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From: chi9@quads.uchicago.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Language (was Re: Are Humans Naturally Monogamous?)
Summary: It would be best if this didn't have to come up in sci.bio, but it seems unavoidable
Message-ID: <1990Nov8.023729.19440@midway.uchicago.edu>
Date: 8 Nov 90 02:37:29 GMT
References: <1990Nov2.203149.16763@ariel.unm.edu> <67971@bu.edu.bu.edu> <1363@manta.NOSC.MIL>
Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (News Administrator)
Organization: Department of Biology at the University of Chicago
Lines: 50

In article <1363@manta.NOSC.MIL> north@manta.nosc.mil.UUCP (Mark H. North)
writes:
>In article <67971@bu.edu.bu.edu> pamela@bu-bio.UUCP (Pamela Hall) writes:
>>If one wishes to refer to human male behavior, use men or man.
>>If one wishes to refer to human female behavior, use women or woman
>>If one wishes to refer to human behavior, regardless of gender
>>differences that may arise, use human.
>             
>In the original post the use of the word 'human' would not have been
>syntactically correct.

	Only slight syntactic modification to the rest of the original
sentence would have been needed to make it syntactically correct.

>                       'Man' or 'mankind' would be correct. Sorry that's
>just the way the language is. It's no slam, it means the same thing. When
>one refers to 'man' or 'mankind' in this context it refers to all. Look it
>up.

	That doesn't work.  By common usage and tradition, "man" is
male-specific, even when it is openly claimed not to be.  This is a slam,
because favoring one gender with the language acts toward the legitimizization
(or more accurately, the maintainance of the legitimization of) sexism.

>Look, there are some men who are otherwise sympathetic with womens'
>concerns who get mildly irritated at this kind of ranting.

	Look, some men as well as many women see what you call "ranting" as a
legitimate complaint.  Furthermore, in the English language, it is EXTREMELY
EASY to implement the VERY MINOR fixes required to address it.  So what are we
waiting for?

>                                                   [. . .] As a matter of
>fact what you are saying is polarizing and unproductive.

	It is unproductive only as long as people refuse to address the issue
rationally.  If you see it as polarizing, that's just too bad.

>                                                         If you have an
>issue let's talk about it. There are a lot more burning concerns for women
>today than whether we should say 'mankind' or 'humankind'.

	This is true, but as I said above, this issue is not irrelevant to
some of those more burning concerns.

	Now cut the obstructionism and obscurantism, and let's get this
newsgroup back to talking about biology.

--
|   Lucius Chiaraviglio    |    Internet:  chi9@midway.uchicago.edu