heist in their influential 1981 book, The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing. The book had two main premises, both of them dubious. The first was that sexism and sexual discrimination were embedded in the English language. The second was that the language needed to be radically revised in order to change society’s attitudes and make it more inclusive.
Informed more by feminist ideology than linguistic scholarship, the book’s suggested recommendations ranged from the awkward to the downright absurd. For instance, judging the word “mankind” sexist, the authors recommended that it be replaced with “genkind.” Not content simply to ruin existing language, the authors also proposed feminist-friendly neologisms. Thus, “tey,” “ter” and “tem” were to become the sex-neutral surrogates for “he/she,” “his/her” and “him/her.”
Swift and Casey’s more eccentric suggestions failed to catch on, but their book proved a giant leap for genkind, unleashing a wave of feminist assaults on the English language. Picking up where The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing left off, a “feminist dictionary” soon announced in all seriousness that the word “brotherhood” could no longer be used to describe non-fraternal kinship because “it ignores generations of sisters.” Emboldened, feminists insisted that women must now be referred to as “wimmin,” and that history had to become “herstory.”
Had such linguistic absurdities remained confined to the pages of obscure feminist tracts, they would have been a merely an illiterate footnote to the history of modern English. But they became part of the cultural mainstream when the professional arbiters of language embraced the feminist reformation. And so the American Library Association adopted a resolution pledging to avoid supposedly sexist terminology, while the Linguistic Society of America established a Committee on the Status of Women in Linguistics for the same purpose. Universities turned feminist recommendations into campus policies, and the worlds of publishing and journalism followed suit, ruining language use for new generations of speakers and writers.
Nothing good could ever come out of those who embrace any form of victimhood.
Please,
What made women “equal” to men in America was the invention of POWER STEERING and AIR CONDITIONING.
Because when the lights go out and STAY out for more than a few days, its the fathers, brothers and husbands that must protect (or rescue) them from the animals.
See: Female reporter molested in Cairo:
See also: The rest of recorded human history
Also, it is only the acceptence of the Christian model of human dignity that even allows the for the sentiment of “equal treatment”. Christ taught us to love, respect, and care for all. To remove our base elements of lust and hate, and respect the SOUL of each person.
How does Mohammed tell the boys to treat THEIR women?
Hmm, yeah, thought so.
The western feminists had it better than any women, anywhere on this earth EVER. That this “equality” in rights and lifestyle is primarily the combined result of Christian Thinking and Western Technology, enrages them to no end.
And for some reason, they always seem to align themselves with the enemies of both.
Which, to the cynic in me, almost “proves” their inherent inferiority….by illustrating their inability to distinguish the difference between Threat and Sancuary, Progress and Decay
That, and well, Parallel Parking too.
So the purpose of the carbon tax is to turn the lights off and put the women back in the kitchen. Devious, isn’t it?
Wow.
Beautiful succinct analysis.
Revealed wisdom. Bravo!
Power steering!
Awesome!
root,
“The western feminists had it better than any women, anywhere on this earth EVER. That this “equality” in rights and lifestyle is primarily the combined result of Christian Thinking and Western Technology, enrages them to no end.
And for some reason, they always seem to align themselves with the enemies of both”
Good god, you are the Girt Wilders of gender studies!
You will be burned at the stake for telling the truth!
Bullseye!
In other news:
“Master’s Degree” is raaaaaaaaaaaacist.
lulz ;p
Please, I just want to be hooked on Phonics.
Too funny for words!
Interesting points all, but my thought is that firearms are what can make a woman the equal of a man. My wife owned just as many firearms as I did when I met her. She drove a manual transmission, manual steering, non-air conditioned vehicle too. Yet she was feminine and fun to be with, comfortable in her femininity. So there are exceptions if you look for them, to the typical helpless female stereotype, which is, after all a stereotype largely (my opinion here) brought on by the stupid movies of the early 20th century. In real life, women frequently had to protect themselves and often times were subjugated by men and it is the firearm that allows them to be equal. Prior to that, not so equal.
Very true. Plus, there are some very wimpy, fraidy-cat, skinny, spazzy, effeminate, runt-complex men in the world who are anything but ‘manly’.
Yeah, I know, I know. But I do appreciate the elevation in recent years of the term “woman” where “girl” used to be common for denoting adult females.
I also have to admit to feeling a small thrill once when I was talking to a research scientist who described a remotely-controlled observation sub as “an unwomanned unit.” What do you think, ladies? “Unwomanned.” I like it.
So we should rename the Dallas Cowboys the “Dallas Cowmen” or “Dallas Cowpersons”.
It’s amazing what some people will do to gain the highly coveted goal of self esteem. The feminists are champions, not of women, but of power. They lay the old “guilt trip” on people, just as hispanics do with “immigration” and blacks do with race. It works, to a degree, but I think many more Americans are getting wise to the scam.
Typical male oversimplification !
That would NOT have been within the recommended changes. It was only meant to apply to terms describing jobs or occupations which included both men and women, which this certainly does not.
I recall once a (male) teacher of an adult class scoffed at the notion that he use a nonsexist word for his employees, saying that any he/she type alternatives would be too ugly or not sound right.
I suggested the simple word “staff”. Naturally he said nothing.
I had a longtime female friend, now deceased, who was indeed a cowpuncher in her youth. Her family was in the cattle business at that time. She learned to ride horses as a toddler. Though most cowboys, cowpunchers, buckaroos, or vaqueros are male, is untrue that no women and girls participate in that line of work.
BTW, though I am indeed female, I am no feminist.
I have a niece who is quite an accomplished firecaptain. Cute and capable. What a great combination! Love you Becky!
To clarify: You are correct that professional football in the US does not include women players (thank God!) – I meant to say that the honorable trade of cattle herding does include women. LOL…
Vilifying feminism
simple troll bait
and you jumped at it
We have to deconstruct the bigoted rhetoric
as a society we have made progress in the area of human rights
we are the most successful nation on earth in this area
don’t blame men, or whites, or anyone
But Jill, isn’t the word “staff” suggestive of Phallocentrism?
Not to speak of ‘members’ ….
Hey, lots of feminists are heterosexual. Don’t you think a reminder- a pleasant fillp, if you will – of their own sexuality can be practically combined with the convenience and utility of a monosyllabic designation of the bisexual composition of employees in an office?? I certainly do!
Besides, suggesting Phallocentrism is one thing. It’s its constant and overbearing assertion that is often the problem.
Personally, i like the word “staff” because it’s short and to the point – which is often the unfortunate condition of too many phalluses, which is probably why their owners are phallocenmtric to being with – poor dears!
But if we’re dealing in suggestion here, the “staff of life” is bread. Maybe we should all avoid carbs then?
Here is my solution, overly masculist though this may be – let us enjoy the journey of linguistic serendipity and arrive at the ideal concision enabling us to express ourselves on the page.
@Jill
“arrive at the ideal concision”
circumcision?
Or did I miss the point?
I once had a friend who said that Americans will do anything to lose weight but eat sensibly and exercise.
Unwomanned? Sounds like a euphemism for rape to me. I hate it!
Jeez Lolly, unfamiliar with the concept of sarcasm much?
There is another example of language police influence that has created oddities.
For a time, the awkward “his or her” to avoid the dreaded “his” pronoun was de rigueur. Now, it seems to have been universally superseded by “their” in violation of logic and the rule requiring agreement in number. I hear it all the time. Example: Anyone parked in front of the building should move their car. It’s as if everyone had multiple personalities.
For your information,it was in the 18th century that a bunch of male grammarians decided that “he” would be used to signify both sexes, no doubt their egos were running out of lebensraum:
Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage:
On pages 901 to 903, the authors provide quotations from great writers, from Austen, Chaucer, Shaw, Auden, Shakespeare and others, and go on to say:
“The examples here of the ‘great ones’ from Chaucer to the present are not lapses. They are uses following a normal pattern in English that was established four centuries before the 18th-century grammarians invented the solecism (whereby ‘he’ is to be used as the “gender-neutral” pronoun). The plural pronoun is one solution devised by native speakers of English to a grammatical problem inherent in that language — and it is by no means the worst solution.
They, their, them have been used continuously in singular reference for about six centuries, and have been disparaged in such use for about two centuries. Now the influence of social forces is making their use even more attractive.”
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language:
Singular they (p. 426)
They is commonly used with a singular antecedent, as in Someone has left their umbrella behind. As such, it fills a gap in the gender system of the core personal pronouns by virtue of being neutral as to sex.
(e) Singular they (pp. 493-494)
The use of they with a singular antecedent goes back to the Middle English, and in spite of criticism since the earliest prescriptive grammars it has continued to be very common in informal style.
Go ahead and do all your writing in Chaucer’s English.
(Consistency of principle has never been considered a virtue by feminists.)
Typical – a sneer sent out by a primate who can’t endure a simple and convenient usage that has stood the test of time. So you accept all the langauge innovations since Chaucer’s time that enable us to express ourselves fluently and well, but the one little term that allows us to include everyone irritates you. Grow up, and you call yourself a man. (I’m using the “and” in its old sense of “if” here, by the way)
.
Well, here’s asecret – I’m not always happy with the aesthetics of “their” but given it has been around for along time, and serves its purpose, I’m not going to waste my time throwing a tantrum over it.
This wailing over the “feminising” of language has always struck me as a waste of time, but the discussions are usually quite entertaining.
Apologies for the double posting by the way.
We Southerners have a perfectly good third-person plural (y’all, short for you all), which is also gender neutral. And yet the enlightened Northeasterners use “you guys.” Because they am smarter than us.
agree with “y’all”; it serves its purpose nicely
For your information, it was a bunch of male grammarians in the 18th century who decided that the word “he” should apply to both sexes, in direct opposition
to the then current practice of using “their”. No doubt their egos were running out of lebensraum:
Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage:
On pages 901 to 903, the authors provide quotations from great writers, from Austen, Chaucer, Shaw, Auden, Shakespeare and others, and go on to say:
“The examples here of the ‘great ones’ from Chaucer to the present are not lapses. They are uses following a normal pattern in English that was established four centuries before the 18th-century grammarians invented the solecism (whereby ‘he’ is to be used as the “gender-neutral” pronoun). The plural pronoun is one solution devised by native speakers of English to a grammatical problem inherent in that language — and it is by no means the worst solution.
They, their, them have been used continuously in singular reference for about six centuries, and have been disparaged in such use for about two centuries. Now the influence of social forces is making their use even more attractive.”
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language:
(e) Singular they (pp. 493-494)
The use of they with a singular antecedent goes back to the Middle English, and in spite of criticism since the earliest prescriptive grammars it has continued to be very common in informal style
I’m not surprised, really. Wasn’t it the English who came up with that sissy “rule of thumb” as well?
This usage drives me crazy, and I am seeing it everywhere, even in supposedly brilliant fiction writing, newspaper columns, etc. Grammar is no longer taught in schools, either. What we have ended up with is an entire generation of semi-illiterates.
What we have is a language that changes as time goes by. Gay used to mean happy is one example. If you must cry about it use a kleenex to wipe the tears and take an aspirin or a tylenol for the headache it gives you. Does anyone even remember what “aspirin” was the brand name for? Would you recognize Acetylsalasylic acid? Yep. That’s it. How about Acetaminophen? Yep, that’s Tylenol. Lest I be discriminatory there’s also Ibuprofen, or Advil to give one of it’s brand names. Hasn’t quite the cache of “Aspirin” but then “aspirin” didn’t have the competitive brands nor generic name requirements to confuse people. Can you name another brand of tissue, other than Kleenex, without looking one up? My point here is that words come and go, language changes. USE IT!
This illustrates the great importance of knowing the real issue in any confrontation with the Left. But on the specific subject of language, semiotics, and gender, for him with actual cojones and the will to speak correctly, there is no objective danger.
Brilliant article. I had not heard the background to nongender language before and the names of the writers concerned. Kate and Casey have a great deal to answer for; even prayers were mutilated by their adherents, Bring back “actresses” for a start!
“even prayers were mutilated by their adherents”
There’s a fellow in our synagogue minyan (prayer quorum) who has a public habit of changing many of the words in the Hebrew prayers and blessings from the traditional masculine to the feminine gender, switching back and forth so that they’re more or less “equal”. Some of the members tolerate this practice because he’s a very knowledgable and dedicated fellow. But it still drives most of us nuts.
What does he do to ‘Shechina’?
Think of the countless hours these “wimmen” wasted tilting at misogynist verbal windmills, when they could’ve been in the kitchen making me a sammich . . .
Snake Plissken?,
I heard you were dead?
Not hardly.
…and how many trees were used, and carbon released, in the making of this book?
Another side effect of this feminewspeak is having to endure gender neutral prayers at temple, where liberal rabbis and congregants go through verbal gymnastics to avoid using any masculine term or masculine pronoun to refer to G-d in the name of “gender neutrality and inclusiveness”. I wonder if Christian clergy have to appease feminists in their sermons?
No – at least not in my Baptist church. We recognize the difference between the sexes and are quite content with how things are and were always meant to be.
Not in the Orthodox Christian Church. We don’t change ANYTHING. Our Church is the same as it was in the days of the Apostles.
Mangling prayers to suit the demands of worldly and selfish political ends is an abomination unto the Lord.
OH! OH! “Mangling”… Shouldn’t that be “Persongling”?
Unfortunately, feminist and PC mangling of the prayers are the norm in reform synogogues, and are starting to make inroads into Conservative synogogues. I am stronly considering joining an orthodox synogogue, where I can worship in the traditional way and not have to feel like I am attending a spiritualized branch of the democratic party, beholden to the PC liberal platforms and sensibilities.
For what it’s worth, arhooley, a part of my practice is representing claimants at unemployment hearings. A lot of my clients are working and lower middle class women. Almost without exception they refer to female workmates as “girls,” e.g. “the girl at the next cubicle,” or “they brought a new girl in.”
Whether this reflects submission to patriarchal oppression, a lack of proper feminist consciousness, or a lack of the status anxiety that I see among certain other women, I cannot say.
Precisely. PC language use is a status marker by which the New Class/Anointed seek to set themselves apart from the “benighted” (i.e., the rest of us).
No, it reflects women using their own idiom to refer to their contemporaries, just like men may refer to each other as “boys” “lad” or “guys”.
Relax, dude. Sometimes an idiom is just an idiom.
Not to a feminist. Those women using the term girl are suffering from false consciousness, because everything is a tool of the patriarchy. Redirect your “relax dude” to the professional feminist grievance mongers.
Maybe to small coterie of ultra ultra feminists that look at every morsel of language as capitualting to the patriarchy. Me, I’m a bit more flexible but I take your point. This sort of idiomatic reference is actually unenforceable, hopwever, and apart from indignation and writing some papers, these sorts of feminists tend not to nseek physical power over these ladies.
Many men, however,when they don’t like the conduct or oritnetation of a woman decide, with the heaviness of the dulled ego and offended hormones, simply to rape her tpo “teach her a lesson”. Happened in Africa quite a few times, in the West as well. Rape is also a tactic of war and jihad. How do the two compare, as instruments of oppression? I’ll take a difficult-to-decipher academic paper any time over the physical rage of a pissed off male, much of which dominates the sexiual slavery of too many women worldwide.
Say aren’t you a Blairite? Good to see you here!
Many men? Oh, my God! None that I know, and I’m getting up there in years …
Have I ever encountered or heard of a jerk that had to be fought off? Of course, unfortunately …
But to act as though “many men” engage in reprehensible behavior like this …
(Don’t I read the papers, or listen to the news?)
Yes, I do; it’s just … rather than saying “many men” in that cavalier fashion, I guess you could say “a certain type (or maybe, certain types”) of man” does this.
To me, there’s a difference.
Left Wing moonbats. Gays, Lesbians, Don’t Knows, FemiNAZIs, Mohammedans and Green NAZI’s all love euphemisms and gender/race/CULT language twisting it helps them hide just what they are really doing to society.
Ah, there’s nothing like the pungent aroma of pure bigotry to enliven uncivil discourse and lend that aura of an alley or smelly couch to a lost Huffington Post commenter.
What if he’s right?
Thank you, Mr. Laksin, for this interesting article. I might also point out another failing of feminist ardency: I have yet to hear one of these people ever criticize Islam or express outrage against Muslim men over their misogynist policies towards women. I’m not aware of a single incensed op-ed about the rape of Lara Logan in Tahir Square, Cairo, or the rapes, beheadings and hangings of women in Muslim countries, the honor killings of girls and women who “shame” their parents and relatives, and the enforcement of self-negating dress codes in various Muslim countries (and in the West). Their feminism is very, very selective. Feminist who criticize language and punish anyone who fails to abide by their rules haven’t the courage to criticize or judge a rival ideology garbed in a religious mantra. This is understandable, because feminists (including many men) are leftists of one stripe or another.
Readers might also find my article on the language police interesting: “The Ghouls of Grammatical Egalitarianism” – Guidelines for Bias-Free Writing, ed. Marilyn Schwartz and the Task Force on Bias-Free Language, The Social Critic, November/ December 1996
I have often wondered what the feminists and people like Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer et al, think is going to happen to them if the muslims take over.
THERE IS ANOTHER PROBLEM HERE THAT IS PART AND PARCEL OF THE FEMINIST ONSLAUGHT ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AS IT IS SPOKEN IN AMERICA IS IN A STATE OF COMPLETE DECAY. YOUNG AMERICANS BARELY SPEAK IT AND NO WONDER THEIR TEACHERS IN THE STATE CONTROLLED SCHOOLS HARDLY KNOW WHAT THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS. IN THE MEDIA AND IN THE FILMS THE GRUNTING AND SCREAMING SUBSTITUTE FOR COMMUNICATION. FEMINISTS ARE JUST A PART OF THE DESTRUCTIVE FORCES THAT NOW CONTROL THE AMERICAN CULTURE,POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT AND MEDIA. THE COLLAPSE OF AMERICA IS ON THE HANDS OF THESE STRUTTING FOOLS AND THEIR WORLD OF GRIEVANCES AND TOTAL WAR ON THE PAST. LIBERAL AMERICA IS GIVING US AN ILLIBERAL WORLD WHERE ISLAMIC FANATICS CAN DO WHATEVER THEY WANT TO DENIGRATE A CIVILIZED SOCIETY WHILE WAR IS BEING WAGED ON WHAT USED TO BE OUR CULTURE.
Dude, have you tried punching your CAPS-LOCK key to the off position?
AHH, A FELLOW COBOL PROGRAMMER.
Do you suppose he even knows what “cobol” is? What it reminds me of, when people leave their caps lock on, is a guy I saw talking to people who weren’t there, in front of the grocery store the other day. Or perhaps they were invisible.
As an English Major who then took his love of English to pursue a graduate degree, I despised this very thing throughout my education. It still sickens me to see it, hopefully the pendulum will swing back and this nonsense will be rolled back to some degree.
An English Major has a single crown on his shoulder-board. I think you are an English major, lower case. It still sickens me semi-colon, not comma — are you a Vonnegut fan? Will that pendulum swing hopefully? Let me suggest that you hope that it will swing.
One Old English major to another, old toff.
Notice that he never said he got a degree in English, just that he majored in it and loved it and got a graduate degree. I am curious as to what field of study he got his graduate degree in.
I just can’t bring myself to pounce on others’ typos or grammar any more. I used to be good at spotting errors, but after many years of the Internet, my well of English is permanently defiled.
Women have done more harm to women from the school yard to the workplace.
As a mother raising a daughter I have spent more time consoling my daughter
over those nasty, horrible, jealous, mean girls. Her friendships with boys have been
rewarding. No backstabbing, no talking behind her back, no conspiring to leave her out
and the rest of the games girls and women play. Having recently viewed that comical video of the pantywaist lib men apologizing for what they have done to women over the centuries, I kept asking myself who are they talking about?
What fragile gentle flowers do they speak of? As others have stated above, it has everything to do with victimhood and control, the cornerstones of leftist thought. Besides that nasty streak is a built in behavior mechanism that kicks in to protect our offspring from wolves , grizzlies , that uncontrollable thing called nature.
We need Victoria Jackson to produce a Cartwheels For Dummies video for YouTube, in anticipation of our 2012 win.
Dear oh dear oh dear, what a thing about which to get your (male) panties in a bunch.
I use practical language, and, despite being feminist to the bra-straps, never felt like adopting the “ter” “tem” etc terms. They just felt too unnatural, and my priority when writing is to be clear and understood, even when writing poetry. But expanding the language to include women, or playing around with it, as almost every human does, to tweak it? Why not?
I note that’s mainly men who can’t stand the expansion or change in langu8age when often perfectly simple accommodations are sought simply to reflect accuracy, if nothing else. Some of them might sound a bit strange, like “Madam Chair” instead of “Mr Chairman”. So what?? (Personally I like that one.)
There are plenty of archaic customs still cluttering up the world that don’t attract half the ire of various males who declare with great pomposity against these feminist terms. By the way, guys, don’t cry, you too are included in these terms you know; “he” is neatly nested in the word “she” for instance.
Some of these terms sound good so they take, others don’t, so they don’t. These things often settle themselves naturally. And for the record, I think the term “womyn” is quite fun, but it’s not one I would ever use, simply because I prefer the more conventional “women”.
Toughen up guys!! Let’s see you turn that energy into rehabilitating pedophiles or stopping tax fraud. Complaining because you have to memorise an extra syllable here and there makes you look like a bunch of pantywaists.
When the guys do toughen up, you will end up as scullery maid, dear! Not that it would not be a desirable result, and long overdue.
By the way, “he” is nested in “she” about as much as hit is in …. Well, you know what I mean.
Had to laugh at this one. If guys “toughening up” means we’ll see their more atavistic tendencies well to the surface, what would that hold in store for a gay grammarian? Will that be long overdue as well, my dear?
What makes you think gay men don’t have the same “atavistic tendencies” as straight men?
Yes!,
And whenever a chick getting married refuses to take her husbands name, she is keeping HER FATHERS
HA!
Interesting point but why should the woman in the marriage be required to do all the paperwork and go through that hassle of changing her name. Why shouldn’t it be the man’s responsibility to change his name and go through all that hassle? Lately, science has figured out that the majority of the gene pool passed to the children comes from the mother anyway.
Careful DEAR, your woman-hatred is showing.
Isn’t it interesting that when a man speaks of toughening up he – that is YOU – immediately implies degradation and physical threat, whereas whn I used the term “toughen up” i was simply speaking about egos. No physical or other kind of threat.
Clearly, your ego can’t take a bit of robust and humorous debate. You’re no man, and not much of a debater.
So when are you going to sit down in front of the White House and threaten to set yourself on fire if you’re not allowed to be assigned to a frontline combat unit?
Roger that,
The only ones that want that, are the political talking heads…
No WM (woman Marine)I ever knew wanted females in combat.
Ditto for any parent.
Do you understand that you can ‘play’ with language because you’re allowed to? That ‘women’s equality’ is a patriarchal construct? That it endures as well as it does not because of the shrill voices of ignorant feminists–but because of male muscle enforcing women’s ‘equal’ status?
I don’t say this out of any hatred for women–rather I say it out of love for the women in my life.
Feminists rarely consider that their grasp on ‘equality’ is tenuous. Thus they push for ever greater arenas of enforced equality. They never consider that this pendulum can swing back the other way–or that, now, it is held so far out of true that when it does swing back, a woman will be lucky to be considered a posession.
Do you know how disheartening it is to explain to your daughter that they are not as strong as the boys–no matter what it shows on TV, in movies, books and is even taught in textbooks?
As was said above, when the lights go out, maintaining civilization is in the hands of men.
The equal, if not more important task, that of maintaining the species, falls, as ever, into the hands of women.
Women pursue the false equality of inserting themselves into traditionally male roles without ever understanding that humans are comprised of complementary halves–not identical ones.
How does all this relate back to language?
There are so many things men forbid themselves, so many arenas of maleness that they abjure because a)women can’t compete in them no matter how equal the law says she is or b) women find them distasteful. Each day seems to bring some new limit. Language has been chipped away at for so many years. What happens when we can’t even call ourselves men?
The male half of the human equation is holding that pendulum up so you and your sisters can play, Jill. Stop kicking him.
I very much agree with what you’ve written, though I’d say women also contribute greatly to civilization through their influence on the family. Which arises, of course, from their responsibility in perpetuating the species. And thus does support your argument.
Which is why folks refer to the “civilizing” effects of women upon men. It does humanity no good for a man to discover the wheel, paint a fine painting, or split atoms if no one’s around to instruct the youth in the three “Rs” with some fine arts thrown in for fun- which is why education has largely been a female occupation.
But even more basic than that is just the attention to the needs of daily life, which as you say, are complementary. Not so long ago, men literally could not survive for long without a female in the household to cook and clean. It was Clara Barton’s “woman’s work” that saved a lot of soldiers, not just their brave comrades on the field. I became acutely aware of this fact in researching my genealogy. It was not uncommon for a person to remarry several times throughout their lives after a spouse (or two or three) died. Neither one could do it alone.
Now, the common thought is that if one just earns enough, one can replace the opposite sex within the household. A wife and mother is valued at around $62,000 (I read that somewhat horrifying article on Mother’s Day, believe it or not).
Is that what the going value of a husband is?
The really sad thing is that the hyperfeminists who write the fish-and-bicycle nonsense are writing themselves into irrelevance. Real feminists stick up for real women, who by and large are the ones who kids and a husband. Hyperfeminists do their damnedest to destroy that reality.
Ever notice that the feminists who insist on replacing “policeman” with “police officer” show no concern about the word “gunman”?
And “feminist” is itself a sexist word. No way does “feminism” mean “seeking equality” any more than “masculism” would.
Yes, that’s very true. Have you noticed the trend toward exclusive use of female pronouns when referring to positions of authority, leadership, and expertise? Similarly, male pronouns are to be used exclusively in reference to criminals, losers, and other miscreants.
My god, what a big sook!!
I’m not attacking men, you overgrown angstmerchant!! YTopu’re attributing stuff to me that you nahve no right ot, condiering you don’t even know me!! And based on your implied threats, you won’t get to know anything ab out me!!
As for your plaintive cries about being a man, you can call yourself a man when you and the male legislators in the USA stop facilitating Islam and Sharia.
Now, women are generally not as strong as men, especially the steroid-laden ones. And I’m not getting into the women in combat debate because I’m quite happy to let the facts and figures govern that one. Always have been, always will.
But no matter how strong a man is, and no matter how big a patronising git he is – take a bow, toots! – a well-aimed bullet will level him.
You’re not attacking men? Of course not.
I knew a couple. They were physically abusive of each other. Never saw a mark on her, but it was pretty obvious right from the get go. She hit him all the time–in public. Sometimes it was light, sometimes it was a real whallop. One day she filed charges against him because he hit her. And he had. Of that there could be no doubt. She was incensed that he would hit her. My spouse pointed out that she hit him all the time. Her response? She was just a girl, it didn’t hurt. This was, thankfully, the beginning of their marital dissolution.
I don’t know how the abuse in that marriage started. But I do know that after that marriage was over, at the last time we willingly associated with her, she was hitting her new boyfriend just as she’d hit her husband. So my suspicion is that her husband eventually couldn’t take it anymore(That is no excuse–I don’t believe in hitting women whatever they’re doing. Sadly, this does not always work to my advantage). But, until the last time we saw her, she maintained that her punching, smacking, kicking and what have you were all mitigated by the fact that she was a girl.
I think my digression speaks for itself, yes? Far too many women don’t understand that their playful attacks can sometimes go beyond playful. That, if responded to in kind, they can get hurt.
And worst of all, far too many women see the warning, the ‘heads-up’ as a threat.
As I said above, Jill, I do not say any of this out of an animosity towards women. I say it because I can see the creeping brutality in our society. A brutality that you unwittingly abet.
And oh yeah “feminist word “SCOLDS”??? Of course, the woman as everlasting nursemaid.
Using terms like that just gives you away as a would-be Man-In-Charge.
You’re not. Other people use and innovate with language. Live with it and try to to be graceful about it when you’ve got over your pathetic tantrum.
This whole essay is one big WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!
so we are just supposed to roll over and play nice when arbitrary and disagreeable changes are made to language?
what about the conundrum of “liberal” versus “conservative”
the “traditional” meaning of “liberal” emphasizes freedom as the ultimate goal of the individual; “liberal” now refers to state intervention and paternalism
“conservative” is an unsatisfactory alternative to modern “liberalism”; what is being conserved? and “conservatism” covers so much ground that hyphenated designations sprout up all over the place
the point is we are still a bunch of babbling fools hitching our wagon to some nimrod or another; it plays right into the statist’s heavy hands when language can mean anything to anybody at any given point in time
to just “Live with it and try to to be graceful about it…” is absurd
Daxypoo,
“the “traditional” meaning of “liberal” emphasizes freedom as the ultimate goal of the individual; “liberal” now refers to state intervention and paternalism”
You are spot-on, darlin’
(can I say that?)
If you’re addressing me, of course you can. (Thanks ever so for asking, most gracious of you
!!
If you’re not addressing me, then it’s up to whoever you ARE addressing to permit you!
Oops, mispost apologies..
In Dec. of 2009 a short article was published on mnartists.org about “The Louvre and the Masterpiece” exhibition at the MPLS Institute of the Arts. mnartists.org is one of the most politically correct websites you can hope to visit and a prime example of the artist as social/minority superhero mentality that has dogged the Minnesota arts scene and, together with it’s addiction to intellectualism, turned that scene into an dark alley of stupidity, buzz words and conformity worthy of a robot for over 30 years.
In this article “Master and Commander” Ruben Nusz attached the phrase “muddled pile of gendered, outdated associations” to the term “masterpiece” and says “Frankly, it’s quite difficult for me to rave wholeheartedly about the show when not one work of art appears to have been made by a woman” and also “…the lack of any acknowledgment, if not inclusion, of masterworks by women troubles me…”
If you don’t understand what the problem is then you may have a fantastic career waiting for you in the home of “Women Against Military Madness” and the “W.A.R.M. Gallery”. Suffice it to say that it is untrue a brigade of Amazons helped Cortes upend the Aztec Empire or that all the medieval popes were actually women.
I remember the term “watron” briefly being used in MPLS restaurants in the mid-70s and it is still a given that women are fully equal in all respects to men except when it come to the bad side of human nature and that goes double for people of color; the fact that Vet’s Hospitals across the nation are in no way co-ed is considered a non-event.
Minnesota is also the home to poet Robert Bly and his drum beating circle of “Mythopoetic Men” lest you think unabashed idiocy is reserved only for women when it comes to the gender arts in MN.
Having common sense and being a fine artist in MN is like being a resistance fighter behind the lines in Vichy France except it it not your life in danger but your soul as you learn to mouth platitudes that are nothing more than Orwell’s “comrade” and learn the secret info you can never say that if everyone is an iconoclastic free thinker then no one is and that “challenge” is a great word as long as you never actually endeavor to do so.
If I have given the impression that the MN arts scene is composed of a bunch of listless, smug and self-righteous, gender and raced obsessed morons who couldn’t think outside the box if the phrase were tattooed backwards on their foreheads I apologize.
Hi Boy James.
Is there a translation available?
Are you JIll or Jill? Too…
Boy Jill? Smashing!
No translation from James is available…
Its just an article from somewhere else he cut and pasted.
“I remember the term “watron” briefly being used in MPLS restaurants in the mid-70s”
He REMEMBERED what waiters and waitresses called themselves….
In the 1970′s?
That would make him at LEAST 50 years old…My age…and quite frankly, I simply cant recall what any “wait-staff” referred to themselves as, when I was 10 or 12 year old kid, eating out at restaurants with my parents.
Ludicrous.
Very doubtful he is old enough to “remember” the early ’70′s, especially if you ever catch some of his tantrum shtick….
Judging from his impulse control and reasoning skills in the “real” rants he posts, he’s probably an early 20′s slacker boy.
Not even in the womb yet during the 70′s…
If you are incapable of remembering such social trends when being trotted to eateries by your guardians while your “parents” were on long extended absences on the professional bowling circuit it is probably because there are no wait staff at fast food joints.
In any event, your own capabilities in the memory department can hardly be considered as the benchmark for everyone in America just because of your personal confidence or sheer arrogance.
Although it is true I am only 12 yrs. old, this is still sufficient to put my own thought processes so far above yours as to be virtually indecipherable.
Or its possible that the most plausible answer is the correct one..
And the fantastically unrealistic one you propose, that a 10 to 12 year old would know, remember, or CARE what some imaginary wait staff would have referred to themselves as 40 years later.
Its called the smell test.
Doesnt pass.
Next
It seems Boy JIll James simply loves mirrors. Anything that breathes is too messy, hence the make believe I’m Something World.
There is a pattern. Boy JIll James, being Persons Galore, with abilities far beyond those of mortal… Persons, is exempt. From whatever. Maybe Mr. President granted it a waiver? Misdirection, anger, envy, many posts, with word/phrase usage culled from Noam Chomsky’s used toilet paper. Same old same old.
And Boy JIll James writes HTML too! Don’t you forget it!
Notice that JIll came and went, and check out the how similar their styles are.
Hey Jill JIll, say it ain’t so… girl!
And Boy James, you can do better, can’t you? With that massive intellect and that long tail reverb a la Star Trek Superior Entity Voicing you should be just killing. Dude.
You seem to be suggesting that age has turned you into a humorless pedant.
Possibly, as your fanciful and foggy tale of restaurant hopping with possibly unknown adults points to, you simply cannot remember what humor or freethinking was actually like.
The other possibility is that you have always been a humorless pedant.
See above for my “suggestions”
I’m laughing so hard right now I cant type
There is an elegant solution: simply ask your incontinent offspring to leave the room.
Then, resume.
Gee Boy JIll James, that’s really, really, elegant, really elegant.
You’re saving the best for Oprah’s final show? Ms. Maddow’s laugh-a-thon?
Where the hell is JIll Jill?
The Womyn’s Newspeak may have had an unintended consequence. Back in the 1970s, it appeared that the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was sailing to ratification. The Newspeak started about the same time and became a subject of much ridicule. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that support for the ERA dropped at the same time. They made feminism a laughingstock.
Newspeak didnt make Feminism a laughing stock..
Feminism made Feminism a laughing stock
Ah Minnesota,where Somali cab drivers won’t pick up female cabin attendents because it’s against their religion. Anyway let me quote the film Appartment for Peggy:”and when I say mankind I include womankind because Man embraces woman.”
Shouldn’t it be hupersonkind and not humankind?
Jill: It’s not an issue of men “getting their panties in a bunch” over a feminist lexicon. It’s about the deliberate politicizaiton of language, or what could be called “third-party mind control.” It’s also about fostering a hatred of men. So the issue is broader than Rosie O’Donnell, broader than the Hudson River. I know a number of former college students who were failed by their feminist teachers because they refused or neglected to employ the feminist lexicon and the mangled feminist syntax in their papers. Also, I notice that you’re not above using construction worker language yourself to upraid men.
That’s right, i do use construction worker language, why shouldn’t I? It fits my purpose I’ll use it.
As far as the politicisation of language and third-party mind control goes, that’s a probalem across all fields in all areas of politics and academic disciplines, especailly those of the “liberal establishement” much of which is attached to Marxism and all the inanities that go with it. My replies however, are focused on this article, whose author complains about feminists attempting to reform language.
I can’t stand that abstract academic garbage anymore than the next person 9although again it’s fun to play with ) but what people who are not academics need to understand is that academicspeak is the technical talk of academics and NOT meant for the general public! Every discipline/area/professional cabals has its own vocabulary, and a lot of it, like the law, is often sinmply incomprehensible.
Bureaucrats have been bamboozling the general public for years with their terrible incomprehensible forms, technical IT manuals make peeople tear their hair out, and who hasn’t been overcome by despair because they want to do a simple operation on their computer and their helpdesk guy can’t seem to stop talking IT gibberish? And when was the last time ANYONE understood the terms of a mobile phone plan?
These things are why movements for simple and plain English usage in bureaucracy are born, and why businesses employ tech writers to help deal with customers and why constant attempts are made to simpify and clarify instructions for so many areas of life.
Still waiting for clarification on the Tax Form front, personally.
I can’t speak for someone who got fired or disciplined for not using the right lingo, so I won’t deal with that, but women aren’t perfect. I’ve noticed a large number of women sacked from jobs for not sleeping with their male boss. Care to comment on that? Humans are not fair, humans are not always nice or just.
As for fostering man-hatred however, the early feminists were not about man-hatred, they were about freeing both men and women from the social demands of their perceived roles in society to free them up to live according to what they wanted to do. In those days, for a man to be a nurse or anything than a doctor woulod have been a loss of status. Not these days.
And just becaseu a women doesn’t like what a man does or disagrees doesn’t mean she hates men. It’s attitudes that many men have, like “You are free only at my discretion” or the “scullery maid” comment above that are often delivered with hatred BY men AT women, because women dare to question certain principles espoused by menand the men concerned can’t stand to think that these women are acting or thinking without reference to them.
Ridiculous Anyway, you keep expressing yourself the way you want, with ref to whatever dictionary. As long as i can understadn it, I’m cool with it.
If you want to know more about 18th centruy grammarians, YOU do the work. You’re clearly capable of it. Oh, but it might not support your case – can’t have that can we?
To me, this is a grumpy article by a guy who doesn’t like certain things and I entered it in a lighthearted spirit, becaseu this stuff has been debated for years, usually in the same terms I might add: ie women hate men, feminism wrecked the world, we men are stronger than you women and we can kill you so you’d better do what we say, yada yada yada.
So big deal – I don’t think many people will alter their writing style becaseu of it, but it’s let a few people let off steam, so that’s about it really.
Jill: Sloppy, foggy, or even poetic usages of they, them, and their over the centuries is irrelevant. Which “bunch of male grammarians” set the terms for dictionaries and usage? I’m aware of one major figure, Samuel Johnson. His Dictionary of 1755 served as the template for subsequent dictionaries, leading up to the OED, also assembled over decades by “male grammarians.” If language is to serve a purpose, to enable communication between men, exactitude in written and spoken speech greatly facilitates that purpose.
In the meantime, I’ll refer to the OED, the Fowlers, E.B. White, and Eric Partridge for style and correct and exact usage. They have been my constant mentors for decades. As with Islam, I will not submit to a consensus on approved, ululating usage, nor be browbeaten into bowing to the Mecca of Kate Swift, the original Mohammadess of the English language.
Ayn Rand, word master (and she was more of a man than most writers, so my employment of the male term is conscious), noted that words are audio-visual symbols for concepts, from simple ones like “table” to complex ones like “philosophy.” Feminist Newspeak is nothing less than an attack on identity, and the only beneficiary of identity-less entities is totalitarianism. Feminist Newspeak is used as a softening-up bludgeon to inure men to it, in schools, in government, in business.
Jill (and others): I neglected to mention with the OED, White, et al., the value of William Strunk’s “The Elements of Style,” and George Orwell’s fine essay, “Politics and the English Language.” Orwell was, of course, a leftist, but his untiring respect for the English language earns him a special place among the advocates of clarity, exactitude, and clear thinking.
exactly sparrowhawk
language is as precise as mathematics
and random/arbitrary tinkering is a flaw not a virtue
It’s not that hard to remove sexist terms from one’s language without sounding like a hyperfeminist- and it also helps men, e.g. changing from “stewardess” to “flight attendant”. Although I still don’t know what to make of the term “male nurse,” when “nurse” doesn’t even have a feminine suffix attached to it.
Little adjustments such as using “police officer” instead of “policeman” or “firefighter” instead of “fireman” are easy. Really, what would be the objection there? And actually, “officer” is even more efficient and still gender-neutral.
I do have a harder time with the pronouns, as I agree “his/her” is cumbersome and “their” is grammatically incorrect. I use the male pronouns, myself, because I care about the sound and flow of sentences which is why it annoys me greatly when prayers are changed to be politically correct. It’s destroying poetry and historical context, just like it would be to substitute “parents” for “fathers” and “people” for “men” in the opening sentence of the Gettysburg Address.
But, if one is not writing the Gettysburg Address and it’s the 21st century, it’s probably a good idea to be more inclusive with the choice of nouns. There’s no reason not to be, except that old habits die hard.
Or, if you place political values above precise, accurate or (if there’s any hope of achieving it) elegant speech, you’ll be happy to self-censor as you speak or write.
Continuity with what went before is not a bad reason to keep using the words that have served us so far.
Do you actually say “mail carrier” (or does it have to be “letter carrier,” to avoid a hated syllable)? “Mailman,” “policeman” are real words, as well as job descriptions.
Is there anyone who’s going to say “Each had THEIR notebooks” or the like?
I say mailman, because my “postal delivery person” is a mailman.
But that’s a really interesting question, because my husband’s mom delivered mail and I have no idea what he called her besides “mom”. I suspect he called her mailman- and I also suspect she didn’t give a damn what anyone called her, because she was too busy working to worry about such niceties. However, I do worry about such niceties because I am, well, a nice person- who also believes in the power of language.
Thus, I try to strike my own happy balance. As a term, “letter carrier” is horrible compared to “mailman”, but I don’t think I’d fuss if someone wanted to use it, but even there it depends on the setting. If it’s some dry government directive I’d go with “letter carrier”, but if someone’s trying to sing “Mr. Postman, why not deliver the letter, the sooner the better?” I would object mightily.
I’m with you on this. I really miss my postmistress.
What in Germany is called a “brewmaster,” in England was an “alewife.” Huh.
But see, Dana, I prefer my 911 call bring policemen to my door. If there’s a fire, I want firemen to come to the rescue. And I’d like the stewardess to freshen my drink.
Changing the language has altered the service I recieve. Women are not as strong as men, so the policewoman or firewoman who comes to the rescue might not be able to do the job that needs doing. And I don’t like looking at the steward’s cleavage–and why is he wearing that dress, anyway? Jeez, I really need that drink freshened.
Changing the language has changed the world, just a bit, for the worse. How far can we go? Orwell pointed us to a world where language was strictly controlled, with a goal of eliminating the vocabulary that could allow non-orthodox thinking. Look around and see how far down that path we already are.
But, you don’t get that choice. You’ll get whoever is on duty. I personally have a lot of respect for men and women who take on gender-opposite jobs. As long as they’re held to the same standards (which may be debatable and probably lies at the root of your concern), I don’t care. It’s getting to the point where I respect anyone who actually works for a living these days- which is kind of a sad commentary, but that’s a question for another day.
As a female, I prefer male officers because they never give me speeding tickets. But I respect the females who have chosen to do a “man’s job”, so it’s not a big deal for me to search for a different and more appropriate word. Actually, I enjoy the challenge.
But, you don’t get that choice. You’ll get whoever is on duty. I personally have a lot of respect for men and women who take on gender-opposite jobs. As long as they’re held to the same standards (which may be debatable and probably lies at the root of your concern), I don’t care.
The problem is that in at least one case that I know about, the standards have been lowered – dramatically – so that both men and women can be “equal”.
One of my friends is a career soldier in the Canadian Forces. I asked him once if women in the Canadian Forces have to meet the same standards as men; he assured me they did. Then I asked what those standards were. I don’t remember all of the different tests they had to pass but one has stuck in my mind since that time. If you want to be a soldier on active duty in the Canadian Forces, you need to be able to do nine pushups. Not 900, not 90, NINE! They have had to lower the bar that low so that women could pass the test. I wish I could remember the other standards but if they are comparable with the pushup standard – and I think they were – you might be lucky to find a Canadian soldier who could walk to the corner story on a flat paved street unassisted, let alone someone who could march long distances over hilly territory in bad weather carrying heavy equipment.
Believe me, I have no desire to disparage the Canadian Forces. My remarks are for the clowns who devise polices like this for the sake of political correctness when they should be worried about the defence of my country!
As a female, I prefer male officers because they never give me speeding tickets. But I respect the females who have chosen to do a “man’s job”, so it’s not a big deal for me to search for a different and more appropriate word. Actually, I enjoy the challenge.
And which would you rather arrived in your house to carry your smoke-overcome body down the rescue ladder when your house is burning down: a woman who is five feet tall and 90 pounds dripping wet? Or a man who is 6 and a half feet tall and 220 pounds in weight? I think we both know that the large man is far more likely to successfully save your life than the petite woman.
A great many jobs can be done by men or women with equal skill because they involve primarily intelligence and both sexes have that. But some jobs require physical strength more than they do intelligence. If you simply pretend that strength isn’t a factor, then you stand a very good chance of condemning yourself to getting the 90 pound female firefighter at a crucial moment in your life. If you’re very lucky, she will turn out to have amazing skills (like the ability to fabricate a catapult from only your bed sheets) that enable her to get you out of your burning house despite her size. Otherwise, things will not end nearly as well for you as if your fire department maintained sensible size/strength standards.
I’m not pretending that strength isn’t a factor. In the comment to which you are responding, I specifically said “As long as they’re held to the same standards (which may be debatable and probably lies at the root of your concern), I don’t care.” Did you miss that sentence, or am I not really the target of your lengthy and mostly true tirade, or is nuance just not your thing?
[This is actually a comment directed at Dana, who commented on my comment. Unfortunately, there is no "Reply" link on her comment.]
Did you miss that sentence, or am I not really the target of your lengthy and mostly true tirade, or is nuance just not your thing?
No, I didn’t miss that sentence, that was the one I was responding to. The point I was trying to make was that men and women in the Canadian Forces do have the same standards, just as you demand, but the end result has been to massively weaken the Canadian Forces. This is a case where the standard needs to be raised, even if it means that some women can’t enter the Canadian Forces, so that the Forces as a whole can do their job of defending my country.
In other words, this is a case where setting equal standards may make everyone feel good about being “inclusive” but massively undermines the basic mission of the organization. I hope we can agree that this is very wrong. If you simply shrug and say you don’t care about the mission of the Canadian Forces so long as women have equal access to the Forces, we will be on opposite sides of this issue. This will also be the case if you value the inclusion of women as firefighters above the ability of firefighters to conduct their basic mission of pulling people out of burning buildings.
Not to quibble pointlessly (I hope)–but it wasn’t really the decision to change the language that produced the lamentable change in standards for what soldiers, policemen, firemen etc. must be able to do, that we have to deal with today.
That gives the pure words way too much power.
Both things happened, and of course they’re not unrelated: the same holier-than-thou, pure, ideological elites had control of the printing presses, schools, etc., and of the many local boards and legislatures where standards are enacted. They all listen to each other, and were all eager to impress each other (and show contempt for the bourgeois and hoi polloi) with how advanced their thinking was.
These are the kinds of people who always believe, seriously and earnestly, that no one in the history of mankind (I use the term advisedly!) has ever thought so cleverly about a problem before they got to it. Marriage, childcare, relations between the sexes–oh, they’ll fix it. Haven’t they done a great job, though?
Don’t you remember, they say stuff like, In Hungarian, there isn’t even a separate pronoun for “she”! And then you wonder, does that make Hungary particularly a paradise for women? Probably not. Words don’t really ‘make the reality’ all by themselves.
More of us should stop playing along. You have to speak gently to the children, of course–it’s not their fault if they’ve been taught that the promiscuous use of “he” is ipso facto sexist. But you can start to disabuse them of the belief–exposure to even one adult who clearly doesn’t believe it is a start.
As with all other would be draconian dictators these philological terrorists have no poetry in their souls. Just read their writings, it is work to tease out any meaning and certainly leaves no joy in its wake. There words flow like bricks and not water.
Joy is anathema to them. Bumper stickers may not be mellifluous, but they often carry a nice air of folk wisdom- and my favorite one reads: “Piss off a liberal- work hard and be happy.”
Feminists used to ask, “Did you know that over 3,000 federal statutes discriminate against women?” Sounded like a lot, unless you looked at what that “discrimination” consisted of. It didn’t mean giving women and men different legal rights or duties. In nearly every case, those 3,000 cases of discrimination consisted of referring to somebody as “he” instead of “he or she” while giving both sexes equal rights and responsibilities.
Complaints about this purely grammatical form of discrimination made the feminists who complained sound trivial at best and nutty malcontents at worst. Give them what they say they want, an Equal Rights Amendment, and who know what nitpicking lunacy they’ll promote on the basis of it?
I wholeheartedly endorse this article, and those commenters who support it, against the silly idea that “if we just change our language, we’ll change the way the world works!” (remember that silliness?).
Women don’t have to go for the “inclusive language” stuff, to be self-respecting women.
Unfortunately, though, this is taught in schools to kids. My daughter was corrected in elementary school for speaking of Early Man (had to be Human). I remember an occasion when a bunch of 6th grade girls got to talking about how “unfair” it was, that girls couldn’t play in the NFL!! I really think there’s too much competition, as it were, to make a claim of being excluded or otherwise victimized by someone else’s words (or thoughts).
There is still enough real victimizing of people going around (as previous commenters have mentioned, in the Moslem world, against women, above all) that should be our concern, instead of playing silly games with language. Who wouldn’t say “Man overboard,” or “manning the phones,” for God’s sake?
Frankly, incidents like the attack on Lara Logan (one named representative of what unfortunately must go on all the time) do make some of us intensely grateful that we live in this culture, with its substrate of Judeo-Christian values, however attenuated they’re getting. I love Western Civ, and the Dead White European Males (supported by a heck of a lot of Females) that gave it to us!
But, for the Western guys out there–you don’t get any “credit” for your great values, if you suggest impatiently that it’s but for the grace of you-all that you don’t just shuck them off and behave like any old Ahmed or Hussein.
That’s not worthy of the great civilization you are claiming to represent.
(Just sayin’.)
26. Suzanne:
“Women don’t have to go for the ‘inclusive language’ stuff, to be self-respecting women”
This writer agrees. Still, I get a kick out of saying/writing “When Early Man noted that his menstrual cycles coincided with the phases of the moon …”
There you go!
How about: “I hope each one of us has his tampons…”
Actually, I can’t pretend that ever gets said; but I’m agreeing with your point, that we don’t have to forget that half the species–I’m assuming that’s so, since they hadn’t invented sex-selective abortion yet, so far as I know–that contributed to Early Man’s success was female.
One thing I’m not sorry to be rid of–that old-fashioned cutesy stuff about the distaff side, etc., etc.
IF YOU CONTROL THE WORD, YOU CONTROL THE LANGAUGE. IF YOU CONTROL THE LANGAUGE, YOU CONTROL THE DISCUSSION. IF YOU CONTROL THE DISCUSSION, YOU CONTROL THE THOUGHT. IF YOU CONTROL THE THOUGHT, YOU CONTROL THE PEOPLE.
And if you control the keyboard, you control the caps lock key.
Speaking of thought control and language, I particularly dislike the term “single mom.” If ever my husband kicks the can, I want to be given the dignity of being a “widow with children”. I truly, intensely hate reading sob stories in the news and not being able to tell if it’s self-inflicted or someone I should actually feel sorry for.
And how would you feel about “single mom” if your husband divorced you or simply abandoned you and your child(ren) were still at home?
I’m sure I would feel differently, but that means nothing in terms of the truth in the writing. What’s the problem with using more specific terminology, such as divorced or widowed since it may very well be material to the story at hand?
So you hate the idea of being called a “single mom” if your husband dies but have no big problem with it if he leaves you? I don’t see why that should make a difference. Aren’t terms like “single mom” supposed to be merely descriptive and not contain any judgements? As I understand it, “single mom” simply indicates a woman with non-adult offspring who are still at home who has no man (or other woman in the case of lesbians?) in her life; it’s not supposed to indicate any judgement on the woman or the father of the children, just an awareness that somehow the woman found herself in the position of raising kids by herself.
It sounds to me like you want to re-insert the judgement into the term and see it as a pejorative for widowed women, although not for abandoned women. Am I getting that right?
Take a look at the link below, see the title?
anyone not know what it refers to?
It is a play on the term, the only good indian is a dead indian
Pathetic
the guy is a punk
Who precisely is John trying to win over?
or just a troll?
USA A Good feminist (at last)written by
Jacob Laksin is a senior editor for Front Page Magazine.
When an ignorant, clueless person came up with the idea of changing HIStory for HERstory because she mistook a Greek root with a pronoun,why didn´t anybody clarify the situation? Where were the intellectuals? Laughing at the stupidy being displayed, or ashamed of having to confront the ignorance of some in the feminist movement?
At my children’s elementary school, at least one teacher (this was over 12 years ago now) actually did teach the children that ‘history’ was really formed from the words “his” and “story.” I guess he believed it; he certainly told the children it was true. I made sure my daughter knew where the word came from–I don’t think Herodotus ever heard of the modern English words “his” and “story,” by the way!–and I eventually did ask the teacher about it. At that point, he claimed to think only that he had “made a point” for the children, about the need to include women in history lessons or something, in a vivid way.
This sort of rampant disinformation and historical revisionism doesn’t stop at elementary. I’ve gone to college classes which pathetic professors shoehorned the most irrelevant, inaccurate feminist BS in their lectures, all in the same of “including women”. They actually think they’re doing a righteous service for equality, facts and accuracy be damned.
Ever notice that the feminazis (of whatever sex, including “none”) never have made a fuss over the word “heritage” they way the do over “history”?
If feminists insist on female-izing the word “history” let them preserve the word’s Greek origin and write it as “hystery”.
They never quite got around to “manure” or “country,” though, did they?
I always laugh when feminists say they’re for gender equality and speak for all genders, when the word “Feminism” itself is just as sexist as Mailman or Fireman, which they go stark raving mad to destroy at every utterance.
The only defense I’ve ever heard from them is “Oh well, that’s not important, it’s just a word! Get over it!”. Adorable.
The only men I see having a problem with women being equal-but-different are those with masculine self-image problems and some gays. Though not a liberal in any sense and a conservative in every sense, I don’t bow down to males but I like and respect them when they deserve it by word and deed. With that said, I don’t want men stripped of their masculinity or the language neutered. I can live with “mankind” referring to both men and women. After all, I know that all embryos start out being female and the XY ones are simply “modified” by testosterone.
So all in all I see this article as mere bait to help the author enhance something lacking in his male self-identity. Now take out the trash and walk the dog, Laksin, like a good little boy.
The self-designated “feminists” who complain about language are Marxists looking for things to complain about. No language has any theory, nor does it determine thought. Although we speak of “sunset” and “sunrise,” most people know that the sun does not go around the earth and that the earth rotates. The “feminists” who insist that the English language causes people to think of women as inferior to men contradicts themselves, since they give their theories in English.
The simple refutation of their claims is the word “woman.” No one thinks that a woman is a male of the species man. The word “man” can be traced to an Indo-European root at least 5000 years old. It is cognate with :mind,” “mental,” and “mathematics.” It is a species word, so that Aristotle’s definition of “man” (English version) that “man is a rational biped” is analytically true. “Man” is a species word, and used as a particle in several languages, including English and German.
The etymology and meaning of “man” are easily available in the OED, but the dishonest Marxist “feminists” don’t care about truth.
E.G., the word “chairman” does not mean the male of the species, the sex is indicated by using “Mr.” (“Mr. Chairman”) or “Madam” (Madam Chairman).
Modern English woman comes through Old English wyfman, where wyf= female or woman, and man, as you indicate, is the species name.
The problem is that we long ago lost the word which indicated “male man”–in the Old English it is guman (the “guma” related via IndoEuropean roots to the Latin “homo”.) Modern English barely preserves this in the word “groom.”
So, in the origins of the English tongue, we did indeed have words meaning “female man” and “male man.” Thus, we don’t need to radically revise the language to meet the greivances of the femiMarxists; we just need to go back to our roots!
Gummen and Women unite!
Meanwhile, females whose mother tongue is English are colonizing the word “guys”. Frequently I’ve observed a female greet an exclusively female group with “Hi, guys”.
I have to admit, I’m okay with “wimmin,”
as in
“where the hot white wimminz at?”
Surfer
Girlperson of female persuasion, by the BeachBoysperson – non-sexist version“Little surfer
little oneheight challenged individualMade my heart come all undone
Do you
lovenon-sexist affection me, do you surfergirlpersonSurfer
girlperson my little surfergirlperson”I was once informed that I should never use the word bee -ich in describing a woman.
I was told “It’s belittling to women. When a man is assertive in business he’s called a go getter, someone who gets things done. When a woman is assertive in business she’s called a B*#t@h.”
I replied “Bob can be an assertive businessman. Bob can also be a d*@k. He can be either one or both at the same time. As far as I’m concerned B*#t@h is merely the female form of the word d*@K. If you prefer I can use the more gender neutral word A-hole from here on out.”
To paraphrase Orwell, in times like these we have a duty to state the obvious. I guess you are doing that. Semantic Warfare has been a favorite tool of communists since long before Orwell. The Feminist movement in American Universities has been a triumph of communism and now serves as a main platform of Semantic Warfare. They more than any others created the Political Correctness that now paralyzes our political system and our universities. But that was their goal. They work tirelessly to destroy America.
I’m ok with “wimmen” … after all, isn’t that how we pronounce it? It would be a unique pattern … woman – singular; wimmen – plural … But hey, English has a lot “unique” patterns … But at least this one (wun) wou(l)d follow proununciation.
heh… When I saw the word “wimmin” used
I’d like to point out here that a “Feminist” does NOT represent women. A Feminist promotes “Progressive” (or whatever name they like this week) thought, concealed behind concern for “equality” for women: We’ll save you from the naughty boys – just give us all your money and votes.
Feminism is only one item on a long list of frauds.
The Black Congressional Caucus does not represent Black people in any discernible fashion except to absorb Black people into the Progressive view of the world: We’ll save you from those racists – just give us all your money and votes.
Environmental Activists do not protect the environment. They attempt to impose Progressive social and political goals as a solution to real, and more often imaginary, environmental problems: We’ll save all the cute little fuzzy critters – just give us all your money and votes.
Gay Rights activists do not represent gays – except for the gay people who agree with the Progressive social “reform” advocated by the activists: We’ll save you from all those hetero gay bashers – just give us all your money and votes.
Low income housing advocates do not offer assistance based solely on low income. The push for housing “rights” of Progressive client groups, and the “rights” of Progressive activists to declare who gets what from “society”: We’ll give you a free house too! – just give us all your money and votes.
This could go on and on. The continual production of imaginary nonsense such as Patriarchy, White Privilege, Corporate exploitation. Mendacious redefinitions of concepts such as equality and justice. Attempts to change, if not erase, large swaths of history. Banning of words and concepts through speech codes on campus.
And let’s not forget the biggest scam of all. Anthropogenic Global Warming. There’s this “consensus” don’t you know. The consensus includes absolutely everybody, except for those who don’t buy it – but they are “Deniers”, corporate shills, racists who don’t want to help the poor, so they don’t count. Even when the “deniers” are the real experts instead of phonies who just “can’t” produce the data from which they draw their end-of-the-world scenarios. Oh, and the fact that the solutions proffered to save us all from Global Warming Catastrophe just happen to perfectly match the entire Progressive agenda – well, that’s just coincidence. It’s Real Science, and if you don’t BELIEVE . . . well then, you must be a Nazi who stomps on puppies. We’ll save you from the End of The World!!! Just give us all of your votes, and give us all of EVERYBODY’S money!!
The poster above who cited Orwell is correct. All this “Progressive” BS from all of the Progressive’s fraudulent identity groups is nothing more than an attempt to control thought by controlling language. They have to try. They certainly cannot convince anyone using logic, economics, life experience or actual science. When ya got nothin’, make somethin’ up. (AND GIVE US ALL YOUR MONEY!!! IT’S AN INVESTMENT IN THE FUTURE!! REALLY!!)
The real mystery is why anyone pays any attention to anything the brain-dead identity group minions have to say.
Funny, when I saw the word “wimmin” used, I always pictured a guy drinking beer and using it as tounge-in-cheek slang. As in (country accent) “hey there cowyboy, here come the wimmin.” Or some such.
I have no problem with the chairperson or policeperson. It makes sense with women in the workplace to distinguish that it was a “policelady” that came to your door. Thus use of the word, “policeman” can require some clarification if you intend for it to mean a male policeman rather than the generic term.
And, things being as they are, I also wouldn’t mind a term that makes it so you don’t have to do the he/she thing when writing about students or soldiers, etc. It is annoying to have to sneak it in there somewhere that you are referring to both sexes.
As for the rest of those words, they only caught on with a small group who will identify their work as tainted and foolish for future generations. Think of psych writers who relied heavily on Freud way back when. It is an easy way to realize you are dealing with someone who embraced a fad and not real science.
Becky,
You sound reasonable, so let me bounce this off you..
I have a problem with “chairperson” and “Policeperson” because they feel forced and unnatural.
Policeman and Chairman are more of a title, and the pronunciation of the “man” part of those words is more like “min”, like the way we pronounce the word “human”.
Nothing sinister or disrespectful about it.
Some words are just naturally part of other words.
Tied and untied, assembled and disassembled, the goal is efficiency, not “equality”
Besides, expanding commonly spoken word to include the TWO syllable “per-son” makes them longer and clumsy, and it STILL gives it a “male” title….per-SON.
See the foolishness?
However, we are getting our son ready for school, and the plethora documents with that contemptible “he/she” and “his/her” phrase in every sentence clogging up the page is utterly ridiculous.
It exists for no other reason than to illustrate the “proper leftest leaning sentiments and credentials” of the author, a virtual requirement in the education field these days.
I asked the principal why the simple use of the word “their” would not suffice, as in:
“…children may bring THEIR lunch…to enhance THEIR educational experience…THEIR bus..THEIR safety” etc. etc. etc.
And she told me “no one ever mentioned that before”
And I told her: “At YOUR salary level, I didnt think anyone would NEED to…if you worked for me and produced documents this sloppy and awkward, you’d be out of a job”
The Root ’83, I don’t disagree with your overall point. In fact, I agree with it. It is ridiculous to have to modify the word “history” to “herstory” etc.
After reflecting on your comment, I have no problem with maintaining the terms chairman or policeman as the generic terms. You make good points.
I won’t say we differ, as I’m not sure we do, but as women have become a part of the workforce (a significant hisherstorical change) I don’t think it feels all that uncomfortable to utilize the generic terms chairperson or mailperson interchangebly with chairman or mailman. If a speaker said welcome madame chairman v/s madame chairperson v/s madame chairwoman, I wouldn’t even notice.
I’m sure Freud had a few valid terms that have survived today; even a blind squirrel gets an acorn now and then. Likewise, it is possible that Swift stumbled on a valid point or two. But my point is that there has been a change in the workforce dynamic and it is natural that our language would reflect the change. Forget Swift. Everyone else already has too.
Thanks Becky,
Agreed the work force has changed, but too many seem to have an agenda in CREATING strife where none really exists…..
I supposes all those corporate grievance peddlers and remediation specialist bean counters need something to justify their existence, but I was happier when that sort of make-work fluff-job nonsense was exclusive to the useless Government Wretches, not the private sector.
Oh well, you cant stop (non) progress!
The Root ’83 “but too many seem to have an agenda in CREATING strife where none really exists…..”
Yes, so true! I guess I was just quibbling around the edges of the greater point being made here.
Reaction to “sexism” in the English language is another example of liberal parochialism and myopia. The frontiers of the liberal mind truly stretch from Boston to Ithaca.
Did ever take Spanish or French or any Romantic language in school in between all those Colonial Studies and Social Justice classes? In these languages, inanimate objects actually have genders and must be referred to as “he” or “she.” Japanese is even better; entire postures of address are taboo for females or males. Those are just the languages with which I have personal experience.
As usual, most any criticism of American or Anglo-Saxon culture can be rebutted simply by looking at the rest of the planet beyond sheltered, white academia. The term “university” is almost parody at this point.
This is a very interesting discussion and I have a number of feelings about it. First of all the Feminist movement was not a bad thing. Equal pay for equal work is only fair. Equal rights for both sexes is also a good thing. Women can now own property and vote, run for any office, be in any profession even a fireman. Believe me its a good thing. The ninety pound firewoman may not be able to carry you down a latter but she can throw a fire blanket over you which will also save your life. I have two daughters and they are both very capable and earning a living quite nicely. I am very proud of both and their abilities.
Today’s problem with our language is a outgrowth of the Feminist Revolution. Unfortunately this revolution didn’t know when to quit and has gone to the point of being ridiculous. They have won and don’t even know it. Yes is true ladies. The greatest equalizer was not legislation but it was computerization. The computer equalized the entire playing field. It didn’t matter if the person operating it was a man or a woman. All that mattered was that person’s abilities and the whole world changed. The result was seismic. This was coupled with another major factor and that is education. More women are going to college than men. They are coming out better educated and more capable than men.
Here is an example of what I want to say. The most dangerous “man” on a battlefield is not the man with a machine gun. The most dangerous “man” on a battlefield is a woman running a computer projecting where the next salvo of mortar, artillery or rocket fire will land. She will kill by far more of the enemy than the man with the machine gun. Is it necessary to have a macho man flying a drone over the enemy or can a woman do it just as well?
This brings me to my next point. The English language is rooted in German and French. Both languages employ a system of gender identification to words. The word “the” in German is rooted in der which is male, die which is female and das which is gender neutral. French being Latin based has gender identification as a root to words also. Even Hebrew is a gender specific oriented language. Being these are the very roots of our language, gender specific terminology is unavoidable. Somehow skewing it the language to fit “Feminist” egos is self defeating.
“The most dangerous “man” on a battlefield is not the man with a machine gun. The most dangerous “man” on a battlefield is a woman running a computer projecting where the next salvo of mortar, artillery or rocket fire will land. She will kill by far more of the enemy than the man with the machine gun. Is it necessary to have a macho man flying a drone over the enemy or can a woman do it just as well?”
As an aside, a critical one nonetheless, this statement is a very clear example of the type of uninformed “logic” that fuels some of these discussions. Any professional soldier who has led troops in combat and more importantly any who have had the honor and burden of command will look at the author of such a statement and likely walk away shaking their head in disgust. You may be able to kill remotely and in great numbers, but victory in a military sense ultimately relies on soldiers, hardened of heart and proficient in arms to seize and hold the objective. There is a reason why the technical language of military doctrine refers to branches such as the Infantry, Armor, or Cavalry as the Combat Arms and others as Combat Support or Service Support. While air and naval power, or logistics, administration, medicine, and training are critical and without them combat victory could not be achieved, at the end of the day it is a soldier with a rifle that sets the stage for the strategic and political victory.
Notice the above makes no reference to gender, a soldier needs no other descriptor. The failing in current thought is that which has been mentioned by several other commentators – the standards must be maintained. Lowering standards to be more inclusive or utilizing gender normative standards is a failure to recognize the task. Your rucksack loaded with food, water, ammo, batteries, and a small quantity of “snivel” gear weighs what it weighs. That GPMG weighs what it weighs and so does the ammo. An armed and determined enemy does not care who you are or how equal your test scores were. Every soldier must be prepared to utilize lethal force through violence of action against a determined enemy and to hold against unyielding opposition. There are men who are not up to the task just as there are women who are. Meet the standard and strive to exceed them or go somewhere else. I don’t need you with me.
Do not ever make the assumption that technology is a universal equalizer. There are some environments and tasks where human performance is all that matters. In some of those settings the performance required may be based on physical strength and aggression. No mortar ballistic computer can provide that.
How about we stop using the term “white trash?” Am I the only one who thinks that term is offensive?
This term gets my dander up:
“WE” are pregnant.
Uh. NO. “WE” are not pregnant unless men just learned how to share a womb. -Not that I wouldn’t have minded sharing the ‘load’. ;p
He wrote “And if she played a part in the transformation of everyday English, three decades on its hard to make the case that it was a change for the better.” In an article about usage, correct or otherwise, it is jarring to see no apostrophe in this usage of “its”. Such errors make the writer’s style distracting from his message.
Oh, fer sure.
Someone please step in and help my faltering memory: perhaps you can recall the name of the philosopher and his exact quote – “Change the language and you change a civilization”.
girt is wel extreem, maar ik ben half voor half tegen. politiek correct tog?
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