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Gender-neutral pronoun for "he/she" | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| pookiebear79 Groupie United States Joined 6030 days ago 76 posts - 142 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Swedish, Italian | Message 57 of 74 17 November 2009 at 11:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Looks like this thread has gone the way of so many others. What was healthy discussion/disagreement now seems have become a place to bash anybody who doesn't believe 'he' is a gender neutral pronoun as some sort of unreasonable "radical feminist."
Oh, I forgot, I mustn't say anything of a differing opinion or it will be construed as 'getting my knickers in a twist.' If one were to look back in earlier pages of this thread, it would be apparent that there were also males who said they didn't think 'he' was gender neutral. Are they "radical feminists with their knickers in a twist" as well? And really 'nice' generalizations there, such as "Every reasonable person" and saying that taking offense (there is a difference between disagreeing with a confrontational statement someone has made and "constantly taking offense")is a sign of 'too much time, and too few real problems.' As if you (that's the general you, not the personal you) can presume to know what other people have to deal with. Why do things need to advance to making unkind (and more likely than not, completely false) assumptions about someone because they have a differing viewpoint? Once these sorts of "all", "everyone" "normal people" kind of assumptions begin, personal attacks are usually not far behind. I think there ceases to be any use in discussion at that point, when one or two persons have decided they are correct and anyone with a differing opinion is wrong, and instead of simply stating their viewpoint, feel the need to make generalized statements and belittle people. I personally don't care if someone agrees or disagrees with me, as long as they don't belittle my opinion simply because they have to be right every time. That's sort of the point of a discussion (people sharing their take on the matter at hand,) but when the name calling and belittling starts in place of real discussion/healthy debate, what's the point?? Edited by pookiebear79 on 17 November 2009 at 11:09pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5521 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 58 of 74 17 November 2009 at 11:29pm | IP Logged | ||
Since I said it, I'll reply. What I meant was this: if you have enough time and energy to devote on trying to change the usage of "he" to refer to an unknown person, that might be a woman, I think this is the definition of having too much time a no real problems. By a real problem I mean things like not being able to leave the house without a male relative, or being at constant risk of being raped by gangs prowling the streets, or not allowed to study at the university or vote because you are a woman. If your worst concern, gender oppression wise, is that you risk being referred to, in a general fashion, as "he", then I think you should consider yourself rather lucky. Edited by Gusutafu on 17 November 2009 at 11:30pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7156 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 59 of 74 18 November 2009 at 12:12am | IP Logged | ||
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I think that what gets lost in these kinds of discussions is that doing or working toward gender equality goes beyond some change in lexicon or grammar, and again should emphasize that any attempts to equate gender equality in practice with gender neutrality in language are questionable.
In Kyrgyzstan at some large gatherings, the most respected or eldest male sits at the head of the table. Other men will sit along the table but their place depends on their social standing/rank relative to this eldest or most respected male. Finally the women sit at the far end of the table. To some western commentators this would be deemed sexist, but this is how it's done. Iceland is regarded as one of the more progressive societies out there and ranks third on the Human Development Index report for 2009. Its parliament, Alþingi is one of the older such assemblies in the world (it was founded in 930) and in fact, Iceland elected a lesbian Prime Minister (Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir) in this year. For those who like to look for a simplistic proportional relationship between linguistic gender-neutrality with actual progressiveness in gender relations in that speech community would be disappointed or confounded by these two examples after considering the languages of these areas. Kyrgyz translates "he, she, it" as one pronoun and "they" as another pronoun. It also has done away with grammatical gender. aл ('al') = "he, she, it" aлар ('alar') = "they" Icelandic maintains distinct pronouns for "he", "she" and "it" and even "they". It retains grammatical gender more or less as it was in Proto-Germanic. hann "he"; hún "she"; það "it" þeir "they (masculine)"; þær "they (feminine)"; þau "they (neuter)" In English, just because many of us use "they" to replace "he/she" shouldn't be seized on as a sign of enlightened attitudes or even working towards gaining such attitudes. There's still sexism in the English-speaking world and the change must go beyond prescribing different or new words/constructions. I believe that what you see in language is one thing, and how a speech community acts is another. It matters more for gender equity or progression towards that aim that people actually do things that promote it, rather than get bogged down looking for perceived "sexist" linguistic features and derive prime satisfaction from changing these features. These changes seem to be done with the hope that somehow users will act in a less sexist way because the perceived sexist words/features have been erased or proscribed out of active vocabularies. In this case, it seems that words rather than actions matter more. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5521 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 60 of 74 18 November 2009 at 12:20am | IP Logged | ||
Perhaps the idea is like that of the original Newspeak, if you can't say politically incorrect things, you can't think them. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 61 of 74 18 November 2009 at 10:15am | IP Logged | ||
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While it is reasonable and logical to say that gender-specific pronouns may be perceived as sexist, it is at the same time undeniable that attacking the way someone speaks is generally perceived as an attack on the speaker's identity.
Forcing someone to speak a different way is taken as forcing them to change their identity. The increase in popularity of "they" as gender-neutral in English is not down to the work by libertarians, egalitarians or fraternitarians[1], but simply down to the fact that using "he" generates ambiguity. English speakers quite simply don't want this ambiguity, so they say "they". The only reason this argument arises is because someone brought it up. Now people that would normally have happily said "they" are saying "he", simply because they're consciously aware of the erroneous "rule" that "he" is gender-neutral. To me as a child, reading "he" for gender-neutral seemed very posh, because it's just not how we spoke, but nowadays it's starting to seem normal! The argument has been counterproductive and self-sustaining. The anti-he crowd have actually caused people to say "he". [1]There's that pesky gender-specific thing again! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 62 of 74 18 November 2009 at 2:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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So basically it all boils down to the fact that English and other languages are inherently sexist in the way they use pronouns, but that any attempt to rectify that situation will be met with condemnation based on a normative reference to the current situation. But as I wrote in another thread any language is a sum of tons of past errors that just became so frequent that the error became the norm.
According to Cainntear this reaction has hit the socalled "anti-he crowd". But this thread has also shown that at least in English the least provocative tactic has been to extend the use of the third person plural pronoun "they", even though it isn't a bit logical to speak of single persons in plural. Or, alternatively, to use cumbersome constructions like he/she. Tactics based on the introduction of new pronouns are almost certainly doomed to failure. In quite general terms the people who want to change something in a language must be so determined that they are willing to use constructions and words that are seen as errors by more conservative language users. And this is not limited to English. Edited by Iversen on 18 November 2009 at 10:54pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5521 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 63 of 74 18 November 2009 at 2:56pm | IP Logged | ||
From my point of view, that is not the case at all. I think it's ludicrous to call English sexist based on these quirks. If for example words for female professionals were derived from the male equivalent using some offensive suffix, that would be sexist in a real sense. At present, we have a system that is not entirely "logical", but it is not degrading women in any way. It is a bit like the endless debate on what equality should mean in the real world. Should it mean that men and women are treated exactly the same, or just equally well. since men and women are so different, I think it's absurd to demand identical treatment, that would NOT be fair in a real sense. I also still strongly disagree with the statement that languages are built on errors. What exactly is it that you call error? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5669 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 64 of 74 18 November 2009 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | ||
And then you risk dismissing the sensitivities of people like my ex-girlfriend who object to the word "they" because it places "he" right in the middle, thereby "reinforcing the centrality and dominance of that which is male". The relationship didn't last long, but it taught me something important: No matter what you do in the name of "fairness" there will always be a bunch of people you are going to offend. It seems to me that sexism is a bit like UFOs; Some people see evidence at every turn, whereas others (like me) never see much real evidence at all. Of course, you could say it is better to err on the side of caution, and tread carefully so that you do not offend. The problem with that is that we are all sensitive to different things. What I am sensitive to is being called a sexist for using perfectly harmless words such as "he" or "man" in a gender neutral sense. Changing those words would be at least as offensive to me as is keeping them to some other people. Edited by Splog on 18 November 2009 at 4:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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