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From: mjm@ahimsa.intel.com (Marjorie Panditji)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: synonyms
Message-ID: <1991May24.220315.10248@aero.org>
Date: 24 May 91 17:23:12 GMT
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In response to my article complaining about gold digger (and other
questionable synonyms for woman) that someone else found listed in a
thesaurus, Mara writes:

> Ah, yes.  But a thesaurus is a tool for finding a word.  Under
> "virtue," for example ...
>
> [list of words deleted]
>
> Certainly I wouldn't assume that I could use these words
> interchangeably.  

I was a little confused by Mara's article on thesaurus entries.  It was
interesting to read the entries listed, and I agree with many of her
comments.  But, in the end, I couldn't tell Mara's opinion on gold digger
as a synonym for woman (perhaps she wasn't trying to state an opinion
on it, but I'm still curious). 

I realize that a thesaurus is for finding words and that words do not
have to be interchangeable in order to be listed as synonyms.  I did not
intend to convey that message.  For example, listing wife or mother
under woman makes sense to me, even though these words are clearly not
interchangeable.  But it does not make sense to me to list a word just
because it has a possible connection with women, or to list a word
which represents a group which is made up mostly of women.

That's why I used the example words rapist and vegetarian.  Vegetarians in
the U.S. are mostly female (from an article in Vegetarian Times, I realize
that this statistic could be out of date by now).  Rapists are male in most
cases (all cases in some states due to their definition of rape).  Yet, I
still don't believe that it makes sense for a thesaurus to list rapist for
man or vegetarian for woman.

I might expect to find gold digger under a heading such as girlfriend or
lover (I wouldn't insist that it also be listed under boyfriend, since the
I think that the term is used, correctly or incorrectly, mostly to refer
to women).  But to list gold digger under the generic category of woman?
Sorry, it just doesn't make sense to me.

I'm certainly glad that all thesauruses (or thesauri, if you prefer) are
not created equal.  The thesaurus which comes with Word Perfect (it just
happened to be handy) provides more reasonable lists for man and woman, in
my humble opinion.  I'll have to check my "hard copy" :-) thesaurus at home.
--
Marjorie Panditji
mjm@ahimsa.intel.com  -or-  uunet!intelhf!ahimsa!mjm