The Queen's English: Feminism, Language and Communication

[BlueIris]

I'd love it if people wanted to use this thread to share their feelings and opinions about the terms and vocabulary they use to discuss feminism, as well as any and all things related to it--that's why we're here, right?

What words and terms do you like to use to talk about feminism, women, men, family, society, government, religion, cooking, etc.? Why? What terms do you strongly dislike to use and why?

What I want to do here is give everyone a place to unveil their own preferences with regard to this issue. Just to give other posters a sense of what you as a feminist and a DU member are comfortable with, uncomfortable with or neutral about. What I DON'T want to do is attempt to define "acceptable" and "unacceptable" vocabulary, expressions, terminology or phraseology for this forum. I just want this to be a thread in which posters unveil what they want others to know about their personal feminist vocabulary and its origins.

[BlueIris]

1. I'll start: I prefer to use the most inclusive vocabulary I can

possibly wrangle out of our patriarchal tongue. At the end of high school, I was voted Most Politically Correct by my class because my goal is always to address all subject matter with a vocabulary that excludes or offends none--as much as is possible without being inaccurate, misleading or dishonest. I prefer to use gender neutral terms as much as I can, ("humanity" instead of "mankind") or, in situations in which I must, to keep things grammatically correct, choose a male or female pronoun in a sentence, try to use "she" as much as "he" or "him" as much as "her."

[geniph]

3. Despite having been a copy editor in the past

(and a fairly good one), I still use the very grammatically incorrect "they" and "their" rather than twist my tongue/keyboard around he/she or use a single-gender pronoun. Using "he" as the default is my personal bete noire, but I can't bear the strange constructs of gender-neutral pronouns that were briefly in vogue. So I use "they," fully aware that I am committing a grammatical crime.

[jmm]

8. I got into a big debate over this issue with

one of my high school English teachers. When she told us we were to use male pronouns as the default I asked why. She said we wouldn't want to offend men. I asked, "What if I feel offended by the idea that men's egos are more important than my own?" She never gave me an answer but she did try to get me kept back that year :grr:. Luckily I was able to fight it and get a good grades.

[Eloriel]

12. I like s/he

or alternating between he and she in a longer piece.

[Hello_Kitty]

9. According to an English prof I had years ago

The use of the pronoun "they" to refer to an individual of either gender used to be acceptable until it was decided sometime in the 19th century by the grammar powers-that-be at the time that it was no longer proper and it was supplanted by "he" as the gender-neutral pronoun. Why that was I don't know but I'm willing to get behind a movement to reinstate the former rule.

[Senior citizen]

2. A curious feminist stance.

Back when females weren't admitted to higher education, feminists insisted that females be included.

Back when females weren't admitted to the professions, feminists insisted that females be included.

But when feminists realized that the "traditionally inclusive" pronouns didn't really include females, feminists insisted that the separate and different pronouns for females be used in addition to the "traditionally inclusive" pronouns.

It is unrealistic to expect grown females to remember the discomfort they felt as infants when they realized that they were referred to differently, in ways that young males considered insulting and often uttered scornfully. It is unrealistic to expect grown females to experience the pain that comes with realizing you're been insulted all your life by being referred to on the basis of your genitalia instead of being referred to inclusively on the basis of your common humanity.

But the fact remains that when you find that you are being excluded, the solution is NOT to insist on continuing separate and different treatment instead of insisting on ACTUALLY being included.

Separate and different pronouns are not part of anyones biological sex and are not essential to anyone's primary identity. They are divisive and discriminatory.

In Metamagical Themas there is an essay where pronouns based on race are used instead of pronouns based on sex, proving how divisive and unnecessary such pronouns are.

When somebody tells me that they are nonsexist because they use "she and he" instead of "he," I tell them they are not nonsexist, they are bi-sexist. I prefer using "they" or referring to people by name if the traditional inclusive usage is not permitted to be used in a truly inclusive sense. I do think that inclusivity would have to start at birth, the way diviseness does now, for it to be accepted.

I remember when the term "Ms." came into usage, as feminists asked why females had to be referred to in terms of their relationship to a male, as had previously been the custom with "Miss," or "Mrs." What struck me at the time was why females had to be referred to in terms of sex at all. When you refer to people differently on the basis of sex, you don't get equality without regard to sex.

[geniph]

4. Your last paragraph makes a good point

Why don't we simply refer to everyone as M. Smith, M. Jones, instead of having the gender-specific honorifics? Dr. Smith doesn't differentiate between "doctor" and "doctoress." By the same token, I refer to myself as an "actor" not an "actress." I'm not a "system administress" at work, after all.

[Senior citizen]

5. Remember that old riddle about the father and his son who are

in an auto accident and the father dies but the son survives and is rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery, but the surgeon says, "I can't operate--that's my son," and it took forever for people to figure out that the surgeon was the mother?

Everybody used to assume that Dr. meant male. They had to learn differently. So the assumption that Mr. means male is no different--it is only an assumption and it can be changed. Nowadays Dr. means physician without regard to sex. We know that a Dr. can be male or female. All we have to do is understand that Mr. refers to a person without regard to sex, and people would soon learn that a Mr. can be male or female also.

I get a chuckle whenever people ask if someone is a he or a she. So far as I know, people aren't pronouns, they're people.

[geniph]

6. I don't know why, but that reminded me

of that line in It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey excitedly talking to his pregnant wife: "Is it a boy or a girl?"
Her response, "Uh huh."

:-)

[Senior citizen]

7. Aha!

I always thought the first question people asked when a baby was born (Is it a boy or a girl?) was so that they'd know which traditional gender role to assign. But it could also be because they're concerned that it might be an intersex child, that is, neither a boy nor a girl.

Wasn't there a nursery rhyme that included the line, "Not a boy, not a girl, just a little baby?"

[shimmergal]

11. Sorry, senior citizen, but

as a writer I prize sex-specific pronouns for their usefulness.

Try writing--or better yet, reading-- a whole scene of dialogue between two or several members of the same gender. It's a lot harder to keep track of who's-saying-what than when you can use "he" and "she". Not that it can't be done, but for various reasons you don't always want to use writerly tricks like giving every character distinctive speech patterns for every line they say.

Of course, writers who worry a lot about the pronoun problem have used all kinds of coined pronouns instead. Most of them don't work too well. Or, one can always use "it." Try calling a character (or person) "it" and see what the connotation does to their image.

[Senior citizen]

15. I've had several lengthy articles, essays and book reviews published

in which I used no pronouns whatsoever.

I did refer to people by name more often than is usually done, but I never got a single complaint about it.

All you have to do is mention a person's sex ONCE, and people will never forget it, as it is the single most important thing about people in any patriarchal society that treats people differently based on sex. You can do this without pronouns by simply saying, "(Name) is female," or "(Name) is male," or you can do it with the traditionally inclusive pronoun by saying, "He is female," or, "He is male."

I also have an article that was reprinted in a college level diversity textbook in which I used the traditionally inclusive pronoun to refer to females by default, explaining that if I wrote, "He is a professor," it should be understood that the professor was female because otherwise I would have written, "He is a male professor."

I agree that coined pronouns are worthless, and I don't suggest referring to people the same way as we refer to inanimate objects.

As for dialogue between two members of the same gender, there is no problem keeping track of them. If they are different genders and happen to have unisex names, you'll find, as I explained above, that if you mention their sex once, nobody will forget it. Ever. That's what patriarchy has done to our minds. It is the first thing we want to know about a person (presumably so that we'll know which pronoun to use, but also I suppose so that we'll know if they are a potential object of our affections if we base our sexual orientation on plumbing alone), and once known it is impossible to forget. Studies have shown that this knowledge of a person's sex also shapes our attitude towards their writing.

As for convenience, well, I've never thought that a rational defense of sexism.

I stopped writing for publication in 1996, after I had done a review of a book about Lise Meitner, the scientist who had discovered nuclear fission. I worked hard on that review and didn't submit it until it was perfect. But the editor, a lesbian, was outraged that I hadn't used the word "she" in the review, even though it was perfectly clear to anyone who read it that Meitner was female. So the editor, without bothering to tell me, changed some grammatically perfect sentences around so as to be able to insert an unnecessary pronoun, and published the review under my name with sentences that were grammatically incorrect and made no sense whatsoever. I doubt if I'll ever submit anything to an editor again. I'm sure that editor also "prized" sex-specific pronouns, and the desire to humiliate me and make me appear to be an incompetent writer was merely a secondary motivation. But that someone calling themselves an editor would think the insertion of sex-specific pronouns more important than a well-written review of an extremely important book about one of the greatest female scientists to have ever lived, persuaded me to do my own publishing from then on.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

17. Prime counter-example: Japan

In its original form, the Japanese language had no gender-specific third-person pronouns (nor did Chinese). The only third person pronoun literally meant "that person."

Gender-specific pronouns were invented out of native elements under the influence of Western literature. They are still rarely used, and when a person says "he" or "she" with no context, it is understood to refer to that person's lover.

All titles are unmarked for gender. Mr., Mrs., Ms., and Miss are all "-san," so if you hear someone refer to an unfamiliar "Yamamoto-san," you have no idea whether that person is male or female. (This creates problems for Japanese-English translators.)

AND YET...

No one would ever consider Japanese society non-sexist.

My experiences with Japanese and Chinese, two languages with no gender-marked third person pronouns, have given me an easy-going attitude about inclusive language.

I don't care if people use "he" as the generic third-person pronoun if they treat me right.

[Senior citizen]

18. Yes, you are correct. My statements were meant only to

refer to native English speakers in this particular society.

There are many elderly Chinese and Japanese immigrants to this country who have not completely mastered the English language and get confused about sex-based pronouns. This may be the case with Policat's boss in the post below. Their confusion is understandable since, as you point out, such pronouns do not exist or were only recently introduced in their native tongue. That doesn't mean that they cannot distinguish between the genders, only that they're not familiar with our language. And, of course, as you also noted, their societies can be even more sexist than our own.

In many languages they have sex-based pronouns for inanimate objects. I enjoy recounting the true story of how, when I was learning Spanish in Honduras, I would often resort to picking up an object, turning it upside down and looking underneath it, and my landlady would respond by supplying the sex of the object. For example, if I wasn't sure if an ashtray or a bowl was masculine or feminine, I'd turn it upside down look underneath it, and my landlady would laugh and tell me its sex. This worked fine until one day I noticed that on the table before me were a small, dainty, floral jelly glass, and a large, thick, dark brown coffee mug. Having already learned their sex, I asked my landlady why the little glass was masculine (el vaso), while the big cup was feminine (la taza). All my landlady could do was shrug and say, "Tradition." And that's all it is with people too.

That's why I believe that if we got rid of sex-based pronouns for people, we'd have no more problem than native Spanish speakers have learning to refer to inanimate objects without regard to sex in English. It is easier, not harder. And it would really be nice for little kids learning to speak, who wouldn't have to determine the sex of an adult before they could refer to them. That's asking a whole lot of a kid, in my opinion, and is quite unnecessary.

On edit: When we teach kids that they have to distinguish between people based on sex and refer to them differently based on sex, we are teaching them divisiveness based on sex. We are telling them that there are two kinds of people and they should be treated differently. If we ever want an egalitarian society, we are going to have to teach kids that there is only one kind of person, and that everyone should be treated the same. Patriarchy teaches sexism differently in different societies, but in English-speaking countries people may hear themselves referred to in terms of their genital status literally hundreds of times a day, and it constantly reinforces something that probably isn't relevant 90% of the time. I've observed many instances when there was a mixed group discussion and everything was fine until a female spoke up, at which point a male will say, "Well she (however they finish the sentence)" and from that point on the males exclude the females from the conversation. All it takes is that one reminder and group unity can be completely destroyed. Could they do the same thing without the pronoun? Sure, but not as easily or as subtly.

[libodem]

10. i don't particularly dislike any terms...

but i dislike some of the reactions. Not long ago there was a thread in GD by a man who was offended by Feminism to the point he felt it discredited the whole party. While i did not reply, I noted with interest that he was mad at the women in his classes who disrupted professors to correct them in the gender neutral phraseology, considered more politically correct. I believe in speaking out but sometimes splitting hairs is just annoying and makes us seem petty.

[Eloriel]

13. IMO splitting language hairs is hardly ever petty -- or at least I can't

think of a case that would be.

Language is excruciatingly important because it not only describes HOW and WHAT we are thinking, both as individuals and as a culture, it also influences HOW and WHAT we think -- both as individuals and as a culture.

The example I've used over and over and over at DU: When chairman was the only word for the head of a committee or Board of Directors, few ever formed a mental image of that person being a woman. The default was male gendered and surely the person referred to would be male as well.

Howecver, when Chairwoman or simply Chair gained currency, thanks to the efforts of a bunch of petty, splitting hairs women who actually understood -- or perhaps just intuited -- how important language is, members of a whole society were brought up short and FORCED to think, however briefly, that the head of THAT committee or Board of Directors was or might actually be female. That alone opened many, many doors for women. It forced a whole society to start thinking more liberally about women's talents and abilities and opportunities (or lack thereof).

And that was just one very small example of many.

[politicat]

14. Pronouns bother me.

I work for someone who is incapable of distinguishing between the genders. Thus, he calls everyone - even me! - he. It bothers me. I am female; there's nothing shameful about it. I have no problems with being female. Why should he? (well.... non-neurotypical, but that's another thread.) I'm picky about this: when referring to a sole, specific person, we should use the pronoun that best matches, including zer for those who have either renounced gender or are gender ambiguous.

Alternately, I get bothered when authors use she and he interchangably in literature to be politically correct. I found that while reading Freakonomics, the authors did this, and I became annoyed with them during the realtors' and teachers' discussions (these professions being female employment ghettos) for using "she" generally when male teachers were sure to be involved in the behaviors mentioned. (If you haven't read it, Freakonomics talks about how realtors tend not to be very honest and fair with their clients and how teachers can and do cheat on standardized tests. By using She in this instance, the implication was that women are dishonest and cheat their students and clients. He would not have had that gender specific connotation.) I noticed I did not notice it elsewhere, though I did notice on 1 occasion that the authors used he in the generic sense.

I don't like pronouns. I like specifics in speech; I don't mind a pronoun with an antecedent, but a general pronoun is too nonspecific for me.

On other matters: it's and its, they're, their, and there; accept and except; any word ending in -ize or that came out of corporate speak.... I hate the abuse of language. Long live Latin!

[Senior citizen]

16. Nobody calls anyone "he." Ever.

It is a third-person pronoun. When you speak directly to someone, you call them by name or you say, "you." ONLY when you are speaking to someone else about a person, would you use a third-person pronoun. As I have never heard a case of a male using "he" to refer to a female, I'd be interested to know exactly who your boss was talking to about you, and in what context. This, if true, is a historically unique case.

Referring to a mixed-sex group of people as if they were all male is sexist, but is common and well-documented behavior. An example of this might be a boss telling a client, "My men will take care of that problem for you immediately," when the people who will actually take care of the problem might be male or female. References to males who are effeminate or gay as "she" in the form of an insult have also been observed and documented. But I don't know of any other case of a male referring to a single, specific female as "he." As for calling you, "he," I cannot imagine your boss saying, "He, please come into my office," or, "He, have you finished that project?"

Please elucidate. And explain why it is that your boss is the only person in our patriarchal society who cannot distinguish between the genders. Most infants have been trained to do that by the time that they can speak.

On edit: I would also appreciate it if you would explain why you feel that people should be referred to in terms of their genital status, or, if their genital status is not obvious, they should not be referred to with any term that indicates that they are human, but that a new term should be invented for them. I have a real problem referring to people in terms of their genitals, although it is easier for me when they don't happen to have much in the way of brains so there's little else to refer to them by.