Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!ucivax!gateway From: panix!mara@cmcl2.nyu.EDU (Mara Chibnik) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: synonyms Message-ID: <1991Jun4.230236.615@panix.uucp> Date: 5 Jun 91 16:22:04 GMT References: Organization: (getting there) Lines: 39 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: zola.ics.uci.edu I'll skip over all the detail stuff to get to the nitty gritty. In article mjm@ahimsa.intel.COM (Marjorie Panditji) writes: >Just as another example, here are the entries listed for man and woman >in the WordPerfect 5.1 thesaurus. Note that it doesn't list nearly as >many entries as most thesauruses, but there does not seem to be any >obvious gender bias, which is nice! (If there is one, I missed it.) >Man: male, gentleman, chap, fellow, guy, consort, husband, mate, spouse, > employee, worker, attendant, human being, humanity, person, individual, > mankind, people > >Woman: female, lady, matron, dame, consort, spouse, wife, employee, worker, > attendant, human being, person, individual, people, womankind Well, let's look at the differences: Man: chap, fellow, guy, mate, humanity, mankind, Woman: matron, dame, womankind It's not the number of words (although I daresay I could come up with enough possibilities to balance things out, but the fact that the word is included under "man." In a list that is otherwise so balanced, I would expect to find a separate listing for those terms that apply to humans as a species. I'm also surprised that "mate" occurs only under "man," and I don't see any male analog to "dame," in either of the ways that word is commonly used. -- cmcl2!panix!mara Mara Chibnik mara@dorsai.com Life is too important to be taken seriously.