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From: esquire!rreid@cmcl2.nyu.EDU (r l reid)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Feminist Futures
Message-ID: <2029@esquire.UUCP>
Date: 1 Jun 90 23:38:40 GMT
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Reply-To: r l reid <esquire!rreid@cmcl2.nyu.EDU>
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Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu

Kathryn Huxtable wrote a wonderful article concluding:
>I think we will have to eliminate gender-specific pronouns.

And cites Mark Ethan Smith's proposal and Delany's system
from _Stars in My Pockets Like Grains of Sand_.  (Both of which
sound quite workable, if only we could get them into usage!)

I'd like to point out one other example - again from fiction, of course,
which is Marge Piercy's _Woman On the Edge of Time_.  In this
future, gender cues are minimized, and "per" stands for "he", "she",
"his", or "her".  e.g.  "Per went home and forgot per book."
You also would distinguish between sweet friends and pillow
friends (the difference is whether you sleep with them).

Some friends and I who often discuss gender issues
find ourselves drawing quite a bit from fiction just to
be able to discuss some things.  One friend had it quite right
when per said that we need poets to move the language forward.

r reid
	    UUCP:  { uunet | cmcl2 }!esquire!rreid
	Internet:  rreid@dpw.com