of sexist language. Apparently there are only male bloggers here at wordpress, did you know that? Or maybe they assume no one would link to a female bloggers post…
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Well, can’t speak for anybody else of course, I generally use the him, he and even ‘man’ – I am of course claiming to be old school and inclusively use ‘man’ as a shortened version of ‘human’… and otherwise I think neutral gender reminds me of disembodied sci-fi talk about aliens ‘It’s on the move…’ and as a bloke I am more comfortable using ‘he’ and other stuff because when I self refer I won’t have to undergo a shocking gender change…
I hope this helps, and glad to see a posting…
Nice to hear from you again, FTT,FTB!
I would argue that it is worth the extra effort to not neglect more than 50% of the population when you are trying to refer to people in general. It completely makes sense that you should refer to yourself with the male pronoun. And I would argue that we all feel comfortable using male pronouns because that has been modeled for us. But, that doesn’t make it right, and I think we can (and should) do better.
I would also argue that it doesn’t need to become an i, or some weirdly alien kind of reference. A simple “his or her” would do just fine, or a “they” or using “person”, etc. And if you don’t like the extra letters in using “his or her”, you could alternate usage.
The fact is that language subtly affects how we think and what we think. Psychological studies have shown that male-dominated language (the supposed gender-neutral usage of his, him, mankind, etc.) has clear effects. Even if you intend to be inclusive when using man, the audience reflexively thinks/imagines/assumes/pictures a man, and not people in general.
For example, just using one different word in a description (such as “hit” vs. “smash” when talking about a car accident) can drastically affect what people think and remember about the description. Lawyers understand the critical importance of word choice in terms of its effect on jurors. Words relating to gender are no different. We just don’t usually consider what the outcomes are of assuming that people in certain occupations are always male (or making odd qualifications when referring to females– such as “lady doctor”).
I have this blog on wordpress, and it just sucks to be reading info and suddenly see myself completely excluded.
Trudging through the corridors of my mind I recall an argument I once had with my sister – I do realize that there is an argument for watching our language but I wonder if the feminist piece of saying for so long and so vociferously in some cases that ‘man’ does not mean the human race but a discarding of half the species… has actually done harm…
I salute your effort, and as you might have guessed, have regularly kept checking to see if you’ve posted and herein I think lies the solution – if you as a woman chose to write in terms of your own gender you would be making it more normal whilst also not necessarily being critical of others – in short the softly softly approach…
If more folk were won over by good posts/whatever then you could win folk over but I would point out that some just have a way they wish to write/read for example I, generally speaking, won’t buy a book in the first person or uses slang language in the narrative – my exception to these rules has been books by Iain Banks… and if you think that being able to say that is just one of those things – a friend of mine was seriously considering writing a book in the first person and asked me what I thought – I gave a few (helpful) critiques and then came the question – if I saw the book and did not know who wrote it would I buy it? I stuck to being honest and, because these things are very personal, almost lost a good friend over it and run the gammat of being recommended books written in the first person by others – so my point is not one that is lightly given but vulnerable in its honesty.
The odd thing I would add is that as I make this comment I am almost finished a large fantasy which has a female dwarf (alright, alright) as the main protagonist…. No, I have not been published before and I have no idea if I will be… I just thought it was relevant to this whole chain of comments…
It is always nice bantering with you, FTT,FTB
Regarding your comments:
First a question. “wonder if the feminist piece of saying for so long and so vociferously in some cases that ‘man’ does not mean the human race but a discarding of half the species… has actually done harm…”. Can I ask what harm?
And another point, but I am not sure how things are on the other side of the pond (you’ve made me less country-centric)- but there is precious little criticism here regarding language as far as I can tell. So, there may be more attention called to these things by you.
Your suggestion that I write in my own gender, and thus make it a little more common, reminds me of something I did in high school. I went to a catholic high school, and decided to make a point of sometimes referring to god as a she. Boy, did that piss people off, even my female friends! My point was that god wasn’t a gender. It didn’t seem to me that he/she would even have a body. It wasn’t like god was the guy down the street, god should be bigger than that. I mean, it isn’t critical that god have a penis, right? My point then was that why did people get so upset by me using a she, but they never blink an eye (or even notice the gender reference) when god is referred to as a he. It seems equally ludicrous to me either way.
And I do appreciate your honesty and vulnerability, FTT,FTB, and that is why I like to banter with you.
But… I wonder if it is enough to set an example in my own writing. When I criticize wordpress, I’m criticizing an organization that is implicitly assuming that bloggers are male (well, in those sections, I think the newer sections are much better, so I only mean to criticize those entries). If I don’t criticize it, it won’t change. People won’t notice. People won’t be aware. I emailed wordpress with my request that it be changed, and they said they would correct the language when that section comes up for editing in the near future. If I had said nothing, that wouldn’t have happened. And down the road when a female blogger is looking for info, they won’t have to suddenly feel like they are trying to join a club they don’t belong in. They will just get their info, which is how things should be.
I also realize that sometimes it is a lost cause. I have been trying to get my dad to stop referring to female physicians as “lady doctors”. I have gotten no where with him. But I do enjoy asking what his gentlemen doctors think about his health. At least I can amuse myself!
As it’s late over here I’m just going to add this then crash out…
I grant the point for ‘informing’ wordpress of your views.
But my point of ‘harm’ was that by saying that women were being written off by the use of ‘man’ rather than make sure everybody knew they were being lazy possibly has made women sensitive to the point that they feel neglected/rejected/discarded by the use of that word…
re your catholic leg pulling – HAHAHAHA, no, God is beyond gender, although, as a historical figure I don’t think Jesus is and the prayer to ‘Mother Jesus’ by a bishop over there I just think was tacky and awkward… not to say purposefully confrontational…
Sometimes when dealing with the ‘older generation’ I think we sometimes have to understand that they just won’t see the point and will hide behind the ‘old dog’ clause – hereabouts I know a gentle guy who’s a decent sort [what does that mean?] and makes some of the most inappropriate comments and they’re not only about gender too…
I tried to join in on a very feminist site but found that I was mostly side-lined by silence and some posts that just said, by inflection, that I was part of ‘the enemy’! Hoho…
I think we should really worry about whether folk take us seriously or not, despite the fact that they may have prejudices. It’s not always easy but sometimes that’s life, over here I am rather the ‘kept man’ as my darling wife supports me in my writing – and her father keeps asking what I’m doing [as I should obviously support her] and she has the career!
So, in the end I honestly can say that I don’t know what the right way forward is but that there is enough judgementalism out there and nobody needs to add to that particular pile.
I hope you keep posting though…
Just a quick response (since my comments have been so long): we ARE being neglected by the use of words that don’t include us, and I don’t think the answer is to not notice the neglect. I think noticing it helps combat it, and is the first step to not doing it yourself.
In any case, I have found, surprisingly, that young American men are sometimes much more in tune with these issues than young American women. So, I’m not just targeting men with my comments.
I guess it is the blokes who’ll get beaten up over it…
When you say ‘yourself’ – do you mean yourself or me?
And I know this is a cruel one but could you answer the question whether you think that martial feminists have so sensitized folk to this issue that women may now feel they are excluded by this language or do you think they are right?
By yourself, I meant anyone really, but not you in particular.
Not sure what a “martial” feminist is, but in my personal experience, people aren’t even sensitized to it. I never hear anything about it at all, actually.
And I do think women are excluded by this language, based on the research that shows it affects what people think about when they hear it (back to a previous comment). So, whether women “feel” excluded is in a way irrelevent, they are excluded practically. Now, if research showed that when people hear the term “man” used to mean all humans they thought/imagined/pictured women and men, then I would change my tune and say it IS inclusive language. But it just doesn’t function that way, even if we wish it would.
It doesn’t now, I’ll agree but I wonder why that is – could it be because of ‘men’ going off to talk about ‘man talk’ ie business or whatever as they retreated to a luxurious hole where they could smoke cigars and drink brandy? Possibly…
I think this was also exacerbated by trenchant feminists who saw this and instead of claiming inclusivity they declared the hypocrisy they saw…
Is there a possibility that we could undo that damage and be able to claim a homogeneous language for all? On a note about folk hearing things on playback – my wife would be left in fits of laughter if she was able to give me the twenty question treatment on most conversations I have…
So I wonder if I’m the only one who tunes out or do ‘women’ think ‘men’ are boring?
Sorry about the whole ‘ ‘, ”… thing