# pc gender eradication



## risby

There has been a largely successful drive  over the last couple of decades to promote non-sexist speech and to deprecate gender specific terms in English in the cause of feminism. Hence we now have firefighters instead of firemen, the chairperson instead of the chairman.

Learning French and Spanish recently, I wondered whether there had been any such influence in these languages where gender is a basic component of the grammar.


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## liulia

It's all extremely complicated! My sister who is a Director in one of the European institutions is finding it difficult to adjust to her new title - "Madame le Directeur"!


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## ben119

I agree with Liulia, since all the nouns have a gender in French, changing it in many cases makes them sound very strange... 

I'm not aware of any wide change in the language in general.


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## Brioche

In German it's generally not possible to have a single "non-sexist" term.

Females in an occupation or profession have -in added. So if you are talking about a female teacher, you have to say Lehrerin.
If your doctor is a woman, you say Ärztin, and so on.

If talking about Germany's female PM, you have to say Kanzlerin. In German, Senator Hilary Clinton is called Senatorin Clinton, and so on. If Hilary gets to be the first female President of the US, she'll be Presidentin Clinton.
Any reference in German to President Clinton or Sentor Clinton = Bill Clinton.

When politicians get up and thank the voters, they have to say it twice:
_Mein Dank an alle Wählerinnen und Wähler.
My thanks to all the [women] voters and [men] voters._

Job advertisements, for example, have to write both the male and female forms: Lehrer/Lehrerinnen. Some combine Lehrer and Lehrerinnen into LehrerInnen - note the capital I - if you write _Lehrerinnen_, it means _female teachers_.


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## Sepia

Brioche said:


> In German it's generally not possible to have a single "non-sexist" term.
> 
> Females in an occupation or profession have -in added. So if you are talking about a female teacher, you have to say Lehrerin.
> If your doctor is a woman, you say Ärztin, and so on.
> 
> If talking about Germany's female PM, you have to say Kanzlerin. In German, Senator Hilary Clinton is called Senatorin Clinton, and so on. If Hilary gets to be the first female President of the US, she'll be Presidentin Clinton.
> Any reference in German to President Clinton or Sentor Clinton = Bill Clinton.
> 
> When politicians get up and thank the voters, they have to say it twice:
> _Mein Dank an alle Wählerinnen und Wähler.
> My thanks to all the [women] voters and [men] voters._
> 
> Job advertisements, for example, have to write both the male and female forms: Lehrer/Lehrerinnen. Some combine Lehrer and Lehrerinnen into LehrerInnen - note the capital I - if you write _Lehrerinnen_, it means _female teachers_.



That IS the non-sexist way. It German it is considered sexist NOT to use the gender-related suffixes. 

I Denmark it is quite the opposite: There they have setteled for the masculine version except for a number of professions where they use the feminine form for both sexes. (Mainly the professions where women always were in the majority). That is their idea of non-sexist and politically correctness.


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## Arrius

My favourite gender-busting term in English is _hisser_, a combination of _his_ and _her_ (er, sorry),_ her_ and _his_, which unfortunately didn't catch on. _Their_ serves this purpose quite well but has still not been approved by English grammarians. Many years ago when indicating sex became forbidden in job adverts, I recall how an enterprising London pub owner, when trying to recruit a new barmaid, cunningly circumvented the new regulation by advertising for, "an experienced bar-person with large boobs". He could have got a nasty surprise of course!
Forms of address like _Liebe Studentinnen und Studenten_ still sound rather ridiculous and superflous to me, probably as a minority of one, as does the insistence on the unnecessary neologism _human_kind that now pedantically replaces the once all-embracing _man_kind. (The synonymous German_ Menschheit_ was fortunately not suspected of sexual leanings). But I am very relieved at not having to bother about any of these niceties when speaking Spanish! Please note that despite what I have said I am all for sexual equality, and have gladly and obediently worked for several admirable female bosses.


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## Etcetera

In Russian, the category of gender is very important.
There are several professions and posts (including 'director'), which are normally used in masculine. Not that there can't be a feminine form, but it would sound rather weird and sometimes just ridiculous. Such forms may be used, though, but in a pretty humorous way.
But very few people really bother about it all. I, personally, don't give it a damn.


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## Freston

This thread reminds me of a funny thing I encountered. The English word secretary has both a female and a male form in Dutch:
M. Secretaris
F. Secretaresse

But, now comes it. Both have distinct differences. A 'Secretaris' does different things than a 'Secretaresse'. You might compare this to the difference between a Steward and a Stewardess. So the title now no longer applies to the gender, but to the job description. It's possible for a woman to be 'Secretaris' and (far less common) for a man to be 'Secretaresse'.


In job advertisements the usual form is the male form, followed by (m/v) to indicate both genders may apply.


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## Arrius

I am reminded of the nice distinction in German between *Frau Doktor* who has a doctorate and *Frau Doktorin*, who is only married to one.


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## Sepia

Freston said:


> This thread reminds me of a funny thing I encountered. The English word secretary has both a female and a male form in Dutch:
> M. Secretaris
> F. Secretaresse
> 
> But, now comes it. Both have distinct differences. A 'Secretaris' does different things than a 'Secretaresse'. You might compare this to the difference between a Steward and a Stewardess. So the title now no longer applies to the gender, but to the job description. It's possible for a woman to be 'Secretaris' and (far less common) for a man to be 'Secretaresse'.
> 
> 
> In job advertisements the usual form is the male form, followed by (m/v) to indicate both genders may apply.



But do you really use 'Secretaresse' for a man who does normal secretarial work - like it is done mainly, but not exclusively, by female secretaries?

 (You don't have to search long for a male secretary - I used to be one.)


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## Brioche

Sepia said:


> That IS the non-sexist way. It German it is considered sexist NOT to use the gender-related suffixes.



The German system of constantly reinforcing the person's sex in the job title is quite contrary to the efforts of feminists in the English language.

The idea in English is to be *inclusive*, to de-sex the language, and get rid of all sex-specific terms. The idea being that if we don't have these naughty sexist words, we won't be able to think any naughty sexist thoughts.   

Think of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four. '_Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? 
In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it_."

Interestingly enough, Malays and Indonesians, whose language is beautifully non-sexist, manange to have quite definite ideas on the appropriate - and differing - roles of males and females.


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## faranji

Arrius said:


> I am reminded of the nice distinction in German between *Frau Doktor* who has a doctorate and *Frau Doktorin*, who is only married to one.


 
Which in turn reminded me of ambassadresses, who can earn said title by simply marrying an ambassador.


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## Kelly B

I'm always impressed by the fact that if you refer to a man as _a person_ in French, he is _une personne._ The gender depends on the inherent gender of the noun (feminine, in this case), rather than that of the person wearing the title, and in this case at least, it works both ways.


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## Arrius

Think of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four. '_Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? _
_In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it_."

The quotation from Orwell is most apt,* Brioche*, and it would appear that 
like myself, you are not entirely delighted with the mutilations the language of Shakespeare is suffering in the name of political correctness, originally a worthy cause, but now running amok and foaming at the mouth.
How much are we to allow this linguistic crusade to "bowdlerize" the language to encroach on our freedom of speech? Sometimes these days, one remains speechless because one is no longer sure what one is currently permitted to say to express a particular idea. For instance, the word "gypsy" (once full of romance), like its German equivalent "Zigeuner" too, is taboo. I think the present acceptable English term is something like "rummy" - or is that an alcoholic and also banned? Because of their traumatic past - you can now, quite rightly, be thrown into clink for giving the Nazi salute or denying the holocaust - the Germans have sufficient reason to be over-cautious, but what is the excuse of the anglophones?
Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc.


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## risby

Kelly B said:


> I'm always impressed by the fact that if you refer to a man as _a person_ in French, he is _une personne._ The gender depends on the inherent gender of the noun (feminine, in this case), rather than that of the person wearing the title, and in this case at least, it works both ways.


Yes, this is what interested me. What does it mean that "l'armée", for instance, is traditionally a male enclave and yet the noun is feminine?

Do these examples undermine the feminist stance that sexism is embedded in language, suggesting that this idea arises from a parochial view of English, or does it just make it more of a complex problem for languages other than English?


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## Agnès E.

Etcetera said:


> In Russian, the category of gender is very important.
> There are several professions and posts (including 'director'), which are normally used in masculine. Not that there can't be a feminine form, but it would sound rather weird and sometimes just ridiculous. Such forms may be used, though, but in a pretty humorous way.
> But very few people really bother about it all. I, personally, don't give it a damn.


This is the position of most French women (I can't say about other francophone countries). Words are just the appearence given to facts, not mere facts. We have so many major issues to cope with in our everyday life that we find useless to fiercely fight every masculine form of feminine things... we have more important things to think of. Furthermore, France isn't fond of polically correctness. We have a rather sarcastic sense of humour that prevents us to adopt the PC attitude, I'm afraid. 



Kelly B said:


> I'm always impressed by the fact that if you refer to a man as _a person_ in French, he is _une personne._ The gender depends on the inherent gender of the noun (feminine, in this case), rather than that of the person wearing the title, and in this case at least, it works both ways.


Yes, this precisely explains why we don't care about this question of genders. They are just word genders, and have nothing to do with the reality of what they describe.


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## liulia

So in our European cultures - French, Russian, Italian - the grammatical quirks of our languages do not always say much about  the day to day realities of life? 
This is how I have always felt, but I was told, back in the 70s in the US, that with a bit of consciousness raising I would soon understand that my attitude was merely resistance due to cultural brainwashing. 
What I have noticed in fact is that  changing language is a very superficial band-aid solution, and does little to change attitudes. But the debate around language has helped me over the years to understand, for example, ways in which women have felt stuck in particular roles because the language implied that that's where we belonged. Language does contribute to reinforce and confirm cultural assumptions, I suppose.


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## Arrius

Do these examples undermine the feminist stance that sexism is embedded in language, suggesting that this idea arises from a parochial view of English, or does it just make it more of a complex problem for languages other than English? (*risby*)

Grammatical gender usually has little to do with biological sex distinctions. Even in very macho Latin _nauta_ (sailor) and _agricola_ (farmer), both traditionally male occcupations, were both feminine nouns. In Rostand's play "L'Aiglon" whose protagonist is the ill-starred and captive Duc de Reichstadt, son of the Emperor Napoleon I, the former makes the grim joke "*Je n'aime pas que la France soit neutre*" (I don't like France to be neuter), referring to the _grammatical_ fact that it is "_la belle France_" (feminine) in French but "_das schöne Frankreich_" (neuter) in the language of the German and Austrian conquerors.
_L'armée_ is feminine, not in spite of consisting traditionally of men, but because it stands for _la force armée_ and _la force_ is feminine. Similar to _les forces armées_ you have in Spanish_ las fuerzas armadas_ also feminine.
Besides* Kelly B's**,* at first sight, incogruously feminine "_la personne_" (though it had to have one of the two available genders), there are also the slightly more remarkable "_la victime_" which can refer to either sex or an indeterminate one, and "_la sentinelle_" (the sentry) formerly always a man, except for the odd female in drag who managed to infiltrate the ranks. _Person _is also feminine in other Romance languages and it is _"die Person_" (feminine) in German too. The original Latin "PERSONA" was already feminine. Why? - you must ask the Ancient Greeks or possibly the mysterious Etruscans!
Beginners are somewhat startled to find that girl in German is neuter: "_das Mädchen_". This is because it is a diminutive derived from _die Magd_ (maid) and all diminutives are neuter. They may also raise their eyebrows slightly to find that stone, "_der Stein",_ is masculine but the word for pig which rhymes with it is "_das Schwein"_ (neuter). I long since gave up worrying about such things.
A.


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## Outsider

Brioche said:


> The German system of constantly reinforcing the person's sex in the job title is quite contrary to the efforts of feminists in the English language.
> 
> The idea in English is to be *inclusive*, to de-sex the language, and get rid of all sex-specific terms. The idea being that if we don't have these naughty sexist words, we won't be able to think any naughty sexist thoughts.


Different languages seem to be taking different routes to inclusion. See the examples here.



risby said:


> Yes, this is what interested me. What does it mean that "l'armée", for instance, is traditionally a male enclave and yet the noun is feminine?


Or _la police_. And _la Mafia_! 
It's not uncommon for the names of  traditionally male institutions to be feminine. Make of that what you will.



liulia said:


> This is how I have always felt, but I was told, back in the 70s in the US, that with a bit of consciousness raising I would soon understand that my attitude was merely resistance due to cultural brainwashing.


Sounds vaguely familiar to me. 



Arrius said:


> Grammatical gender usually has little to do with biological sex distinctions. Even in very macho Latin _nauta_ (sailor) and _agricola_ (farmer), both traditionally male occcupations, were both feminine nouns.


Are you sure about that? I read that they were masculine...


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## Arrius

"But in some languages, for example in Spanish, there have also been campaigns against the traditional use of the masculine gender to refer to mixed gender groups". (From the Wikipedia article referred to by *Outsider*)

¿Hay alguien que se ha dado cuento de una tentativa, sea de índole oficial o no, de abolir el uso del masculino en castellaño para abarcar grupos de género mixto?
Yo, no. 
This would include, unthinkably, the dropping of _*los reyes*_ to refer to the king and queen of Spain as well as "_*Los reyes católicos*_", Ferdinand and Isabella, who sent Columbus on his journey of discovery, and , last not least, *mis padres* meaning _my father and mother_. Fellow (oh dear!) foreras and foreros may remember Natalie Wood in Bernstein's "West Side Story" warning her controversial WASP boyfriend: "Quiet, you will wake _my fathers!"_

_Tocado_! You have caught me out, *Outsider*. I should have said that Latin _nauta _and _agricola_ have a feminine _*form*_. They are indeed treated as masculine nouns: _agricola bonus_ (a/the good farmer) and _nauta audax_ (a/the bold sailor).


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## alexacohen

Hello:
I hate it. Simply hate it.
This politically correct mania is a rage in Spain. 
I attended last week a meeting at my daughters' school.
The opening speech ran very much like this:
(English version of one of the most stupid Spanish PC speeches I've had the displeasure to heard)

"Good afternoon mothers and fathers of our pupils and pupilesses. We have asked you to come so we all can discuss the new schedule with the teachers and the teacheresses, the proffessors and the proffessoresses, the tutors and the tutoressers. 
The cooks and the cookeresses are here as well because the new shedule will affect them too. So are the school cleaners and the cleaneresses and..."

And I got up and said "and the cat, and the rat, and love our dog...
(Spanish version) and left.

Language is communication. It's hard enough to communicate as it is, whithout PC complicating it even more.

Alexa


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## Arrius

As I said in my posting of 1.51 today, I am totally unaware of any move to put the Spanish language through the PC mangle, as alluded to in the Wikipedia article referring to such linguistic reforms. A pity you, *alexacohen*, didn't quote some of the new changes in the Spanish version of the school director's PC-tainted address. I live a solitary life almost totally devoid of the ambient _alegría_ and have remained hitherto quite ignorant of any attempt to sanitise the beautiful Spanish language. I suppose that in view of the ultra-liberal legislation that has been going on recently such as the legalisation of same-sex marriage it should come as no suprise that Spain might become more PC-conscious - but I haven't a clue what is happening in that respect. May I ask again for information on this?


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## alexacohen

Arrius:
I don't know if the PC thing is regulated or legislated or what. In fact I don't care to check what is, to me, an utterly ridiculous way of forcing a change in a given language.
Plural in Spanish has never been a masculine word, it was just a plural for both masculine and feminine.
Same for many professions.
"Juez" was applied to both women and men who were jueces. Now juez is for male, jueza for female, médico for male, médica for female and so on.
Disgusting.
As for the school director stupid address, it ran like this:
"Buenas tardes, madres y padres de nuestros alumnos y alumnas. Les (¿y las?) hemos pedido que vengan para que todos (¿y todas?) podamos discutir el nuevo horario con los maestros y maestras, profesores y profesoras, los tutores y las tutoras.
Los cocineros y cocineras también están aquí porque el nuevo horario también les afecta a ellos (¿y ellas?). Y por supuesto los limpiadores y limpiadoras y...."
Y un jamón.
Alexa


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## cuchuflete

Y ¿una jamona?


Te juro que no estoy buscando cinco pies a la gata.


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## Vanda

Agnès E. said:


> This is the position of most French women (I can't say about other francophone countries). Words are just the appearence given to facts, not mere facts. We have so many major issues to cope with in our everyday life that we find *useless to fiercely fight every masculine form of feminine things... *we have more important things to think of. Furthermore, France isn't fond of polically correctness. We have a rather sarcastic sense of humour that prevents us to adopt the PC attitude, I'm afraid.
> 
> 
> Yes, this precisely explains why we don't care about this question of genders. They are just word genders, and have nothing to do with the reality of what they describe.


 
I second Agnès for Portuguese language and Brazilian's feelings on the matter.(of course I refer to the majority as in any other place)


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## Etcetera

alexacohen said:


> And I got up and said "and the cat, and the rat, and love our dog...
> (Spanish version) and left.


You did right. 



> Language is communication. It's hard enough to communicate as it is, whithout PC complicating it even more.


I agree with that wholeheartedly.


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## Arrius

Thank you *Alexacohen*. If you have encountered it only in what I assume is a private school, perhaps this disease is still confined to such small outbreaks, probably contracted through contact with the anglo-saxon world. But the mention of _jueza_ and _medica_ etc. that seem to have been heard or read elsewhere is rather worrying. I myself have only come across "_presidenta_" which I think is well-established and necessary. Perhaps *some Spanish forera/o* *might enlighten us, by all means in Spanish if they prefer, on what exactly is going on. *
If it is part of a big campaign, I would say that the Spaniards should concentrate first on preventing their womenfolk from being beaten up with such alarming frequency (_*violencia de género*_), before they think about giving them such useless and silly titles.


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## alexacohen

Arrius said:


> Thank you *Alexacohen*. If you have encountered it only in what I assume is a private school, perhaps this disease is still confined to such small outbreaks, probably contracted through contact with the anglo-saxon world. But the mention of _jueza_ and _medica_ etc. that seem to have been heard or read elsewhere is rather worrying. I myself have only come across "_presidenta_" which I think is well-established and necessary. Perhaps *some Spanish forera/o* *might enlighten us, by all means in Spanish if they prefer, on what exactly is going on. *
> If it is part of a big campaign, I would say that the Spaniards should concentrate first on preventing their womenfolk from being beaten up with such alarming frequency (_*violencia de género*_), before they think about giving them such useless and silly titles.


Arrius, this has been discussed in the Spanish Only Forum. I'll try to find the threads, because I grow tired of the PC discussion and left, so I don't remember exactly the threads titles.
As for "violencia de género" is so absurd a language twist that it doesn't deserve a comment. 
Alexa


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## Outsider

*Arrius*, about what you read in the article, remember that it's from Wikipedia. Anyone can write anything there. The claim isn't accompanied by a source, so its credibility is low. 
I only linked to the article because I thought it had an interesting cross-linguistic overview of how gender-inclusive language is conceived.


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## faranji

cuchuflete said:


> Y ¿una jamona?


 
You're an incorrigible sexist bigot, cuchuflete. What does a tad-on-the-chubby-side, slightly-past-her-prime woman have to do in all this?

*jamona *
_*1 *(inf.) adj. y n. f. Mujer que ha dejado de ser joven, sobre todo si está algo *gorda_.


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## faranji

alexacohen said:


> As for "violencia de género" is so absurd a language twist that it doesn't deserve a comment.


 
Amen to that, my dear. _Violencia de género_ makes me think of a terrible blunder in masculine/feminine concordance. By the same token, surely a lynching should be dubbed _violencia de número_?


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## faranji

Arrius said:


> If it is part of a big campaign, I would say that the Spaniards should concentrate first on preventing their womenfolk from being beaten up with such alarming frequency (_*violencia de género*_), before they think about giving them such useless and silly titles.


 
I don't think it's that alarming, dear Arrius. In the ranking of violence against women, Spain occupies one of the lowest positions for the whole of Europe. Violence against women is much less frequent in Spain than in Sweden, Finland or Germany, which are at the top of that infamous ranking.


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## cuchuflete

faranji said:


> You're an incorrigible sexist bigot, cuchuflete. What does a tad-on-the-chubby-side, slightly-past-her-prime woman have to do in all this?
> 
> *jamona *
> _*1 *(inf.) adj. y n. f. Mujer que ha dejado de ser joven, sobre todo si está algo *gorda_.



That's obviously not what I had in mind, faranji.  What else would you use to describe a jamón of either variety in a thoroughly pc gender neutral world?

_Oye señor carnicero, dame un jamón serrano, no me importa que sea jamona o majo, pero que
no tenga mucha grasa.




_As to my being incorrigible... Es verdad que cuando quiero comer una pera no busco ningún pero.


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## faranji

cuchuflete said:


> As to my being incorrigible... Es verdad que cuando quiero comer una pera no busco ningún pero.


 
Olé!


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## Arrius

Very relieved to hear that the rumours of an undesirable PC language reform, apparently supported by an article now said to be probably spurious, and by the personal evidence of Alexacohen, may lack sufficient substance to be considered serious, Also to hear that Spain is said to be low in the battered -wife league despite almost daily stories in the press and on TV that give a contrary impression. Perhaps the stories often go unreported in countries which are greater offenders, 
I apologise if I have spoiled the thread and now withdraw to leave it to others to keep it on track.
PS I was using the ever-recurrent official term for the above-mentioned offence, and had no intention of making a crude pun on so distressing a phenomenon.


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## alexacohen

faranji said:


> Amen to that, my dear. _Violencia de género_ makes me think of a terrible blunder in masculine/feminine concordance. By the same token, surely a lynching should be dubbed _violencia de número_?


That's it!!!!!!


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## Qcumber

Anti-sexism applied to languages that have gender as a grammatical feature often gives ridiculous results, and should be vigorously opposed.

In French, feminists have invented _écrivaine_ as the feminine of _écrivain_ "writer". To me _écrivaine_ rhymes with _vaine_ "vain".

Even in English, remember the stupid *her-story for history!  How can people be that ignorant?


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## alexacohen

Qcumber said:


> Anti-sexism applied to languages that have gender as a grammatical feature often gives ridiculous results, and should be vigorously opposed.
> 
> Even in English, remember the stupid *her-story for history!  How can people be that ignorant?


Omigod, that last one surely was a joke... or wasn't it???
Alexa


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## Qcumber

alexacohen said:


> Omigod, that last one surely was a joke... or wasn't it???


Twenty years ago it wasn't, then people made fun of them so they scrapped it.


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## Argónida

Specially for *Arrius* and *Alexa*. This is one of the discussions from the Spanish forum about the supposed sexism in the Spanish language.

I agree with Alexa. There is a trend here that try to prove our language is sexist so we have to change it and say "alumnado" instead of "alumnos", "humanidad" instead of "el hombre", "nosotros y nosotras" instead of "nosotros", etc. Some people even defends the use of "@" (that is not a Spanish letter, of course) in order to avoid the words' gender: alumn@s instead of "alumnos"... This trend prevail, in my opinion, in public institutions more than in the private ones. In fact, the women departments of councils, regional governments, etc. publish books and brochures where recommend the use of no-sexist language. In the thread I put above you can find a link with an official brochure that says we musn't use the word "jóvenes" because it's a sexist word, so it's much better to say "jóvenas"...

Perdón por no saber decir esto en inglés: "Si eso no es buscarle tres pies al gato, que venga dios y lo vea...".


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## alexacohen

Thank you, Argónida. I couldn't find the thread.
I hate the stupid mania of writing a plural as alumn@s, and not alumnos. It is really stupid, what about camarad@s?
And I have already written this somewhere else, but no one in the PC language department of councils and the like has ever said a word about this:
When a Spaniard says "this is cojonudo" (=related to the _male_ genitals), it means that something is wonderful.
When a Spaniard says "this is a coñazo" (=related to the _female _genitals), it means that something is insufferable.
And, if I may, I will say that politically correct non sexist language is an utter coñazo.
Alexa


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## zazap

My 2 cents:
I like and use PC language.


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## Qcumber

Argónida said:


> Some people even defends the use of "@" (that is not a Spanish letter, of course) in order to avoid the words' gender: alumn@s instead of "alumnos


This kind of monstrosity reflects some form of insanity.


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## zazap

Qcumber said:


> This kind of monstrosity reflects some form of insanity.


Are you qualified to make such a diagnosis?


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## kdl77

In Italian, it is a big problem, so much that even the Ministero dell'Istruzione wrote, some years ago, a little book called "Regole per un uso non sessista della lingue italiana". It was for teachers and writers and journalists. 
Some examples to prove you our NOT-AT-ALL-PC language.
- Uomo = "man" of "human being", Donna = "woman" and stop
- In a list of even a thousand nouns, if there is a masculine one, than the related adjective must be masculine (ex: Maria, Carla, Roberta e Mario sono andatI a mangiare)
- There is no feminine for words like: capo, muratore, pescatore, corridore... They are supposed to be "macho-jobs"!
And so on.
Shame on us!

[Forgive me for my bad English...]


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## Namakemono

zazap said:


> Are you qualified to make such a diagnosis?


 
Well, for one, @ is not a letter. Also, you can only use it in a handful of words. You can't use it in "estudiante" or "trabajador" (even though I've seen insurgent@s...). What about those words? What's the PC term for _los Reyes Católicos_? 
Keep in mind that gender is not the same as sex. Objects in Spanish have gender. Would anyone be so insane as to say "las ventanas y los espejos están rotos y rotas." The obvious answer is "no, the masculine has adjective has all the information we need". 
Also, I dare you to use @ to make gender-neutral words in Russian or German.


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## jonquiliser

alexacohen said:


> Thank you, Argónida. I couldn't find the thread.
> I hate the stupid mania of writing a plural as alumn@s, and not alumnos. It is really stupid, what about camarad@s?
> And I have already written this somewhere else, but no one in the PC language department of councils and the like has ever said a word about this:
> When a Spaniard says "this is cojonudo" (=related to the _male_ genitals), it means that something is wonderful.
> When a Spaniard says "this is a coñazo" (=related to the _female _genitals), it means that something is insufferable.
> And, if I may, I will say that politically correct non sexist language is an utter coñazo.
> Alexa



I think there's both a word and two about these kind of expressions... But then, I'm not much for political correctness, because if it is truly political correctness someone's abiding to, there's really no substance or honesty in it anyway. But I use (and enjoy it) expressions some people like to brand "political correctness". I think there are several dimensions to it - the language may not be "intrinsically" sexist, racist or the like. 

But it certainly illustrates and demonstrates historical sexist/racist/bigotry etc. That's why language looks like it does. Calling the attention to these facts of language, at the same time creates a debate about the attitudes people do have. People often DO tend to see, for example, males as the norm - women are "gendered", the ones that deviate is some senses, whereas men are the measure of all and everything. This is physically, literally manifest in an extreme number of cases. And so on and so on. So using the arroba, in Spanish, or to say "hijo de hombre" D) for example, may make (and often does!) people pause for a second.  (And has the additional plus of a certain comical touch). My céntimos


----------



## jonquiliser

Namakemono said:


> Well, for one, @ is not a letter. Also, you can only use it in a handful of words. You can't use it in "estudiante" or "trabajador" (even though I've seen insurgent@s...). What about those words? What's the PC term for _los Reyes Católicos_?


 
Las Reinas Católicas! Shear numbers would have it make sense to use the feminine to denote the general ("impersonal") and male/female mixed groups. 



Namakemono said:


> Objects in Spanish have gender. Would anyone be so insane as to say "las ventanas y los espejos están rotos y rotas." The obvious answer is "no, the masculine has adjective has all the information we need".


 
No, we can just say "están rotas". Why on earth use the masculine, when there's the feminine? Jeje.


----------



## zazap

Thank goodness Jonquiliser beat me to posting.  Her post is much nicer and funnier than mine would have been.
It's true that a lot of my teenage male students call me "hombre" (man) or even "macho"(male) when they are talking to me.  When I call them "chica" (girl) or "mujer" (woman) they are shocked.  That's pretty funny.
I still don't call them "insane" (although, why  anybody in their right mind would call me "hombre", I don't know) and wouldn't throw that adjective so freely around.


----------



## Namakemono

It's an interjection. When I use "God" (Dios, qué frío) in a sentence, I'm not talking about heavenly beings.



> No, we can just say "están rotas". Why on earth use the masculine, when there's the feminine? Jeje.


 
Because that's how our language is. Period. Changing it because it's machista is not only a lie, but also ridiculous.


----------



## Outsider

zazap said:


> It's true that a lot of my teenage male students call me "hombre" (man) or even "macho"(male) when they are talking to me.  When I call them "chica" (girl) or "mujer" (woman) they are shocked.  That's pretty funny.
> I still don't call them "insane" (although, why  anybody in their right mind would call me "hombre", I don't know) [...]


Doesn't the Canadian youth address each other as "man"? Americans seem to.

It's a slang expletive. They're being colloquial with you. (Perhaps you should punish them for it.  )


----------



## zazap

Namakemono said:


> It's an interjection. When I use "God" (Dios, qué frío) in a sentence, I'm not talking about heavenly beings.


O.K.  So what's wrong in using "chica" as an interjection?  I use it with my girlfriends all the time.  (I'm not really asking, it's not really a question).




Namakemono said:


> Because that's how our language is. Period. Changing it because it's machista is not only a lie, but also ridiculous.


I've got bad news for you.  Languages change.


----------



## zazap

Outsider said:


> Doesn't the Canadian youth address each other as "man"? Americans seem to.


They totally do...In english they say "man" and in (Quebec) French...they say "man" too!


----------



## Outsider

Including to women, right? Isn't that the same as what your students are doing? 
(Except for the _macho_ bit, which does seem to border on the rude; but then I'm not that familiar with Spanish slang...)


----------



## Namakemono

zazap said:


> I've got bad news for you. Languages change.


 
Yes, but they change for a reason. Unless we all turn into politically correct zombies with no knowledge of language economy, the _masculino genérico_ will remain unchanged. Seriously, how many people think it's machismo rather than language economy?


----------



## zazap

Outsider said:


> Including to women, right? Isn't that the same as what your students are doing?
> (Except for the _macho_ bit, which does seem to border on the rude; but then I'm not that familiar with Spanish slang...)


Yes, it's just a reflection... Why can we use "hombre" with men and women, but "mujer" (widely used, unlike "woman"), only with women?  It must be a futile question, because as Namakemono so eloquently explained earlier:



Namakemono said:


> Because that's how our language is. Period. Changing it because it's machista is not only a lie, but also ridiculous.


Oh well.  I'll never give up the fight anyways... (But I might give up this thread).


----------



## Namakemono

Outsider said:


> (Except for the _macho_ bit, which does seem to border on the rude; but then I'm not that familiar with Spanish slang...)


 
It's just a colloquial interjection. Nothing rude about it.


----------



## Namakemono

zazap said:


> Why can we use "hombre" with men and women, but "mujer" (widely used, unlike "woman"), only with women?


 
"Can"? Anyway, no one, not even Muslims say "Aláh, qué frío", for example.


----------



## Outsider

Thanks for the explanation, Namakemono.



zazap said:


> Yes, it's just a reflection... Why can we use "hombre" with men and women, but "mujer" (widely used, unlike "woman"), only with women?


Because, unlike women who are wiser, we men get all sissy about being mistaken for gays.


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## jonquiliser

Thank you zazap 

Namakemono, I'm afraid zazap's right: languages aren't solid, given entities. Languages are their use. And when the use changes, language change. (Which means language is ALWAYS fluid). And we all think about the words to use, which are appropriate, which may be mean/kind/offensive/derogatory/ridiculing/etc. So why not about these things?


----------



## Namakemono

Then answer me this: what's so offensive about the masculino genérico? Do you think any serious writer/journalist would use @ systematically, despite the huge flaws I pointed earlier? Do you really think people is going to say sentences which are twice as long just because it's machista?
By the way, about the machista part. Many feminists claim that Spanish is a sexist language because masculine can refer to groups that include feminine and masculine nouns. This is, to put it bluntly, a load of BS. For one, the masculino genérico applies to objects. And also, there's no masculino genérico in Chinese. Do you think women 19th century China had more rights than Southern European women?


----------



## jonquiliser

I've already answered your questions. I feel it's useless that I repeat myself (and boring for those who'd have to read it again), so if you are interested, read the earlier posts. Regards.


----------



## alexacohen

Namakemono said:


> Then answer me this: what's so offensive about the masculino genérico? Do you think any serious writer/journalist would use @ systematically, despite the huge flaws I pointed earlier? Do you really think people is going to say sentences which are twice as long just because it's machista?
> By the way, about the machista part. Many feminists claim that Spanish is a sexist language because masculine can refer to groups that include feminine and masculine nouns. This is, to put it bluntly, a load of BS. For one, the masculino genérico applies to objects. And also, there's no masculino genérico in Chinese. Do you think women 19th century China had more rights than Southern European women?


Estoy absolutamente de acuerdo contigo, Namakemono.
Y como soy una mujer, nadie me puede tildar de "machista".
Si quieres que te diga la verdad, y me van a crucificar, lo de cambiar el genérico por arrobitas y decir jóvenes y jóvenas etc. me parece una de las más absolutas gilipolleces del pseudo-feminismo histérico.
Alexa


----------



## Argónida

alexacohen said:


> Si quieres que te diga la verdad, y me van a crucificar, lo de cambiar el genérico por arrobitas y decir jóvenes y jóvenas etc. me parece una de las más absolutas gilipolleces del pseudo-feminismo histérico.
> Alexa


 
Absolutely!

¿Gilipollez se puede decir? ¿Es PC? Supongo que no, pero ese es el problema, que para poder decir que algo es una gilipollez no se puede decir de otra manera. Y lo que es una gilipollez, es una gilipollez.

Hala, otra p'al Monte del Calvario...


----------



## Athaulf

I'm surprised that nobody has pointed out that these and similar issues were discussed at length in another thread a few months ago. I don't feel like entering the same arguments all over again, so I'm just giving the link in case someone has further interest in the topic.


----------



## alexacohen

Athaulf said:


> I'm surprised that nobody has pointed out that these and similar issues were discussed at length in another thread a few months ago. I don't feel like entering the same arguments all over again, so I'm just giving the link in case someone has further interest in the topic.


Then don't enter. 
It's not surprising. We were not here a few months ago, so we didn't participate in the discussion. If some mod wants to merge the two threads, it's up to her (or him   ).

Alexa


----------



## cuchuflete

risby said:


> There has been a largely successful drive  over the last couple of decades to promote non-sexist speech and to deprecate gender specific terms in English in the cause of feminism. Hence we now have firefighters instead of firemen, the chairperson instead of the chairman.
> 
> Learning French and Spanish recently, I wondered whether there had been any such influence in these languages where gender is a basic component of the grammar.





			
				Alexa said:
			
		

> If some mod wants to merge the two threads,...


They are about related but distinct topics.


----------



## jonquiliser

Alexa y Argónida, entiendo que si lo veis como intentos de ser "políticamente correctos" os desagrade. A mí también la hipocresía me pone de los nervios. 

Sólo decir que no todo que parece similar o igual se hace por los mismos motivos - para mí no es cuestión de "quedar de guays". Realmente quiero expresar y obtener algo distinto a través de mis palabras.


----------



## alexacohen

jonquiliser said:


> Alexa y Argónida, entiendo que si lo veis como intentos de ser "políticamente correctos" os desagrade. A mí también la hipocresía me pone de los nervios.
> 
> Sólo decir que no todo que parece similar o igual se hace por los mismos motivos - para mí no es cuestión de "quedar de guays". Realmente quiero expresar y obtener algo distinto a través de mis palabras.


 
Jonquiliser, I work as executive manager for several airlines. My schedule is hectic, to say the least.
My job is planned on a yearly, monthly, weekly, daily and hourly basis. 
And there are the damned executive board meetings. Each day at six in the morning.
What do I say? "nosotros y nosotras estamos todos y todas juntos y juntas en esta empresa para mejorar nuestros y nuestras servicios a los clientes y clientas".
I don't have time for PC. I don't give a damn about "quedar de guay". I want the job done quickly and efficiently. My staff know better than to challenge me to speak PC. The very few ones who dared, were told rather curtly that if they didn't like my style, they could search for another job. Now, may we continue with the meeting?
No waste of time and money, please.
Alexa


----------



## Nil-the-Frogg

I don't like PC, either. As Agnès wrote, there are much more important things to deal with that polishing our langages to the point of turning them into insipid babbles (I mean, there is not only the gender-related PC, so where are we expected to stop?). I would be more interesting in fighting wages gaps between men and women or domestic violence.

The only occasions where I would support PC is when a feminine version of the word does exist but isn't used for the sake of "tradition". Like "directrice" or when the word looks like it could have either gender (why the hell should we say "Madame le ministre"?).

By the way, it can go both ways: I have a male friend who had studied to become "sage-femme"  )


----------



## Brioche

Nil-the-Frogg said:


> I don't like PC, either.
> 
> By the way, it can go both ways: I have a male friend who had studied to become "sage-femme"  )




Sage-femme in English is midwife. 

Richard Jennings, who's been a midwife in UK for about 30 years, when asked "What do you call a male midwife?" replies "A delivery boy." 

The correct answer is, of course, male midwife.


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## liulia

"Delivery boy" is *so* good! Almost too good to NOT be true! I can't stop laughing!


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## faranji

In Spanish 'delivery boy' would only work in case of twins: _el chico del *re*-parto._


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## jonquiliser

Delivery boy _is_ brilliant! 

What these things do for us is that they can show how gendered things are. That's why I like to use certain words or expressions, because the tease our attitudes and minds, make us think about how things work - and also how words work. Because what is said to be "normal" or "neutral", often carries a historical (or actual) meaning that isn't neutral at all. What is most normal is sometimes what we have to think the longest about to actually be able to see how sided it is. 

So, regarding Spanish (to take an example of a romance language I know better), I don't usually say "nosotros y nosotras". Sometimes I'll say, for example, _nosotras_ alone. I assure you there are raised eyebrows, confusion, comments, whatnot. And sometimes there's this insight that yes, men are taken to be the norm. And they are actually _humiliated_ to be "categorised" with women under the feminine heading. What does that say about someone?

Most of it is just a funny way of making us (myself and others) think a little. I enjoy it, have no plans of stopping. But I do choose my moments. 

And I am 100% sure that everyone, every single one, chooses her or his words. One who doesn't, doesn't talk at all. It's just that people tend to want to call the things they disagree with "political correctness" (and their own choosings to be signs of respect). It's always easy to put etiquettes on things just to invalidate other points of view. I prefer the dialogue around it to the close at hand labels that shuts dialogue down.


----------



## alexacohen

Yep. Dialogue is fine. But if I didn't stop the PC corrections at my board meeting, I would still be sitting at the dammed board meeting. I would still be talking about nosotros y nosotras, ellos y ellas, nuestros y nuestras, suyos y suyas, tuyos y tuyas, de ellos y de ellas, vuestros y vuestras, aquellos y aquellas, and the cat, and the rat, and love our dog, rule all England under a hog.

Alexa


----------



## Namakemono

jonquiliser said:


> And sometimes there's this insight that yes, men are taken to be the norm.


 
Not men, the masculine gender. Men can have feminine gender (la persona) and women can have masculine gender (el miembro).


----------



## Outsider

Well, yes, but the two things _are_ connected more often than not. 



			
				Namakemono said:
			
		

> Many feminists claim that Spanish is a sexist language [...]


Their error is that they're mispronouncing the word. I'm sure they mean to say that Spanish is sexy. 

I remember an English native who had a Spanish wife saying some time ago that the two of them sometimes presented themselves as "nosotras", just for fun.


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## sunheat

In spanish words are more precise. So the difference is that you add an A at the end of the word: doctor (for men) , doctora ( for women) presidente (men) presidenta (women) and so on. I think it is not sexist speech is precise speech. The sexist part is in the intrepretation of the words.


----------



## sunheat

Namakemono said:


> Not men, the masculine gender. Men can have feminine gender (la persona) and women can have masculine gender (el miembro).


 
¡¿De qué hablas?! El sexo no está implicito en la palabra lo que hace la difrencia es el significado y en dado caso en tu último ejemplo es: un miembro o miembro porque eso que tú dices tiene otra connotación.


----------



## cuchuflete

Most English speakers are at a disadvantage, and are easily confused, in conversations on this topic.
They are unaware that grammatical gender is a different matter from biological sex.  The use of the
word 'gender' in English as a relatively recent euphemistic substitute for 'sex' in identifying the biological
distinction between male and female living beings helps keep things muddled.   

The overly PC crew and sexists of all stripes have been quick to further the confusion by their wrong-headed assumption that naming conventions used in descriptive grammar have a precise equivalence in biology.  

Wouldn't it be nice if people would take the trouble to distinguish between masculine and feminine, when used
as grammatical descriptive terms, and male and female, when used to differentiate creatures in terms of their biology?


----------



## Namakemono

sunheat said:


> ¡¿De qué hablas?! El sexo no está implicito en la palabra


 
El sexo no, el género sí.


----------



## alexacohen

cuchuflete said:


> Most English speakers are at a disadvantage, and are easily confused, in conversations on this topic.
> 
> Wouldn't it be nice if people would take the trouble to distinguish between masculine and feminine, when used as grammatical descriptive terms, and male and female, when used to differentiate creatures in terms of their biology?


You're right. The trouble with all this PC language, at least in Spain, is that the hysterical feminists assume that "jefe", for instance, means a person of the male sex.
When in fact it doesn't. And they have coined the horrid term "jefa", which I absolutely refuse to use. My grandmother was Catedrático de Economía. Nobody thought that strange. It was her proffesion, not her sex. Now we have to say Catedrática... 
And I actually think this is sexist: a profession for males, other for females. As if they were different. Silly.

Alexa


----------



## Outsider

A funny thing about this debate is how different languages work differently. In  Portuguese, we say _catedrática_, and it sounds fine to us. We've also been saying _juíza_ (_jueza_) and _médica_ for quite some time now, even though these words seem to grate on Spanish-speaking ears. 

On the other hand, we say _chefe_ (_jefe_) for both men and women. No one has ever proposed _*chefa_, that I know. It would actually sound a little ridiculous and perhaps derogatory in Portuguese.

When you make a comparison with French, the differences are even more striking. We have quite naturally adopted _senhora ministra_ for "female minister". Saying something like _madame le ministre_ would be inconceivable... Of course, in Portuguese you never address a female teacher as _senhor professor_, either. It has always been _senhora professora_, or (in olden days) _mestra_.

Conversely, there's usually no problem with embarassing men who choose traditionally feminine professions. _Enfermeiro_ and _enfermeira_ (both meaning "nurse") are clearly different. And, although I've never heard of male midwives in Portuguese, I guess they'd be readily Christened _parteiros_, after _parteira_. No problem.


----------



## alexacohen

I've never seen a "policía" protest because his profession was "female".
Come to think of it, it's terribly unfair for the male "policías" to be named with a "female" name. My, they could be taken as sissies!

Alexa


----------



## Brioche

cuchuflete said:


> Most English speakers are at a disadvantage, and are easily confused, in conversations on this topic.
> They are unaware that grammatical gender is a different matter from biological sex.  The use of the
> word 'gender' in English as a relatively recent euphemistic substitute for 'sex' in identifying the biological
> distinction between male and female living beings helps keep things muddled.
> 
> Wouldn't it be nice if people would take the trouble to distinguish between masculine and feminine, when used
> as grammatical descriptive terms, and male and female, when used to differentiate creatures in terms of their biology?



As I like to say to folk:
_French nouns have gender.
French people have sex._


----------



## alexacohen

sunheat said:


> ¡¿De qué hablas?! El sexo no está implicito en la palabra lo que hace la difrencia es el significado y en dado caso en tu último ejemplo es: un miembro o miembro porque eso que tú dices tiene otra connotación.


¿De qué hablas tú?
¿Nos estás diciendo que tenemos que cambiar, _políticamente correctamente_, eso sí, los libros de Historia, y en lugar de escribir:
"Dolores Ibárruri, miembro fundador del Partido Comunista",
tenemos que escribir:
"Dolores Ibárruri, miembra fundadora del Partido Comunista"?

Confundir el género gramatical con el sexo es confundir la gimnasia con la magnesia.
(Qué políticamente correcta me he vuelto de repente: no he dicho confundir el ..... con las témporas).

Alexa


----------



## jonquiliser

Well, I'd say the thing is, it is NOT merely a "coincidence" that all languages with grammatical gender use the masculine as the generic - and if I am wrong, and there's one that uses the feminine as the generic form, I'd be more than interested in knowing about it. 

In other words: gender (grammatical) is not always the same, i.e. there are cases of arbitrariness, and there are cases where it matters in a different sense. (Russian calls them "natural" masculines and feminines.) The error is rather to believe that grammatical gender, independently of its context and use, means one thing and one thing only ("nothing, apart from an article" -style). 

And no, Spanish, French, German etc. are not "more sexist" than other languages. That doesn't mean that historical (and actual) power relations do not show up in language. They do. In some languages in one way, in others in other ways. So: far from being a coincidence, I believe the generic masculine indicates our history. And I make use of this linguistic structure to challenge present-day gender/power relations. (And others, race/power etc.)

Simple as that. Politically correct people (i.e., those who see language as holy and static - that really is what is politically correct today) can get as angry as they want, if they feel it benefits them.


----------



## alexacohen

Jonquiliser, 
No one said here that languages are holy or static. I have an University degree in both Old and Middle Spanish Language and Literature.
So I am perfectly aware that languages change.
But they do not change because a government says so.
And no, I don't get angry at my staff if they try to steer my very non politically correct non feminist speech towards a more politically correct non discriminative for women speech.
I stop them, that's all.
I don't need to resort to any new linguistic structure to challenge present-day gender/power relations. My staff, males, females, gays and lesbians are very well aware that it is I the one who is the boss.

Alexa


----------



## ireney

Ummm.. what all this means for the neuter gender? And what is the significance of the fact thatmy leg as a whole is neuter , my calf is feminine  and my thigh is masculine [or neuter] (miros/ bouti) and something similar applies to my hand (hand neut., palm fem, forearm masc, arm mac/neuter)


----------



## Outsider

jonquiliser said:


> Well, I'd say the thing is, it is NOT merely a "coincidence" that all languages with grammatical gender use the masculine as the generic - and if I am wrong, and there's one that uses the feminine as the generic form, I'd be more than interested in knowing about it.


If Wikipedia is to be trusted, then Swedish does. Although, in all honesty, masculine/feminine grammatical distinctions have almost disappeared from the Swedish language.



jonquiliser said:


> And no, Spanish, French, German etc. are not "more sexist" than other languages.


I'm not sure that everyone accepts that.


----------



## jonquiliser

Alexa, I for one am not talking about _your_ use of language!! I'm talking about how I choose to express myself - others must do it they ways (and I emphasise ways, in plural) they feel comfortable with. 



Outsider said:


> If Wikipedia is to be trusted, then Swedish does. Although, in all honesty, masculine/feminine grammatical distinctions have almost disappeared from the Swedish language.



Well, Swedish refers to certain words, such as "human" and "person" in the feminine: a person must choose her own words. So do languages where those words are feminine (persona, pessoa). But in generic reference to groups of people the common gender is used - there are no masculine and feminine forms anymore, except in some dialects.

And while on the subject of Swedish, let me take another example: passive can be formed in different ways in Swedish, one of the is with the word "man", which literally means "man" (hombre). It is used "neutrally" as a passive voice talking for anyone. Innocent? Well, of course you can use it without expressing something sexist. But the history behind its coming about is anything but gender neutral.


----------



## Outsider

But, Jonquiliser, the Germanic word *man*, like the Latin word *homo*, originally meant "person", not just "man". Perhaps Swedish is conservative, and never restricted its meaning as English did.


----------



## alexacohen

Jonquiliser,
"Persona" in Spanish is grammatically feminine. And it refers both to male and female sexes, and you know it very well.
I don't think language is sexist. People are. 
And it's not true that by changing our way of talking to non-sexist PC is going to change any attitude of machismo.
The now correct PC term "jefa" is absurd. Because it does not imply regognizing that a woman can be boss. It can be spitted with venom and disregard by a machista, in a way that the original word "jefe" wouldn't.
It's the attitude behind the words what is important. Not the words themselves.
Complicating a language beyond communication to comply with some artificial concept of what it's "neuter" is senseless.

Alexa


----------



## jonquiliser

Alexa, I don't deny that it's all about attitudes - but attitudes are also implied in how one _ chooses_ to express oneself. And as I stated before, I *do not take language to be inherently sexist* (although I do understand it as expressive of power relations, historically or not). I simply make use of historical structurings of language to call the attention to various issues. If there were no gendered power relations, I'd care fuck all about sexist language. 

Outsider, checking in various etymology dictionaries, it seems to be that homo meant precisely the male human. As for Swedish man, the etymology seems to have had a similar development - meaning, historically, both man and human being. At any rate, if that were not so, I believe the historical developments and shifts in meaning are just as interesting, and telling. (Mind you, "man" is not "person" in Swedish, it's a passive voice subject).


----------



## alexacohen

Jonquiliser,
Well, I usually choose the shortest way to say a thing!!! 
But that doesn't imply I'm a sexist. Just that I don't like to waste my time.

Alexa


----------



## Outsider

jonquiliser said:


> Outsider, checking in various etymology dictionaries, it seems to be that homo meant precisely the male human. As for Swedish man, the etymology seems to have had a similar development - meaning, historically, both man and human being.




Are you saying that:

1) _Homo_ and _man_ both meant *"person"* originally;

or

2) _Homo_ and _man_ both meant *"man" only* originally?

I honestly don't get it.

Please note that when I say *"originally"* I am not talking about Spanish or contemprary Swedish. I'm thinking of (let's say) roughly 2000 years ago.


----------



## Athaulf

jonquiliser said:


> Well, I'd say the thing is, it is NOT merely a "coincidence" that all languages with grammatical gender use the masculine as the generic - and if I am wrong, and there's one that uses the feminine as the generic form, I'd be more than interested in knowing about it.



Here's an example you might find interesting. In Croatian, most nouns have augmentative forms, which are formed by adding certain suffixes. These augmentative forms are used to express either physical greatness or to make the original meaning of the noun more extreme. The interesting thing is that, believe it or not, all augmentatives of Croatian masculine nouns have feminine gender! 

Thus, for example, _muškarac_ is a masculine noun meaning _man_ (in the modern meaning of the word, i.e. a human male). _Muškarčina_ is the augmentative form of the same word, which is used for a man that displays extreme virility; the closest word in English would probably be _macho_. And guess what -- this word has feminine gender! The same is true for any masculine noun in Croatian. Any such noun, including generic nouns, becomes feminine when given the augmentative suffix. For more examples, see my post from a previous thread about this topic. 



> At any rate, if that were not so, I believe the historical developments and shifts in meaning are just as interesting, and telling.


So how do you interpret the fact that of all places around the world where Indo-European languages are spoken, the only one where the grammatical gender has entirely disappeared through a spontaneous process is -- Iran?


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## LouisaB

alexacohen said:


> My grandmother was Catedrático de Economía. Nobody thought that strange. It was her proffesion, not her sex. Now we have to say Catedrática...
> And I actually think this is sexist: a profession for males, other for females. As if they were different. Silly.
> 
> Alexa


 
I couldn't agree more.

English has at least the advantage of not ascribing grammatical gender to any other than nouns of specific sex (eg 'man', 'woman') which means it's harder for the PC brigade to get confused between gender and sex. We do have exceptions, of course, though the only one I can think of at the moment is 'ship' (feminine), but on the whole there's no room for confusion.

There _is_, however, room for the same kind of behaviour in ascribing gender to professions. I work a great deal with actors - and I do mean _actors._ No serious member of the profession (of my acquaintance anyway) likes to be called an 'actress', although they learn to put up with it in public (especially round Best Actress Awards time). As Alexa says, it is this kind of distinction that is in itself sexist - why should a woman be constantly defined by her sex any more than a man is? In England, women who joined the police were known as WPCs (Women Police Constables) but I'm glad to say this is now disappearing. We are now discouraged (by the police themselves) from using this phrase in TV police drama, because they've finally recognised it's sexist to differentiate. 

I acknowledge these are different examples from those where the generic terms is _apparently_ specifically masculine, eg 'policeman', and I can at least understand why we now also have the word 'policewoman' - but actually I disagree with it, because linguistically I am with Outsider in the way 'man' has always been intended to include both sexes. About a million years ago when I was in primary school, the teacher asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up, and went through a whole list of professions. When she got to 'policeman' I stuck up my innocent little hand - and the teacher laughed at me. She made me put it down again, then asked a second question 'Who wants to be a police_woman_?' and said I should put my hand up _now._ That is the first time in my life I ever felt discriminated against on the grounds of sex - and maybe it's still rankling now!

Still, I do _not_ feel excluded by references to 'man' or 'mankind' - or 'chairman' come to that. I _do_ feel excluded by the attempts of others to invent a new language to celebrate our separateness. Why can't we celebrate the things that unite us for a change?

Not that this approach is new. It always makes me think of the sniggering idiots Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who fail to appreciate either the beauty or the true meaning of Hamlet's 'What a piece of work is man!' speech - _'And yet, to me what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor women neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so'._

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are actually 'sexist' - yet to me, that lovely piece of bathos sums up what the politically correct movement is itself doing to our language.

Louisa


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## Arrius

I cannot resist returning to this interminable controversy to point out a curious usage with regard to gender in Classical and Modern Standard Arabic with which some of you are no doubt already familiar and those who are not may find intriguing.
The masculine word for_ one_ goes with masculine nouns and the corresponding feminine numeral with feminine nouns - nothing exraordinary about that. The number _two_ is expressed by a dual suffix attached to the singular noun, the same whether m. or f. - not really relevant.* But from three to ten the plural masculine noun goes with the feminine numeral and the feminine plural noun with the masculine numeral*, whereafter everything goes back to the "right" gender of numeral with a singular noun having a plural sense. I shudder to think what confusion will arise a few decades or a few centuries hence when the above arguments and innovative usages for European languages hit this particular culture!


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## jonquiliser

Outsider said:


> Are you saying that:
> 1) _Homo_ and _man_ both meant *"person"* originally;
> or
> 2) _Homo_ and _man_ both meant *"man" only* originally?
> I honestly don't get it.
> Please note that when I say *"originally"* I am not talking about Spanish or contemprary Swedish. I'm thinking of (let's say) roughly 2000 years ago.



And I. I meant that the same word (such as the latin homo) was used to denote both human being and man. I might be wrong, this is only what I've read in some etymology dictionaries. 



LouisaB said:


> I couldn't agree more.
> Still, I do _not_ feel excluded by references to 'man' or 'mankind' - or 'chairman' come to that. I _do_ feel excluded by the attempts of others to invent a new language to celebrate our separateness. Why can't we celebrate the things that unite us for a change?
> Louisa



I for one am not trying to tout out some "differences" between the sexes (however many you wish to count) - I'd just like to see the same ease of acceptance over generic use of feminines as masculines..! I'm also not trying to essentialise any of the criticisms I may wish to make about language.  

I do like your reminder, anyway, that it isn't necessarily an issue of difference (everyone is different, there's no essence in being male or female)!



Athaulf said:


> Thus, for example, _muškarac_ is a masculine noun meaning _man_ (in the modern meaning of the word, i.e. a human male). _Muškarčina_ is the augmentative form of the same word, which is used for a man that displays extreme virility; the closest word in English would probably be _macho_. And guess what -- this word has feminine gender! The same is true for any masculine noun in Croatian. Any such noun, including generic nouns, becomes feminine when given the augmentative suffix. For more examples, see my post from a previous thread about this topic.



 Quite nice, perhaps I'll imitate this in the future in other languages . Anyway, not for pejorative meaning. 



Athaulf said:


> So how do you interpret the fact that of all places around the world where Indo-European languages are spoken, the only one where the grammatical gender has entirely disappeared through a spontaneous process is -- Iran?



The same way I'd "interpret language" in any case: look at its overall appearance, uses, expressions, structures, and see in what ways power relations, derogation etc come into play. That differs between languages. Finnish has no grammatical gender, and doesn't even make a difference between "she" and "he" as a pronoun. Trust me, Finns are not less sexist than other people (though the "official" discourse would like to claim that... ). And, no less interesting, the way we understand the historicity of our languages is also very expressive of how we understand ourselves and our history. Language dead isn't anything in itself, it just tells us something about our history. But _how_ it tells us anything is a very complicated matter - and interesting nonetheless, precisely because we learn not only about history but more than anything about ourselves and our present.

Alexa, I've never said you're sexist, or that the mere fact of using the Spanish generic masculine must imply one is sexist!?!


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## alexacohen

Jonquiliser, I didn't mean you.
I've had a hard time with the hyper-conscientious-hysterical-feminist-language-inquisition.
I do tend to jump over the edge.
Sorry

Alexa


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## Nander

I looked for something to quote in the debate about Swedish that would suit what I was thinking to post, but couldn't find anything.

Anyway, while it's barely within the scope of this topic it's interesting that no one has mentioned the feminine/masculine way to inflect adjectives in Swedish.

In proper Swedish, you talk about _den fule mannen/den fula kvinnan/den fula koppen. _If it's a man, that adjective should end with an _e. _

Today, not many follow this rule, but I still think _den fula mannen _looks very wrong. But even in e.g. serious articles it's very common, too common. I don't know if this is an affect of political correctness, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is.


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## Athaulf

jonquiliser said:


> Quite nice, perhaps I'll imitate this in the future in other languages . Anyway, not for pejorative meaning.



You might also find it interesting that we have many nouns that have generic meanings or even specifically denote male persons of some sort, but their declensions are identical to feminine nouns. What is especially interesting is that for many of these nouns,  when they are in singular, you have to use the masculine forms of the corresponding adjectives, verbs (in Slavic languages, sometimes even verbs have to agree with the gender of the subject), possessive pronouns, etc., but you must use their feminine forms when these nouns are in plural. I swear I'm not making this up.  For an example, see another old post of mine.

To make things even more interesting -- and relevant to the discussion of the names of professions -- in Bosnian speech, many names of professions end with the suffix _-džija_, which is in fact a Slavicised version of the Turkish suffix -ci/-çı (a few of these nouns have also entered Serbian and Croatian). Such nouns behave in the above described "transgender" way: they have feminine declensions, take masculine adjectives and verbs in singular, and take feminine adjectives and verbs in plural. Among such nouns is, for example, _kamiondžija_, which means _truck driver_. 

There's a lot I could say about this topic, but for lack of time and space, I'll limit myself to the observation -- hopefully evident from the presented examples -- that many people derive horribly misguided theories about the relations between grammatical gender and biological sex because their knowledge of Indo-European languages is limited to Germanic and Romance languages, whose grammars have lost most of their gender-related complexities. (I'm not directing this at any specific persons in this thread; I'm merely referring to the well-known simplistic "sexist language" theories that are so popular nowadays.)


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## Outsider

jonquiliser said:


> I meant that the same word (such as the latin homo) was used to denote both human being and man. I might be wrong, this is only what I've read in some etymology dictionaries.


It's natural that in a patriarchal society the concept of "human being" should be identified with that of "man".

However, as far as I know, the Latin word _homo_ could mean "man" or "woman". In short, it really meant "human being". In fact, Latin had three different words for "human being", "woman", and "man": *homo*, *mulier*, and *vir*, respectively.

It seemed to me that you were saying something a bit different: that words for "human being" were systematically _derived_ from words for "man". But maybe I misread you.

Anyway, I admit that I was nitpicking. We could still discuss whether these semantic shifts have a deeper social significance (why do words for "woman" never come from words for "human being", or vice-versa?...)

Where we may still disagree is that I do not believe that traces of patriarchalism in language such as these are serious problems that need to be fixed.


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## jonquiliser

Alexa, ok, all's cool! 

Athaulf, thanks for this info! Tomorrow I'll read it with more determination!

Outsider, I don't know to what extent I agree or disagree with changes of language, because I see them happen, I make them happen (we all do, whether we want or not - sometimes we make language just by maintaining certain forms of it: that's a way of recreating it too ), I wonder about them.. And I really don't stand anywhere fixed here: I find it important to see how we express ourselves and what we mean and what it means. But I think it's a really complex matter, and has no easy or simple solutions. But just the talking is interesting.

To all of you, anyway, thanks for an interesting discussion! I've been in many of them, and unfortunately, often they merely get stuck in some less fortunate location of insisting on meaning or non-meaning of this or that word/phrase/whatever... This one in change really has got out some interesting things (interesting to me at least) and formulating what I think of it has made me get a clearer picture of my own ideas. So thanks


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## orlando09

The gender of many nouns in French certainly doesn;t seem to have much logic to it in terms of masculine grammatical gender = male attributes etc. Gender of nounds more often seems to relate to word endings and so on, when it has any logic at all! Without spelling it out, consider some of the various words in French for the male and female sexual bits!



Arrius said:


> My favourite gender-busting term in English is _hisser_, a combination of _his_ and _her_ (er, sorry),_ her_ and _his_, which unfortunately didn't catch on. _Their_ serves this purpose quite well but has still not been approved by English grammarians. .


 
Can;t say I've ever hear "hisser".. I think using "they" is fine meaning "he or she". It has become quite common and people understand it, so there's no need to invent a new word. There are equivalents in other languages where one pronoun can have two meanings - like lei in Italian which can mean you (formal) as well as she. I'm a journalist and I've usd it in articles before without any problem.



kdl77 said:


> - Uomo = "man" of "human being", Donna = "woman" and stop
> - In a list of even a thousand nouns, if there is a masculine one, than the related adjective must be masculine (ex: Maria, Carla, Roberta e Mario sono andatI a mangiare)
> - There is no feminine for words like: capo, muratore, pescatore, corridore... They are supposed to be "macho-jobs"!
> And so on.
> Shame on us!
> 
> [Forgive me for my bad English...]


 
I don't think this is so terrible... usaing l'uomo to mean humans is the equivalent of l 'homme (e.g. les droits de l 'homme) in French or mankind in English, but maybe l'umanità is better? As for the Maria, carla etc.. you need some rule/logic.. or do you suggest the speaker has to count all the nouns and if there are, say, four women and three men you must use the feminine? Can;t you say muratrice or pescatrice?



cuchuflete said:


> Most English speakers are at a disadvantage, and are easily confused, in conversations on this topic.
> They are unaware that grammatical gender is a different matter from biological sex. The use of the
> word 'gender' in English as a relatively recent euphemistic substitute for 'sex' in identifying the biological
> distinction between male and female living beings helps keep things muddled. ?


 
Actually "gender" isn't just a "euphemism for sex", it is increasingly used to refer to the psychological feeling of one's own masculinity or femininity, as in talking about gender identity, which is different from biological sex; or in talking about social conventions relating to the roles and behaviour of men and women - thus gender studies includes things to do with perceptions of psychological traits that are seen as desirable in men or women in diffrerent cultures etc, which would be a different thing from "sex studies". This useful distinction has only just started to be used in French with the word "genre", even though many dictionaries don't seem to include it yet.



Outsider said:


> A
> 
> When you make a comparison with French, the differences are even more striking. We have quite naturally adopted _senhora ministra_ for "female minister". Saying something like _madame le ministre_ would be inconceivable... Of course, in Portuguese you never address a female teacher as _senhor professor_, either. It has always been _senhora professora_, or (in olden days) _mestra_..


 
I can;t see what's wrong with la professeur, or la ministre.. - especially the last, whioch has a very neutral ending. Perhaps the problem with the other is it's typically masculine ending, so it would have to become la professeuse, or something! I believe kids say "la prof" though, which gets around this..



jonquiliser said:


> Well, I'd say the thing is, it is NOT merely a "coincidence" that all languages with grammatical gender use the masculine as the generic - and if I am wrong, and there's one that uses the feminine as the generic form, I'd be more than interested in knowing about it.
> 
> In other words: gender (grammatical) is not always the same, i.e. there are cases of arbitrariness, and there are cases where it matters in a different sense. (Russian calls them "natural" masculines and feminines.) The error is rather to believe that grammatical gender, independently of its context and use, means one thing and one thing only ("nothing, apart from an article" -style).
> 
> And no, Spanish, French, German etc. are not "more sexist" than other languages. That doesn't mean that historical (and actual) power relations do not show up in language. They do. In some languages in one way, in others in other ways. So: far from being a coincidence, I believe the generic masculine indicates our history. .


 
That's probably true to some extent, but also , IMO feminism sometimes exaggerates the extent of a deliberate attempt in the past to oppress women or have a "patriarchy" - there are all sorts of practical/biological/economic etc reasons why historically women's role was more often at home and men's more often outside the home in the wider world of work/politics etc, and perhaps why, for the same reason the masculine versions became the generic ones.



Athaulf said:


> So how do you interpret the fact that of all places around the world where Indo-European languages are spoken, the only one where the grammatical gender has entirely disappeared through a spontaneous process is -- Iran?


 
It disappeared in English around 1000 years ago ..


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## Athaulf

orlando09 said:


> _[Grammatical gender]_ disappeared in English around 1000 years ago ..



Most of it has indeed disappeared, but not everything -- otherwise, what would all these modern debates on "gender-neutral language" be about?

Truly genderless languages don't distinguish between masculine and feminine pronouns (unlike the English _he_/_she_) and don't have words that come in matching masculine/feminine forms (like e.g. the English _waiter_/_waitress_). Of all Indo-European languages, only Persian has reached this pure genderless state. (I don't speak Persian myself, but this is what I've read in all sources I've seen on this topic.)

One of the main objections against the "sexist language" theories is that there is no correlation whatsoever between the grammatical "sexism" of languages and the actual status of women in societies in which they are spoken.


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## orlando09

I see what you mean. I was just referring to genders for nouns - other than ' natural' gender (if that's the correct words) as in woman, being female or nephew being male etc. But in Anglo-Saxon I understand there were noun genders as in modern German.


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## jonquiliser

orlando09 said:


> That's probably true to some extent, but also , IMO feminism sometimes exaggerates the extent of a deliberate attempt in the past to oppress women or have a "patriarchy" - there are all sorts of practical/biological/economic etc reasons why historically women's role was more often at home and men's more often outside the home in the wider world of work/politics etc, and perhaps why, for the same reason the masculine versions became the generic ones.



Well, depends on what you want to say with "deliberate" - a lot could probably be said on this topic. That aside, I do not see any "reasons" why women should, historically and presently, be in the situations they were and are. [Let me rephrase this: there were precisely "reasons", but those reasons were the reasons of some, not others, and constitute(d) the gendered power relations...] That's where I find it necessary to recognise and analyse the aspect of oppression. I do agree, however, that these social structures have played their part in how language has evolved. That was kind of the point to begin with...!


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## orlando09

I don;t mean to say women didn;t face disadvantages in many societies (not that the average man had a life of ease and fun all the time either though, and there are some disadvantages to stereotypical male gender roles too) but that the differences in gender roles evolved for all sorts of reasons and not as a deliberate ploy by men to keep power from women (IMO). For example, women's lesser physical strength, factors like dealing with periods, pregnancy, childbirth, breast-feeding etc, and men's relative freedom from these biological factors and greater physical strength making them more suited to the labouring in agriculture and trades etc (or for having a protective role in defending the family/country etc) which most men were involved in in the past. Anyway, this is too large a topic to go into much more here, I think!


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## jonquiliser

orlando09 said:


> I don;t mean to say women didn;t face disadvantages in many societies (not that the average man had a life of ease and fun all the time either though, and there are some disadvantages to stereotypical male gender roles too) but that the differences in gender roles evolved for all sorts of reasons and not as a deliberate ploy by men to keep power from women (IMO). For example, women's lesser physical strength, factors like dealing with periods, pregnancy, childbirth, breast-feeding etc, and men's relative freedom from these biological factors and greater physical strength making them more suited to the labouring in agriculture and trades etc (or for having a protective role in defending the family/country etc) which most men were involved in in the past. Anyway, this is too large a topic to go into much more here, I think!



Yes, I'm afraid it would be too off-topic here, but let me just say: I for one see no necessity of nature in the things you list (actually. What kind of a claim is it to say "men are stronger"?? ). And ploy or not, well of course not; that doesn't stop us from recognising the oppression involved. No conspiracy is needed for the gravest of crimes. Same goes for racism and a lot of other forms of oppression.


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## orlando09

It's just a fact that, on average, men are physically stronger, not any kind of slight on women (if I thought muscular strength was some great thing then I guess bodybuilders are "superior" to most of us..). It's the only logcal reason I can see, for example, why men and women do not usually compete together in sport. Anyway, I don't want to get criticised for going off topic and you'll probably only misunderstand where I'm coming from unless I write essays which will bore and annoy people! I am interested in gender role topics generally, and have no axe to grind about thinking men or women are "better". I also like to think outside the box and today the idea of women being oppressed and men being powerful is the orthodoxy. (just one small example, of how the world has not always worked in favour of men - take much of a generation of young men being conscripted to die in World War One, - encouraged, I might add, by many women, who mocked pacifists. Or how most people who died in the Titanic were men, becasue it was "women and children first" for the lifeboats. Many men, traditionally, saw their role as protecting and providing, not dominating).


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## Qcumber

In so far as women develop and make the language of their community evolve as much as the men, I fail to see why women would turn it into an instrument of repression against themselves.

Also, in Latin and romance languages, grammatical gender does not always coincide with natural gender, and for things that have no natural gender (stone, mountain, pool, river, sea, cloud, air, etc.), it's pretty obvious gender is merely conventional and dates back to a remote time.


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## ireney

OK so in the past we were oppressed. That's one of the main reasons why in the question "if you weren't living in this era when would you like to live?" my answer is "X if I were a man, none if I was a woman probably". And maybe the long history of partiarchy in Greece is the reason behind the masculine gender of words taken "precedence" over the female and some other reason for the female taking "precedence" over the neuter in most cases.

Biggotism still exists today though to a much lesser extent. I find none in the language though. It was developed however it was developed and is still developing naturally. Trying to "right" the "wrongs" of the past by changing the language in a forced way is commiting a new "wrong" if you ask me. My boyfriend is a man (άντρας masc), my boy (αγόρι neut) and my love (αγάπη fem). His sex remains the same in all cases. Coining new words when there IS a reason (like finding a word to call an astronaut) or not using old ones because a whole group finds them insulting is one thing. Playing around with the language because some people want to, for whatever reason, is going a bit too far.

It reminds me of some idiotic people who in the past (and some even now) wanted to "clear" the Greek language of all foreign words and especially all words of Turkish origin giving as a reason that it was quite probable that we wouldn't get that many incorporated in our vocabulary if the Ottoman Empire hadn't oppressed us for so long. The nationalistic experiment called Katharevousa failed completely even though it was state sanctioned for many, *many* decades. I'm extremely thankful for that. Those still persisting also state that our relations with our neighbouring country are still "sensitive". They shout a lot but no one outside their group listens to them.
It may seem too strong but I hope the same could be said for those against word gender. If it's going to happen it is going to happen. Languages evolve at their own pace and take their own direction. Let them.


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## Athaulf

orlando09 said:


> I see what you mean. I was just referring to genders for nouns - other than ' natural' gender (if that's the correct words) as in woman, being female or nephew being male etc. But in Anglo-Saxon I understand there were noun genders as in modern German.



Yes, that's true. I think that the grammatical gender system of Old English was in fact extremely similar to what exists in modern German.

English speakers are often confused about the issue of grammatical gender in other languages because the remnants of English genders are nowadays entirely identified with the biological sex. This has led to "gender" becoming a modern euphemism for "sex" (which, unlike most of the other modern PC inventions, has been welcomed by people of all persuasions -- Anglo-Saxon prudishness transcends the ideological boundaries ). 

Unfortunately, this has also led to a horrible confusion between at least three entirely distinct meanings of the word "gender", and thus most discussions involving this term nowadays end up in a hopeless semantic confusion.


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## orlando09

I'm not aware that different uses of "gender" cause hopeless confusion, but you're welcome to the view! Many words have diffrent nuances or meanings according to the context. Most simple, I guess, is the original etymological meaning of the word - simply a kind or type.


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## jonquiliser

Well, some people seem to believe there's a distinction "grammatical gender vs biological sex". And that when it comes to people, sex is the deal - well, I'm afraid that simplification blurs the gendered nature of society. People are not sex, people are gender. And sex, well, I'd say that's gender too (not grammatical gender, obviously!)



ireney said:


> OK so in the past we were oppressed.



There still is oppression. There still is racism. We still live in patriarchy. Language lives in this. Language can be used to call attention to this. It is in fact part of calling attention to this.



ireney said:


> Languages evolve at their own pace and take their own direction. Let them.



Languages evolve because they are used. That use is ours. We choose our words. We make, and remake, language. Let that happen, in all its variations!


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## ireney

jonquiliser 
a) I think we are getting a bit confused with terminology here. Gender and sex are often used as synonymous and perhaps they really are. Let us therefore talk about biological and grammatical gender. When I said that my boyfriend's sex remains the same I was referring to his biological gender. The grammatical gender of the words I use to define him changes however.

b) We choose our words yes. And if some people prefer to use a different way of expressing themselves, a grammatical gender free way, they are of course free to do so. I am against anyone forcing the others accept this change. If it "catches on" it will. If not, it won't. Eradicating the grammatical gender means, as I see it, forcing everyone to abandon that way of speaking. Indeed I have to make concessions with which I do not agree when writing in English and use  he/she, his/hers instead of just the masculine grammatical gender to avoid any misunderstanding.  I don't do that in Greek since it is not necessary. The fact that I have to write this way so that no one will complain is opressing me.

c) You forgot to quote the part where I say that bigotism still exists today but I find none in the language


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## jonquiliser

Nope, didn't ignore you're part about bigotry; I simply don't think bigotry quite captures what I am talking about. And you talked about oppression as something from the past, so I understood you meant it was literally something from the past. Maybe I misunderstood you then?

And, as I think I've pointed out a few times already, I for my part do not speak about changes that will be "imposed" on speakers "RAE-style" (I'm not for them, anyway..!). I talk about choices I personally make, and about how I understand what other people say and how they express themselves. Simple - and complicated.

Edit: and as for gender and sex, I think there may be important distinctions to make at times, but I think it is just as important to remember that when we talk about "biological sex", we do so from a point of view of our lives, of living in societies, so what is considered "plainly biological sex" is in fact immersed in our ideas - about what it means to be of this or that sex, what it should bring with it etc. So biological sex isn't as given as is sometimes touted out...


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## ireney

jonquiliser mutual misunderstanding then? 



> And, as I think I've pointed out a few times already, I for my part do not speak about changes that will be "imposed" on speakers "RAE-style" (I'm not for them, anyway..!). I talk about choices I personally make, and about how I understand what other people say and how they express themselves. Simple - and complicated.



At which point though your choices "interfere" with my choices? If I _have_ to use a gender-free language in order to not be misunderstood or get complaints where are my choices? 



> Edit: and as for gender and sex, I think there may be important distinctions to make at times, but I think it is just as important to remember that when we talk about "biological sex", we do so from a point of view of our lives, of living in societies, so what is considered "plainly biological sex" is in fact immersed in our ideas - about what it means to be of this or that sex, what it should bring with it etc. So biological sex isn't as given as is sometimes touted out..



Work with me here eh?  I agree that the biological gender is much more than a different chromosome. I was trying to find a good term for what is NOT grammatical gender.


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## jonquiliser

ireney said:


> jonquiliser mutual misunderstanding then?



yes, seems it was a mutual misunderstanding then 



ireney said:


> At which point though your choices "interfere" with my choices? If I _have_ to use a gender-free language in order to not be misunderstood or get complaints where are my choices?



My understanding of someone as reinforcing patriarchal structures or being oppressive or being sexist is about something quite much wider than using the generic masculine, eh! Surely these things are about a person's overall attitudes and behaviour and expressions - not single words or expressions!! If someone is being sexist, no amount of @ (to take the Spanish example) is going to erradicate that sexism! But reflecting on one's use of language, or language in general, can be and is a part of reflecting on our own attitudes and the society we live in.

If this at any point interferes with your life because you are being sexist, I'm sorry, but that's precisely what I wish it will! If you feel it interferes with your life in spite of not having anything any relation to actual oppression, discrimination or the like, just ignore it. Some people seem to get very worked up about the use of @ in Spanish, for example, to denote both the female and male - and more so "coming from a non-native" Oh goodness, how dare they!" - and well, what can I say. I'm not going to stop using it only because some people are indignant. (Mind you, if someone says something more substantial than that the RAE doesn't recognise it or that it is an aberration of the Spanish language, I'm all ears and interested in listening).




ireney said:


> Work with me here eh?  I agree that the biological gender is much more than a different chromosome. I was trying to find a good term for what is NOT grammatical gender.



Another misunderstanding on my part (watching TV and writing at the same time ) - I see you were trying to find a term for a distinction between grammatical gender and social (biological as you have it) gender - ok, might work. I suppose it's just that it's not watertight, precisely because grammatical gender isn't a simple, coherent area: it is complex and the areas where it separates from or converges with social/biological gender are intricate (and interesting!), both from a historical and a present point of view.  

Edit: included quotes as this came up on a new page...!


----------



## ireney

Am I sexist or not? Hmm I don't know. I consider the use of he/she and his/her and the like needless. Quite possibly because they are in my native language in which the existence of the neuter grammatical gender helps people distinguish the grammatical from the social gender more, perhaps. The way I write does NOT interfere with the rest of my life. This is actually the point I'm trying to make. I use the @ in forer@s (I don't speak Spanish well enough to have a chance to use it in any other case ), and, as I mentioned before, I use he/she, his/hers. That does opress me when typing in English and gives me an extra thing to be careful about (which I don't appreciate since I have to keep my attention focused on using the right prepositions and avoiding silly typos  )
I am thankful we don't have an Academy to tell us what to do and I am happy that, the officially sanctioned effort to change our language was a failure. I'm also happy that, while we give an ear to official and not-official groups advocating a change we do not implement it unless the majority of the native speakers start using it. Those groups can write as they like. The rest of us don't have to follow suit out of fear of complaints or misunderstandings.

The minute the majority of the English speakers (although this language in particular makes things more complicated), begins to use "they" instead of his/her or indeed hisher I will too to give an example. Until however I am convinced that most people _believe_ that a gender neuter pronoun is correct and do not do it because of PC talk and/or until they start using in everyday speech, I retain my right to consider such expressions an "over reaction".

Note: Specific expressions and phrases that are indeed sexist are a completely different issue from gender eradication. They fall under the " not using old ones because a whole group finds them insulting " "cause" to quote myself.


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## orlando09

Using "they"in this way is not especially unusual/experimental in English anymore.It is often used in cases where, for example the gender of a person referred to is unknown. "I hear that someone called with a message for me when I was out. What did they want?" You could also use it, perfectly normally, when referring to an indeterminate member of a group - e.g. : "if one of my readers prefers to skip over the more philosophical parts of my novel and to concentrate on the action, they are welcome to do that..." I think it's less clumsy than "he or she", or the self-conscious way some writers will now sometimes say "she" and sometimes "he"; or even just "she" alone, so as to vary things from the conventional "he". It would, however (in current usage), sound unusual to use it as a deliberate way of avoiding saying "he" or "she" as in - "John called by today and said they wanted to go for a beer tonight".

Of course, often forgotten, is that we do have another gender-neutral pronoun in English - it. However, becasue this is traditionally used only for animals and objects, it is usually seen as very insulting if used for a person - such as, for example, by a bigotted person speaking offensively about a transsexual. And, so, there is no sign of any broadening of this usage, although one person I talked to online once who considered themselves androgynous agreed it was an interesting fact this exists - but, indeed, has too many negative connotations for it to catch on for people who don't want to stress their sex.


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## Athaulf

orlando09 said:


> Of course, often forgotten, is that we do have another gender-neutral pronoun in English - it. However, becasue this is traditionally used only for animals and objects, it is usually seen as very insulting if used for a person [...]



Some people have already expressed a preference for all-inclusiveness that would encompass even the poor neglected _it_, and proposed the universal pronoun of the form s/h/it.


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## Vagabond

I haven't read the entire thread (just the last few pages); I have to say though that my point of view is the same with ireney's. I mean, if I feel someone might get offended by my using the "wrong" gender, I will try to accommodate them, but seriously, inside I will be thinking "there, there. Have it your way now".

I don't care if people use "he" to generalise. I also don't care when people use "she" in the same way. The former does not offend me, and the latter doesn't make me feel vindicated or anything of the sort. Vouching for gender eradication as a means to fight sexism is like fighting the symptoms of a disease (and in fact, the very minor ones), instead of the disease itself.

Sexism exists, and so do many forms of discrimination, but I seriously doubt the battered wives or the sex slaves that are being bought and sold like pieces of meat along the globe will feel much better if everyone around them starts using "s/he" instead of "he". And since someone said that the way you use your pronouns reflects your stance on the sexism issue, I would kindly request that they  don't project their own preconceptions on others. 

I suspect Athaulf's suggestion will get me in trouble next time I run into "just for the heck of it" political correctness. Too damn tempting... but at least it made me laugh for some 5 minutes.


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## Athaulf

jonquiliser said:


> Some people seem to get very worked up about the use of @ in Spanish, for example, to denote both the female and male - and more so "coming from a non-native" Oh goodness, how dare they!" - and well, what can I say. I'm not going to stop using it only because some people are indignant. (Mind you, if someone says something more substantial than that the RAE doesn't recognise it or that it is an aberration of the Spanish language, I'm all ears and interested in listening).



Well, I can offer an explanation that's (hopefully) a bit more substantial than that, from the perspective of my native language. Croatian, like other Slavic languages, has a far more extensive and complex system of grammatical genders than even the Romance languages. It's impossible to say almost anything without being specific about the gender of each noun used in the sentence.  Even the _verbs_ often have to agree with the gender of the subject. And in most (though by no means all)  cases, the masculine gender is used as default when talking about mixed companies. Given the grammar of the Slavic languages, it would be absolutely impossible to make them gender-neutral in any way -- it would require grammatical changes almost as large as those that took place, say, between Classical Latin and the modern Italian or Spanish. There is nothing like the simple o/a dichotomy that covers much of the gender-specific morphology in Spanish or Portuguese; everything is full of mindblowingly complex and irregular rules about gender agreement. 

Now, when people insist on "gender-neutral" language and claim that such language is somehow morally superior, they are basically saying that my native language (and presumably all of its speakers) is not only deeply evil and morally flawed, but in fact irreparably so. Even those who don't insist on forcibly mandating the use of such language, but nevertheless consider themselves morally superior for using it, are still sending off this message with their attitude. And believe me, it's not a nice feeling to be exposed to such scorn, even if these people don't actually intend to be perceived that way. I'm sure that many Spanish speakers feel the same way, since Spanish genders, unlike those in English, are also impossible to eradicate entirely, with or without the "@". (Of course, the ugliness of this "solution" doesn't help either.)

There are basically two ways to look at the issue of grammatical genders and the usual universality of the masculine gender: it's either a harmless quirk of grammar, or it represents some moral evil that we should labor to eradicate. The latter perspective, however, necessarily implies that those unwilling or unable to purge their language of genders are morally flawed and unenlightened. 

This is an important reason why all this "gender-neutral language" business is apt to provoke negative reactions from speakers of languages in which genders feature much more prominently than in English and most other Germanic languages.


----------



## modus.irrealis

Athaulf said:


> Most of it has indeed disappeared, but not everything -- otherwise, what would all these modern debates on "gender-neutral language" be about?
> 
> Truly genderless languages don't distinguish between masculine and feminine pronouns (unlike the English _he_/_she_) and don't have words that come in matching masculine/feminine forms (like e.g. the English _waiter_/_waitress_). Of all Indo-European languages, only Persian has reached this pure genderless state. (I don't speak Persian myself, but this is what I've read in all sources I've seen on this topic.)



Surely Persian has pairs of words like sister/brother, queen/king, daughter/son, cow/bull, etc. that refer to sex. Otherwise it would be very surprising. For me, I'd say a language had gender if there was (grammatical) agreement of some sort, and you could divide various words into classes on the basis of that agreement (I'm thinking of things like different forms of adjectives being used with different nouns), and there doesn't seem to be anything like that in English -- e.g. which pronoun you use entirely depends on the sex of (the perhaps personalized inanimate) entity, or the lack of sex -- what I mean is the use of "he," "she," and "it" is very different from the use of the equivalent pronouns in a language with gender.



orlando09 said:


> Using "they"in this way is not especially unusual/experimental in English anymore.



I agree -- "they" is extremely common in the spoken language around here, and it's very rare to hear someone say "Yeah, everyone brought his own food" (unless it was a male-only event) -- it sounds extremely odd, and something like "his or her" would just never happen. Of course, this isn't true of the written language, where, at least in formal registers, this use of "they" seems to have been rejected for whatever reason (although I agree that it's the most elegant solution to the (perhaps imagined) problem at hand).



> It would, however (in current usage), sound unusual to use it as a deliberate way of avoiding saying "he" or "she" as in - "John called by today and said they wanted to go for a beer tonight".


I agree (although the sentence doesn't itself sound unusual because I read the "they" as referring to a group). But I think it's because the sex of the person has already been established, because I say and hear things like "My friend came over but they had to leave right away", where the sex of the person just doesn't come up.

And just as a general comment, this use of "they" has nothing to do with political correctness -- it has a long history in English and it's just a normal development, and is by now just a normal part of Spoken English (at least as spoken around here), and nothing remarkable.


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## Athaulf

ireney said:


> It reminds me of some idiotic people who in the past (and some even now) wanted to "clear" the Greek language of all foreign words and especially all words of Turkish origin giving as a reason that it was quite probable that we wouldn't get that many incorporated in our vocabulary if the Ottoman Empire hadn't oppressed us for so long.



This is an excellent parallel. We had the same thing in Croatia in the 1990s,  when the supposedly Serbian words (and many others as well) were the target of such nationalist purist policies. During those years, some "patriotic" language experts came up with ridiculous attempts at coining "pure Croatian" words that were supposed to replace some supposedly "impure" terms.

Of course, people mostly rejected this policy, and these purist neologisms are nowadays largely an object of ridicule. And guess what: people  who actually use such words (except for joking) are automatically perceived as nationalists, and they are also apt to be disliked because people feel like they are trying to show off as more patriotic and virtuous than the rest of us. This is very similar to the reasons why many people tend to automatically dislike various forms of politically correct speech nowadays, about which I wrote in my post above. Nobody likes to be addressed with a "holier than thou" attitude.


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## jonquiliser

Athaulf said:


> There are basically two ways to look at the issue of grammatical genders and the usual universality of the masculine gender: it's either a harmless quirk of grammar, or it represents some moral evil that we should labor to eradicate. The latter perspective, however, necessarily implies that those unwilling or unable to purge their language of genders are morally flawed and unenlightened.



Nope. You can simply, as I wish, make use of different linguistic features to make a point. The discrimination and oppression of women (just as the discrimination and oppression of many other groups) is made invisible in many different ways. Sometimes, by "turning language on its head", you can draw the attention to this. 

And, there are no "fixed" interpretation of what something means. That doesn't stop us from reflection on the meanings that may lay in how we talk, how and why we say and do what we say and do.

Come on, what's the point of you putting words in other people's mouths and persisting with your accusations?



Athaulf said:


> This is an important reason why all this "gender-neutral language" business is apt to provoke negative reactions from speakers of languages in which genders feature much more prominently than in English and most other Germanic languages.



So you assume that anyone who is a speaker of a Romance or Slavic language will automatically be offended by, let's say, creative uses of language? By extension, you assume that some speakers of these languages might not want to do the very same themselves?!

I wonder when I spent so much time on one single thread the last time. I fear I've got to a point of repeating myself. Goodnight, fellows, and; enjoy the continuation.


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## Athaulf

jonquiliser said:


> Nope. You can simply, as I wish, make use of different linguistic features to make a point. The discrimination and oppression of women (just as the discrimination and oppression of many other groups) is made invisible in many different ways. Sometimes, by "turning language on its head", you can draw the attention to this.
> 
> And, there are no "fixed" interpretation of what something means. That doesn't stop us from reflection on the meanings that may lay in how we talk, how and why we say and do what we say and do.
> 
> Come on, what's the point of you putting words in other people's mouths and persisting with your accusations?



I'm not accusing anyone of anything. I'm merely pointing out the way in which the issue of "gender-neutral language" is commonly framed, and the perceptions that it generates in many people because of that. I'm not saying that it's specifically _your _attitude that causes negative reactions in people when you approach them with such language, but rather that such language is commonly associated with people who _do_ promote it and insist on it with attitudes of moral superiority (and you can't possibly deny that such people are the principal ones pushing for the "degenderization" of language). Hence the automatic negative reaction of many people to hearing it. 

When a certain manner of expression is commonly associated with a certain outlook and attitude, and you intentionally speak in such a way, of course that people will react in the way that they normally react to such an outlook and attitude. Of course, this is not a strictly logically justified response, but that's just how human communication works. There are many expressions that will offend or disturb people, because they are customarily interpreted that way, even if a strict logical analysis of what's been said allows for entirely innocent alternative interpretations.

Notice the analogy that I described in my other post above. When I hear someone using the ridiculous Croatian purist neologisms that were promoted as a part of a nationalist agenda at one time, I (and most other people) will normally assume that this person does indeed share the agenda of those who invented and promoted those words. This is not a strictly logical conclusion -- someone might conceivably be using such expressions for some unknown other reasons. But if you're going to use a certain manner of expression, you should expect to be assumed to support the attitudes that usually go with it. That's just how human language works.



> So you assume that anyone who is a speaker of a Romance or Slavic language will automatically be offended by, let's say, creative uses of language?


Not _anyone _-- I was explaining why _many_ people have negative reactions to such "creative" language; I didn't suggest that this applies to _all _people in any particular category. 

Frankly, I don't really care much about this issue when it comes to English. In my professional English speech and writing, I certainly strive to comply with all the requirements of gender-neutrality, because this is simply the sort of product that's expected of me to produce. But when I hear the reasoning by which mandating such language is justified, and observe the conclusions to which such reasoning leads when applied to my native language, I certainly don't have any reason to be happy.



> By extension, you assume that some speakers of these languages might not want to do the very same themselves?!


Well, when it comes to my language, of course that we have our share of people who view every trend and fashion in the politics and academia of the Anglosphere as worthy of reverence and emulation.  However, with our language, emulating the gender-neutralization of English would be completely impossible, as I've already explained, so I don't remember anyone coming out with such proposals. Admittedly, I do remember seeing an attempt at making a short notice in Croatian gender-neutral in some obscure (and quite extremist) political pamphlet, but the result was a complete mess.


----------



## jonquiliser

Athaulf said:


> But if you're going to use a certain manner of expression, you should expect to be assumed to support the attitudes that usually go with it. That's just how human language works.



By which you are saying that if certain features of language actually bear marks of patriarchal or other oppressive structures, you, by using these features, support the attitudes that go with it. Which I thought you were precisely denying


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## Athaulf

jonquiliser said:


> Originally Posted by *Athaulf*
> But if you're going to use a certain manner of expression, you should expect to be assumed to support the attitudes that usually go with it. That's just how human language works.
> 
> 
> 
> By which you are saying that if certain features of language actually bear marks of patriarchal or other oppressive structures, you, by using these features, support the attitudes that go with it. Which I thought you were precisely denying
Click to expand...


No. I am not talking about attitudes that might have played a role in the original formation of specific expressions and manners of speech, but about the attitudes that are connected with them in the _present_ understanding of the people, which are two completely different things. 

There are many expressions whose meaning was indisputably derived from specific historical oppressive structures and relations, but for which this connection has been completely lost in the modern language. For example, in most Western European languages (including English), the word for "slave" is directly derived from the ethnic name "Slav". Yet, being a Slav myself, I see no ground for being offended by these words and demanding that they be purged from the vocabulary, because the present understanding of the word has no connection whatsoever with its original etymology. Similarly, even if I agreed 100% with the theories that explain the Indo-European grammatical genders as a product of historical patriarchal oppressive attitudes (and I don't!), this would still not be sufficient ground for reading such attitudes into them nowadays. 

On the other hand, certain expressions and manners of speech _do_ have connotations in the _present_ understanding of the people that will normally make the reader or listener derive additional implications, beyond what the words themselves imply strictly logically. These implications may, but often do not follow from the way that these ways of speaking have evolved historically. For each particular occasion or group of people, there is a standard "neutral" way of speaking that carries no other meaning except what is being literally said. Deviating from this "neutral" manner of speech will usually carry additional messages, and people will normally identify the speaker or writer with the kind of people with whom such language is commonly associated. 

Hence, to name a few examples, someone who uses colloquial slang on a formal occasion will be identified as rude or uneducated, someone who uses very formal speech on an informal occasion will be identified as stuck-up or socially inept, a user of unusual purist neologisms in Croatian will be identified as a nationalist -- and a user of artificialy degenderized language will be identified with the people who promote such language with an attitude of moral superiority. In each of these cases, if some people use such language with some other motivation, the burden is on them to show that this is the case, and otherwise it's unreasonable to complain for getting the normal reaction. This also goes for any sort of "creative" use of the language. Yes, this is an arbitrary social convention -- but so is anything else when it comes to the meaning and interpretation of words.

I'm sorry for being so long-winded again, but I'm unable to express my thoughts on this matter precisely with anything less.


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## MarX

Brioche said:


> In German it's generally not possible to have a single "non-sexist" term.
> 
> Females in an occupation or profession have -in added. So if you are talking about a female teacher, you have to say Lehrerin.
> If your doctor is a woman, you say Ärztin, and so on.
> 
> If talking about Germany's female PM, you have to say Kanzlerin. In German, Senator Hilary Clinton is called Senatorin Clinton, and so on. If Hilary gets to be the first female President of the US, she'll be Presidentin Clinton.
> Any reference in German to President Clinton or Sentor Clinton = Bill Clinton.
> 
> When politicians get up and thank the voters, they have to say it twice:
> _Mein Dank an alle Wählerinnen und Wähler._
> _My thanks to all the [women] voters and [men] voters._
> 
> Job advertisements, for example, have to write both the male and female forms: Lehrer/Lehrerinnen. Some combine Lehrer and Lehrerinnen into LehrerInnen - note the capital I - if you write _Lehrerinnen_, it means _female teachers_.


As for Ärztin: My "Hausarzt" is a woman but I rarely say "meine Hausärztin". It somehow sounds pretty awkward.
I also say "Ich gehe zum Arzt" instead of "Ich gehe zur Ärztin" even though I know that I'm going to a female doctor.

Grüsse


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## Brioche

MarX said:


> As for Ärztin: My "Hausarzt" is a woman but I rarely say "meine Hausärztin". It somehow sounds pretty awkward.
> I also say "Ich gehe zum Arzt" instead of "Ich gehe zur Ärztin" even though I know that I'm going to a female doctor.
> 
> Grüsse



And what happens when you get to the surgery?
Do you say that you have an appointment with the_ Arzt_ or the _Ärztin_?


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## MarX

Brioche said:


> And what happens when you get to the surgery?
> Do you say that you have an appointment with the_ Arzt_ or the _Ärztin_?


I'd say _Arzt_.
I use _Arzt_ more or less as a gender neutral description of the profession. I'd say _Ärztin_ when I'm trying to stress that the doctor is a woman.
I'm not a native speaker, but I see the same tendency with most of the _Muttersprachler _I've been in contact with.

Grüsse


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## sokol

Brioche said:


> The German system of constantly reinforcing the person's sex in the job title is quite contrary to the efforts of feminists in the English language.
> 
> The idea in English is to be *inclusive*, to de-sex the language, and get rid of all sex-specific terms. The idea being that if we don't have these naughty sexist words, we won't be able to think any naughty sexist thoughts.


It is near impossible in German to create gender-neutral nouns - you would have to invent the language anew. 

(And it is even worse in Slavic languages, but Athaulf has said enough about that already. I think it is almost impossible for any Slavic language except Bulgarian and Macedonian to adopt anything like the kind of "non-sexist, political correct" usage which has already caught on in German, and which uses either two nouns - let's stick to the noun "teacher" = "Lehrerinnen und Lehrer" - or one with capital "I" - "LehrerInnen", formed and pronounced like the female noun, but meaning both male and female teachers.)

In Austria it is even near-obligatory to use this "gender neutral" terms in textbooks for public schools ("LehrerInnen"), because if youdon't your books would be rejected for public school use.

Anyway, the point is - political correctness, in a language like German, does* by no means* help to de-sex language, quite the contrary, it makes people only too aware of grammatical gender and some discrepancies between grammatical and natural gender.
(Probably this is at the core of the insecurity among native speakers of how to use "Mädchen": grammatically a neuter noun, but meaning "girl" and thus always female natural gender - as in English, "Mädchen" can mean any girl from small ones to fully grown-ups, it can even mean your girl-friend, just like in English. 
But probably it isn't - we will never know, will we?)



Brioche said:


> And what happens when you get to the surgery?
> Do you say that you have an appointment with the_ Arzt_ or the _Ärztin_?


I would use "Doktor" - "ich gehe zum Doktor" (male gender), and it doesn't matter if the doctor is male or female.

Another strange one is "Gast", female "Gästin" (I heard the latter recently on an Austrian radio station, numerous times): true, this is male gender, but "Gast" = "guest" never could take the suffix making it a female noun = "-in", thus "Gästin" is an ill-formed German noun.
Still, it was and is used (probably only in Austria, might be unknown to Germany), at least here and now, in the year 2009 - this being a very recent PC noun it is still possible that it will be forgotten again in 2010 because it really sounds - well: ridiculous, just wrong, grammatically.


So to answer the original question: political correctness has caught on in German, and to my best knowledge in Austria to a much greater degree than in Germany - for reasons unknown to me.
(I could speculate why this is so, but I'd rather leave it at that as I can't produce any hard facts. )


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## MarX

sokol said:


> I think it is almost impossible for any Slavic language except Bulgarian and Macedonian to adopt anything like the kind of "non-sexist, political correct" usage


How come it's possible in Macedonian and Bulgarian?


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## sokol

MarX said:


> How come it's possible in Macedonian and Bulgarian?


Almost no declension left. 

It is different in all other Slavic languages which have extremely rich declension paradigms (for three genders and 6 or 7 cases, plus dual in Slovenian and Sorbian, and in some languages with mixed paradigms like described by Athaulf).


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## MarX

sokol said:


> Almost no declension left.


Aren't genders still fully intact in Macedonian and Bulgarian?


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## elirlandes

alexacohen said:


> Hello:
> I hate it. Simply hate it.



So do I. Two examples among many from English are:

Chairperson:
Instead of Chairman or Chairwoman. Why have people coined this new term when there already exists a perfectly good, more descriptive adjective for this role? When I refer to a Chairwoman, it is not because I believe that she is not as capable as a Chairman. It is because she is a woman, and holds that responsability.

Actor:
In recent years, female thespians have taken to calling themselves actors, as though this has higher status than actress. Then, in order to specify sex you often hear "female actor"... ridiculous! A female actor is an actress. Of course, these activist female actors are all keen to win the oscar for best actress...

I also notice that my old school has taken to calling the person in charge Principal [which for me is a really American term]. The new "Principal" explained to me that she didn't like the term Headmistress as it was demeaning... I don't understand why - it is simply the female version of Headmaster, both of which are more descriptive of the role than Principal.


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## Arrius

Many people seem to say simply *chair* instead of using a gender-specific term, which I find a metonymy preferable to the neologism _chairperson_.
The use of* actors* seems to be sensible when talking about both actors and actresses, but to used *actor *instead of *actress*, which I have also noticed, when the sex of the artiste is clear, seems to be a step in the opposite direction to political correctness.
As for *principal*, I believe that to have been always a less used synonym for headmaster/headmistress in the UK and not borrowed like so much else from America: "Go and wait outside the Priincipal's office is often said in English schools", possibly not in Irish ones .  Those females who object to being called Headmistress might be thinking of the old meaning of mistress e.g. Nell Gwynne to Charles II or Emma Hamilton to Lord Nelson, which might now possibly be termed _head partner_ in modern PC parlance!
My apologies if I have repeated anything already said: life is too short to read through 140 posts.


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## Pedro y La Torre

elirlandes said:


> I also notice that my old school has taken to calling the person in charge Principal [which for me is a really American term]. The new "Principal" explained to me that she didn't like the term Headmistress as it was demeaning... I don't understand why - it is simply the female version of Headmaster, both of which are more descriptive of the role than Principal.



Principal was the general term used when I was in school (not so long ago). Headmistress sounds very old-fashioned to me, I've heard it used, but only in certain private schools.


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## sokol

MarX said:


> Aren't genders still fully intact in Macedonian and Bulgarian?


Gender is alive and well.
It is not very elegant but *possible *to use somewhat "gender neutral" style in German, and the same should be the case for Bulgarian and Macedonian (I don't know wether PC already has caught there, probably not - as is the case for other Slavic languages).

What makes it more complicated with other Slavic languages is that Macedonian and Bulgarian have reduced gender markers - especially in plural with adjectives and pronoun there's no gender distinction; also verbs in past tense do not take a gender marker (in aorist and imperfect) except for perfect tense which uses the "l-participle".
In other Slavic languages the "l-participle" ("to go - gone" -> Slovenian "iti -> šel (m.) šla (f.) šlo (n.)) is the past tense used most, and except for BCS (Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian) no other Slavic languages have retained aorist and imperfect.

All in all, Macedonian and Bulgarian declension is reduced to a degree that I think a kind of PC language would at least be possible, somehow, while I am not sure at all if PC language would be feasible at all for other Slavic languages without drastically changing grammar.


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## wildan1

elirlandes said:


> So do I. Two examples among many from English are:
> 
> Chairperson:
> Instead of Chairman or Chairwoman. Why have people coined this new term when there already exists a perfectly good, more descriptive adjective for this role? When I refer to a Chairwoman, it is not because I believe that she is not as capable as a Chairman. It is because she is a woman, and holds that responsability..


But that is an easy one to combine: Just call her/him _the chair._ This is a frequent usage in AE


elirlandes said:


> I also notice that my old school has taken to calling the person in charge Principal [which for me is a really American term]. The new "Principal" explained to me that she didn't like the term Headmistress as it was demeaning... I don't understand why - it is simply the female version of Headmaster, both of which are more descriptive of the role than Principal.


_Principal_ is indeed the common term for the leader of a school. But _headmaster_ is also used in some private schools--especially boarding schools. Even in a private school, calling the leader _a headmistress_ does sound very old fashioned to an AE ear, however.


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## almufadado

I rather say i belong to Humanity than to Mankind !
Eu prefiro dizer que faço parte da Humanidade do que do Homem"

So i rather say "After Humans invented the wheel"  than "After Men invented the wheel" because i am pretty sure who invented the wheel was a woman. 
Assim, eu prefiro dizer "Depois dos Humanos inventarem a roda" que dizer "Depois do Homem inventar a roda" pois tenho quase a certeza que quem inventou a roda foi uma mulher. 

Then come power ...

"Kings and Queens" solved it !
Os "Reis e Rainhas" resolveram a questão!

"Mr. president" and "Mrs President" ... fair enough.
"Sr. presidente" e "Sra. Presidente" ... é justo.

"Minister "and "Madam Minister " yet is too genderly.
"Ministro" e "Ministra" é fácil apesar 

In Portuguese is easy : male roles end in "o" and female ones in "a".

Director -> Directora.

But then comes the flip ... 
-> when a group of several male "director" the plural is "directores" .
-> when a group of several female "directora" the plural is "directoras"  .
-> when 1 male "director" and 2 female "directora" gather they are, by rule, "directores".

As there are more and more head "directoras" .

Aluno -> aluna . (male student -> female student)
-> when a group of several male "aluno" the plural is "alunos" .
-> when a group of several female "aluna" the plural is "alunas"  .
-> when 1 male "aluno" and 2 female "aluna" gather they are, by rule, "alunos".

The solution is to create a third gender (could be called the "angel gender", as (yes) angels have no gender and integrate us all. hey maybe a new vowel.


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## Jacobtm

I've read that in Italian many women take titles of jobs that were previously only male and keep the same title without feminizing it, such as Avvocato. Is this common, or just some nonsense a textbook told me?


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## Sepia

almufadado said:


> The solution is to create a third gender (could be called the "angel gender", as (yes) angels have no gender and integrate us all. hey maybe a new vowel.




Sounds like a wonderful idea, but wouldn't that be a fourth gender? I mean basically we already have three, even though modern Romance languages only use two of them.


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## Hitchhiker

When I studied in Belgium I had a teacher that had studied in Scotland. She said it was big deal when they changed the university toilets from "Gents" and Ladies" to "Men and Women", or in Scotland it might have been "Girls" to Women" for the university. I have seen old American TV from the 1950's that showed toilets labeled "Gentlemen" and Ladies". The term "Gents" instead of "Gentlemen" was never used in America. It has been many years since we switched to "Men and Women". In 2000 I went to London England and visited the new London Eye /  _Millennium Wheel_. The new toilets there were labeled "Male" and "Female".


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## Novanas

If I can add my two cents' worth now that this thread started long ago has petered out:

The last time I visited Texas (which is where I grew up) I noticed that the time-honored "y'all" (you plural) was being replaced by "you guys".  Even women use it when addressing mixed groups or even when addressing all-women groups. I can't imagine any men allowing themselves to be addressed as "you gals".

I also had occasion to watch some women's basketball, where women commonly refer to "man-to-man" defence, rather than "woman-to-woman" or "individual marking", which is an expression often used here in Ireland. I also once heard a woman coach remark about a woman player on the opponents' team: "She's a great player.  We had to keep a man close to her the whole game."

This in a country where feminists have long been pounding away at the need for politically-correct, gender neutral language.  I have concluded that your average woman doesn't give a damn about gender-neutral language.  I have also concluded that rather than attributing "sexist" language to a history of male domination/oppressiveness/sexism, we might look in part to the female psychology.


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## WordRef1

All I can say is, please stop with the constant he/she him/her in English. It's so tiresome and unnecessary. It's not sexist to just pick one, it's efficient. Just say "he", "him" or "one" as the case may be or at least just pick one, him or her, and stop saying "he or she" "his or her's" etc. This he/she stuff needs to end. 

And another thing, we already tossed out the singlular form of "you" for some reason; now we are using the plural "they" for third person singluar gender neutral. I suggest more use of the term "one" since it already exists and is already gender neutral. But, populations create languages not individuals; so, we're stuck with it.


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## Novanas

WordRef1 said:


> All I can say is, please stop with the constant he/she him/her in English. It's so tiresome and unnecessary. It's not sexist to just pick one, it's efficient. Just say "he", "him" or "one" as the case may be or at least just pick one, him or her, and stop saying "he or she" "his or her's" etc. This he/she stuff needs to end.
> 
> And another thing, we already tossed out the singlular form of "you" for some reason; now we are using the plural "they" for third person singluar gender neutral. I suggest more use of the term "one" since it already exists and is already gender neutral. But, populations create languages not individuals; so, we're stuck with it.


 
I agree entirely with all this.  It often happens that if you begin a sentence with "he or she" you must continue with "his or her", "him or her" and "himself or herself", and it all becomes very tedious and absurd. Sometimes you can begin a sentence with "he or she" and that's all you need do, so in cases like that that's what I'll do.

I find that I can often avoid the problem by using "they".  "One" would be handy if it caught on.  But sometimes there is no option but to use the "genderless 'he'", and so that is what I do and I don't worry about it.  As I said in my previous post, I don't think there are many women who really care or take offence at it.  I think it's only the feminists that make a big deal about it.

I have noticed that it's becoming a trend these days to replace the "genderless he" with a "genderless she", as if that solves the problem (and it's usually male authors I find doing this).  And yet I remember one male author (I forget which one) saying that when he once proposed this solution to a feminist, her reply was, "That's patronizing."

My own solution to the problem is just to carry on as I am and not worry about what the feminists have to say on the issue.  No matter what we lads do, those girls aren't going to be happy anyway.  If you can't please others, you can please yourself.


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## Hulalessar

If you use a word that is masculine in form it tends to imply that the person referred to is male.

If you invent a word that is feminine in form to use as an alternative to the male form it tends to imply that the sex of the person referred to is important.

Which is the more sexist?


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## Novanas

Hulalessar said:


> If you use a word that is masculine in form it tends to imply that the person referred to is male.
> 
> If you invent a word that is feminine in form to use as an alternative to the male form it tends to imply that the sex of the person referred to is important.
> 
> Which is the more sexist?


 
To answer your question in a roundabout way: "If you use a word that is masculine in form it *tends to imply* that the person referred to is male." It may "tend to imply", but it doesn't always.  As I pointed out in my earlier post, in parts of the U.S. "you guys" is becoming increasingly common as a you plural.  This is a case of a masculine word "guys" losing its masculine sense.This why the "gender-neutral" he does not imply a man or boy.

However many people are no longer happy with the notion of a gender-neutal he, and I myself don't like it in certain cases.  When I was young, I would always refer to a lawyer or doctor, e.g., as "he" because virtually all of them (if not all of them) were men.  Today, this is no longer the case, and when I refer to a doctor in general, lots of times I will say "he or she".

Having said that, I do still use the generic "he" on occasion--when "they" is not possible, or if "he and she" makes the sentence as a whole clumsy.
Trying to adopt "she" as a gender-neutral pronoun is no solution to the problem, if what we want is gender-neutral language.  So, if our aim is gender-neutral language, I would say that "he" and "she" are equally sexist.

As I said earlier, though, I don't think most women really care much about gender-neutral language.  If they did, they wouldn't refer to each other as "guys" as often as they do.  Here we have a difference between the male and female psychologies.  I cannot imagine any men allowing themselves to be referred to as "you gals" or something of the sort, even when they are part of a mixed group.  This why men would never accept the notion of a gender-neutral "she".

I use gender-neutral language when it's handy.  But if on occasion it is handier to use "he" I do it because I don't think women as a whole take offence at it.  If I thought they did, I would do my best to avoid it, because I try not to make a habit of offending anybody.  But if they're not bothered about it, I don't see why I should be.


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## Arrius

As maybe pointed out already, the Germans, a nation particularly careful for historical reasons to avoid offending anybody's sensibilities, always try to remember the gender distinction, so that a speaker addressing the student body of a university would begin "Liebe Studentinnen und Studenten" (Dear "Studentesses" and Students).  But I was surprised when listening to an old speech of Adolf Hitler's recently that he was already making such distinctions in the 30s, though mentioning the females second, despite his policy of "Kinder, Kirche Küche" (children, church, kitchen) for the fair sex.


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## Brioche

All occupational names in Malay/Indonesian are neutral in themselves.

Malay/Indonesian doesn't even have separate pronouns for he and she.

However, traditional Malay and traditional Indonesian society are very strong on separate roles for males and females.

Just shows that non-sexist language does *not* mean a non-sexist society.


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## WordRef1

Brioche said:


> All occupational names in Malay/Indonesian are neutral in themselves.
> 
> Malay/Indonesian doesn't even have separate pronouns for he and she.
> 
> However, traditional Malay and traditional Indonesian society are very strong on separate roles for males and females.
> 
> Just shows that non-sexist language does *not* mean a non-sexist society.


I think that's a good point. And to Arrius's point... we have phrases like 'ladies and gentlemen' or 'men and women' that seem to always be in a particular order. It has nothing to do with valuing one sex over the other. I never thought of it that way. It's just a convention. The idea of changing such speach to be more p.c. is just a way of taking anything to make the point and grab for more power for one's socio-political movement. That might be justified, but it's misleading.


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