Pronouns

[woodelf]

If, as you point, those who defend the use of "he" as the neuter pronoun are not necessarily sexist and may support it for other reasons, then why change the language at all? To change the thinking of those who really are sexist, perhaps?

Maybe. Current politics certainly demonstrates ably the degree to which choice of language influences thinking (polls that show a larger %age of people supporting the right to abortion than identifying themselves as 'pro-choice' is the first example that comes to mind--there're lots of other disconnects between jingoistic terms and the actual viewpoints/policies they label).

If you want to extol feminism, I don't mind (though the mods might). Just don't use insidious methods like changing the language to promulgate your views. Languages, while not static, do have their own aesthetic and I find it very sad that some people are willing to vitiate that beauty for political ends.

Wait, so the changed language promulgates a particular view and is an "insidious" method of propaganda, but the current language is completely neutral and doesn't have a point of view or propagate any particular worldview, insidiously or otherwise? How can using a gendered pronoun as a generic pronoun somehow imply something, and yet using a [different] gendered pronoun as a generic pronoun doesn't?

 

[Thaniel]

Many professions got re-labeled somewhere along the way. Stewardess became "flight attendant." Fireman became "firefighter." Nurse just stayed nurse, which may be one reason we still tend to think of the word as being gramatically feminine.

And yet, when asked what gender they think of when someone says "flight attendant", I'd guess that 8 out of 10 of them (probably more) will say "female". And I'm sure the same would be the case for "firefighter" and "male". So has the re-labelling really made any dramatic difference?

 

[Barak]

I'm a tad confused. If the use of "he" as a gender-neutral pronoun excludes women, wouldn't the use of "they" equally exclude individuality, and promote groupthink?

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Even if it did - and remember that the subject would still be plainly singular - you have to ask whether that concern is more important than marginalising women.

 

[Barak]

Of course it is, since women are individuals as well, and therefore are still marginalized.

And how is the subject still plainly singular if you use a plural pronoun, but not plainly gender-neutral if you use a male pronoun? I am so confused.

And you guys would really hate french. Every noun has a "gender" in french. Chair, for example, is a female noun, and therefore uses female pronouns and adjectives. Yet, somehow, males don't mind sitting.

Edit: Thinking about it more, that might be why I don't view it as a big deal, and I don't think it's a big controversy in the french-speaking world. We are used to nouns using gender-specific pronouns and what not, willy-nilly, with no real rhyme or reason. So using male pronouns for unknown gender people is just another example of it at work, and is hard to be construed as a slight to anyone.

 

[Zander]

We have, nurses for example.

Philotomy Jurament has cogently addressed this point already. Please see post #100 above.

Asymmetrical things are hard to make aesthetic; beauty in the mind of a bilateral human tends to be in terms of bilateral symmetry.

It's true that visually humans - and most other animals - show a preference for symmetry. But there's no rule that states that this applies to the sexes as well. A stage full of ballerinas without a single male dancer can be beautiful. A male peacock displaying its tail feathers is too - a sight that would be ruined if any females of the species blocked the view.

To whom? They have demonstrated it to the satistfaction of millions; there's no way they can convince everyone.

Everyone? Perhaps not. There are still people who think the world is flat. But scientific investigations that meet the criterion I described yesterday would do.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

And how is the subject still plainly singular if you use a plural pronoun, but not plainly gender-neutral if you use a male pronoun? I am so confused.

Deliberately so? I'm using "subject" in the technical sense:

"The courier stepped inside and shook their umbrella"

where "courier" is the subject and is singular, because it's not "couriers".

 

[Zander]

Wait, so the changed language promulgates a particular view and is an "insidious" method of propaganda, but the current language is completely neutral and doesn't have a point of view or propagate any particular worldview, insidiously or otherwise? How can using a gendered pronoun as a generic pronoun somehow imply something, and yet using a [different] gendered pronoun as a generic pronoun doesn't?

I'm glad you asked that question. The reason is that when English settled on "he" as the neuter pronoun, there was no concept of political 'correctness' or an understanding of what much later would be described as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. The decision was entirely apolitical. In contrast, the use of "she" as a neuter pronoun was foisted on the English language for political reasons at a time when Whorfian thinking was well understood.

 

[glass]

And you guys would really hate french. Every noun has a "gender" in french. Chair, for example, is a female noun, and therefore uses female pronouns and adjectives. Yet, somehow, males don't mind sitting.

A chair is a feminine noun, but in French that has nothing to do with the sex of people. Hell, IIRC, the German word for 'girl' is neuter.

That is exactly the point: if English was still a gendered language then there wouldn't be a problem. As other have pointed out above, the problem comes because English has no concept of gender in the abstract, only gender of people. A chair in English is an it, not a she.


glass.

 

[Barak]

Deliberately so? I'm using "subject" in the technical sense:

"The courier stepped inside and shook their umbrella"

where "courier" is the subject and is singular, because it's not "couriers".

Ahh I see. Of course, replace courier with mob, and the 'their' is not singular anymore, even though the sentence remains the same. Of course, a mob with just one umbrella is kinda silly.

A chair is a feminine noun, but in French that has nothing to do with the sex of people. Hell, IIRC, the German word for 'girl' is neuter.

That is exactly the point: if English was still a gendered language then there wouldn't be a problem. As other have pointed out above, the problem comes because English has no concept of gender in the abstract, only gender of people. A chair in English is an it, not a she.

Yah, I came to that conclusion and edited in my post something similar. It still seems like a silly problem to me, but that's probably at least in part due to french being my maternal language. Or should I say "parental" language.