Re: Gender in language

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

Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 11:12:27 +0000

David desJardins wrote

> This seems a huge exaggeration. Certainly I will agree that there are
> many nouns which simply have to be assigned one gender or another, and
> those genders are essentially arbitrary, and don't necessarily carry
> "male" or "female" connotations.  On the other hand, there are also a
> whole lot of words---male pronouns, the words for male people, male
> animals, male occupations---that are all masculine, and another large
> set of words---female pronouns, words for female people, female animals,
> female occupations---that are all feminine.  It's not just an incredible
> coincidence that the "male" words have the masculine gender and the
> "female" words have the feminine gender.  It seems unreasonable to
> believe that before some time, people spoke fluent Greek and never
> happened to notice that there was one set of pronouns that was used for
> male people and also for a whole bunch of other words, and another set
> of pronouns that was used for female people and also for a whole bunch
> of other words, or that there was no connection in their mind at all
> between the genders of words and the corresponding genders of people.

I'll try to keep my exaggerations small in future ;) Sure it seems
logical to have separate grammatical genders for male/female
people/animals, but that's no reason why eg "table" should have a female
gender. And why a neuter gender? or why not use the neuter gender for
everything that isn't obviously male or female? I've heard that there's
an African language with 13 grammatical genders. It's certainly easier
to learn Latin if you believe that grammatical gender is a-sexual.

> I don't think "onekind" is a serious alternative: "humanity" or
> "humankind" are the terms one might seriously consider.

I've never forgotten a TV series with a US presenter, where "humanity"
was pronounced "yoomanity" throughout, which didn't do much for
international understanding.
Seriously, "Humanity" and "humankind" simply don't sound as forceful as
"Man" and "Mankind". Our language risks suffering a loss.

> But personally, I think "mankind" is ok, although I can see how people
> can feel otherwise.  But the reason that "mankind" is different from
> "man" is that "mankind" doesn't have the problem of dual usage: it's not
> commonly used to refer to "all male humans" while excluding women, so
> there isn't the ambiguity as to whether the speaker means to include
> women or not, or whether (as is sometimes the case and is what leads to
> concerns about sexism) the speaker means to include women in practice
> but not in theory.

Ah, now I like ambiguity - it gives room for all sorts of manoeuvering.
We're not talking mathematics here, or legalese, but everyday speech where
approximation can work better than exactitude. Ambiguity is a Good Thing.

> The core problem with "man" in phrases like "where no man has gone
> before" is that it really is textually ambiguous as to whether the
> speaker is including women with men, or not.  You can assert that you
> always do know, but (1) I think you're wrong; (2) I think what you
> "know" may not be what some other listener "knows"; and (3) the
> ambiguity is a problem even if it can be successfully disambiguated in
> every particular case, because the ambiguity can create an implication
> in people's minds even if it's different from the accepted "real"
> meaning.

I think that it's essential to be inclusive. If "Man" can be read as a
word for all human beings, that's good. So let's stick with it instead of
fussing about whether it specifically means us or not.

Carol

References

Re: Gender in language
David desJardins <desj@math.berkeley.edu>
Sun, 10 Nov 2002 00:56:35 +0000
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
Re: New: Zodiac fleet (free, open-ended, email, human, space)
Carol Mulholland <carol@flagship-pbm.co.uk>
Sat, 09 Nov 2002 14:59:09 +0000
Re: New: Zodiac fleet (free, open-ended, email, human, space)
David desJardins <desj@math.berkeley.edu>
Sat, 09 Nov 2002 22:15:48 +0000
Re: New: Zodiac fleet (free, open-ended, email, human, space)
Carol Mulholland <carol@flagship-pbm.co.uk>
Sun, 10 Nov 2002 00:01:03 +0000

Referenced By

Re: Gender in language
David desJardins <desj@math.berkeley.edu>
Sun, 10 Nov 2002 00:56:35 +0000
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
Re: New: Zodiac fleet (free, open-ended, email, human, space)
Carol Mulholland <carol@flagship-pbm.co.uk>
Sat, 09 Nov 2002 14:59:09 +0000
Re: New: Zodiac fleet (free, open-ended, email, human, space)
David desJardins <desj@math.berkeley.edu>
Sat, 09 Nov 2002 22:15:48 +0000
Re: New: Zodiac fleet (free, open-ended, email, human, space)
Carol Mulholland <carol@flagship-pbm.co.uk>
Sun, 10 Nov 2002 00:01:03 +0000