NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26/NN_1992_26.iso/spool/misc/writing/3403

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-06 | 4.0 KB

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From: [e-mail] (J. S. Greenfield)
Newsgroups: misc.writing,alt.censorship
Subject: Re: A gender neutral pronoun, was Fundamentalist Nightmare
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 5 Nov 92 04:16:28 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: Syracuse University, CIS Dept.
Lines: 67

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Stuart Grant) writes:

>>If you are writing a book about automotive repair, and suddenly
>>everyone decides that the word "crankcase" has obscene sexual
>>connotations, you should probably change it to "gearbox," no matter
>>how stupid you think everyone is.  If you don't, you risk offending
>>people and distracting them from your true message: how to fix a car.
>
>Isn't this a double edged sword? It seems that many people are offended
>by people using spellings like womyn and wimmin, and prohibitions on
>gendered pronouns. So, shouldn't the use of these PC terms be abandoned?

Ultimately, one must decide what they think is reasonable, and what they think
is not.  Personally, I would think that objections to the word "crankcase"
were not reasonable, so unless the opinion was extremely widepread, I'd be
likely to ignore the issue.  (And I would almost certainly *not* use the
word "gearbox" as an alternative--since that would be awfully confusing for
those of us who associate "gearbox" with the transmission! :)

Personally, I find a preference for gender-neutrality reasonable for two
reasons: 1) I don't think I would be too comfortable if everything were
written as gender-specific to women, and 2) because, in reality, we are
talking about situations in which the ideas I want to express are *in fact*
gender-neutral--and it is only the limitations of the language that make
it more convenient and comfortable to write in a gender-specific form.

That's my personal opinion.  Since I feel that way, it's very natural to
wish that we has a few additional gender-neutral terms to make life
easier.  Anyway who feels comfortable with gender-based terms should feel
free to continue using them.  No one here is talking about compulsion to use
new terms.  (Although some people may try to *convince* you to use the
gender-neutral terms.)

On the other hand, in my personal opinion, concern over things like the
spelling of "women" is bordering on the non-sensical, and as such, I don't
think about it at all when I write.

Agains, it is your perogative to feel and do otherwise.


But ultimately, anytime you find that someone is offended by something you
do, the best you can do is to evaluate whether you find the offense taken
to be reasonable, or to be ridiculous.  If you think it is reasonable,
then you change.  If you think it's ridiculous, you don't.

It seems rather strange to suggest that, blindly, one should either always or
never react to complaints that something is offensive.


In essence, the stereotypical PC approach is to say that one should blindly
avoid offending people--without any concern over how *ridiculous* the
complaints may be.  (And of course, we sometimes associate some sort of
compulsion to behave this way with the term "PC" too...)

Now we have some people suggesting that we do the opposite--that is, blindly
refuse to avoid offending people--without any concern over how *reasonable*
the complaints may be.  (And some of these folks seem to be suggesting
some sort of compulsion, too!)

To me, both of these positions seem equally dumb.


--
J. S. Greenfield                                         [e-mail]
(I like to put 'greeny' here,
but my d*mn system wants a
*real* name!)                        "What's the difference between an orange?"