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Re: SAA in 1937



In a message dated Sat, 5 Jan 2002 13:23:03 -0500 "David A. Wallace" <davwal@UMICH.EDU> writes:


Couldn't efforts to explicitly include the other half of
humanity be driven by motivations designed to enhance our
collective humanity by discarding outdated and biased language usage. I do
believe language is historically derived and validated within particular
social contexts that can implicate class and, in this case, gender power
relationships. And langauge is not static -- it does change. Using solely
the masculine as an all encompassing term for both sexes seems like a
concept whose time has passed - especially in light of the social equity
advances that have occurred over the past 40 years.

I fully agree with David. We have been reminded in recently months of the patriarchal nature of some religious groups in more graphic and demeaning ways. But what could be more fundamental than how we address each other as members of the same human race.

Anyone who has been exposed to any training in such matters will know that one of the simplest ways to avoid the problem in the first place is to rewrite the sentence so that it doesn't use a gender pronoun at all where a specific gender is not required to make the point. That is possible in many if not most cases in my own writing experience.  I personally have no hesitation in my professional writing to the use of the term "s/he" where avoidance of a gender pronoun would be awkward.  I have yet to be visited by language police.   8^)

Regards,

Rick Barry
www.rbarry.com