Re: New: Zodiac fleet (free, open-ended, email, human, space)

From: Carol Mulholland <carol@flagship-pbm.co.uk>

Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2002 14:59:09 +0000

Dj wrote:

> That's a rather interesting point.  A women's studies class of mine spent a
> fair bit of time discussing the myth of gender neutral terms.  How most
> every role in society carries with it a stereotype that is either masculine
> or feminine.  And how a large number of the other languages in western
> civilization use terms like the french "le" or "la" before nouns to actively
> assign gender to them.

Ah, this is something that I feel strongly about. So strongly that I'm not
sure that I can express my views politely.
   I was eductated in a girls' school and a women's college, but I'm ancient
enough to find the concept of women's studies insulting. I despise an approach
which results in weak writers like Afra Behn being taught on university courses
in preference to glorious ones like Milton.
   I'm surprised that the class didn't realise that grammatical gender is
a-sexual. I can see that it's easy to encourage a class to believe in 'the myth
of gender neutral terms', but this seems mistaken to me, sigh. Western
languages are mostly based on Latin, with its 3 grammatical genders, but it was
early grammarians (Greek, I think) who decided that the 3 classes should be
called masculine, feminine and neutral - the 3 classes existed first, before
they were called genders.

> I agree that the sentence does sound less forceful with "one" instead of
> "man" but the concept of Where No Man Has Gone Before does have decidedly
> male overtones to it.

Only for people who have been unduly influenced by cloth-eared feminists with
trade-unionist souls. It would be good to rescue our language from them, but
maybe it's too late.
   Besides, Where No Man has Gone Before is a quotation, so shouldn't be mucked
about with except for the purposes of parody.
   Ah, parody - maybe that's what the game's about?

Carol

References

New: Zodiac fleet (free, open-ended, email, human, space)
lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl)
Fri, 08 Nov 2002 20:14:37 +0000
Re: New: Zodiac fleet (free, open-ended, email, human, space)
Carol Mulholland <carol@flagship-pbm.co.uk>
Sat, 09 Nov 2002 09:32:51 +0000
Re: New: Zodiac fleet (free, open-ended, email, human, space)
"DJ" <flouric@highstream.net>
Sat, 09 Nov 2002 14:50:41 +0000

Referenced By

New: Zodiac fleet (free, open-ended, email, human, space)
lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl)
Fri, 08 Nov 2002 20:14:37 +0000
Re: New: Zodiac fleet (free, open-ended, email, human, space)
Carol Mulholland <carol@flagship-pbm.co.uk>
Sat, 09 Nov 2002 09:32:51 +0000
Re: New: Zodiac fleet (free, open-ended, email, human, space)
"DJ" <flouric@highstream.net>
Sat, 09 Nov 2002 14:50:41 +0000