Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!aero!blake.u.washington.edu
From: twain@blake.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Girls, girls, girls
Message-ID: <8870@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 9 Oct 90 22:09:00 GMT
References: <9010022222.AA16693@liberty.cs.columbia.edu> <12322@chaph.usc.edu> <1990Oct4.021201.23780@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Sender: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Lines: 45
Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Status: R




In article <12322@chaph.usc.edu>, wilber@aludra.usc.edu (John Wilber)
says that his use of "girl" was not sexist because he doesn't mean 
it that way when he uses it.  When challenged by Travis, John replied, 
"If my use of that word upsets you because you think it means I am 
thinking something and I tell you this is not true but you continue 
to insist that I mean something other than what I claim, then you 
care calling me a liar (and a sexist)...

====
"When *I* use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scorful tone, 
"It means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can [use words that way]."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- 
that's all."

====
This is an all-too-frequent argument, used by people who are insensitive 
to both people and language.  In this particular case, the argument goes:
When *I* use the world "girl" to refer to an adult woman, it means what 
*I* choose it to mean.  It doesn't MATTER that my audience finds it 
objectionable and tells me so.  It doesn't MATTER that the common, 
conventional usage is understood by the English-speaking world to mean 
a dependent female child of 12 or younger, and that even as far back 
as the Victorian age a female if 16 was known as "a young woman."  It 
doesn't MATTER to me that this usage is deeply offensive to the people 
I'm talking to.  The only thing I care about is that I argue incessantly
and boringly until I wear everyone out and give the appearance of 
winning an argument even though my reasoning is willfully obtuse and 
even dishonest. 

In other words, the speaker doesn't give a damn how much he offends 
people by calling them by names they don't want to be called.

--Barbara



--
Barbara Hlavin				Moab is my wash-pot; over Edom
twain@blake.acs.washington.edu		will I cast out my shoe; Philistia,
U Washington JC-21/Seattle 98105	be thou glad of me.