From: utzoo!decvax!yale-com!leichter
Newsgroups: net.women
Title: Re: Genderless pronouns and non-sexist writing
Article-I.D.: yale-com.1383
Posted: Thu Apr 21 17:19:45 1983
Received: Wed Apr 27 07:51:19 1983
References: flairvax.113 yale-com.1366 yale-com.1374

This is mainly in reply to Robert Glaser:

"This is a deeply sexist society..."; "'I saw a fireman and he smiled at me' -
try to imagine that the 'fireman' is a women".

1.  If you define things right, you can make this society "deeply sexist",
"deeply racist", "totalitarian" - whatever you like.  I think your statement
is nonsense, if you are using any reasonable definition of "sexist" - a
remarkable word, anyway, in existence hardly more than 10 years, its meaning
so ill-formed that everyone can interpret it his own way.  (And don't tell
me that "sexist is obviously just like racist but having to do with sex"
or I'll cite Wittgenstein to you on the dangers of "just like ... but" defini-
tions - not to mention the remarkable growth in the meaning of "racist" in
the last 10 years!)  I reject the contention that a society which does not
claim men and women are IDENTICAL is sexist.  I reject the claim that a society
in which some jobs happen to have more men than women, or more women than men,
is sexist.  If you want to talk about sexism in any reasonable terms, you have
to look at opportunity.  I don't deny that some inequality of opportunity
exists for men and women in this society; but the AMOUNT of it, and the
amazing DECREASE in the amount of such inequality recently - "amazing" when
you consider the degree of change in a very short period of time - makes a
mockery of statements about "deep sexism".  (And don't cite that favorite figure
of women earning 56 cents for every dollar a man makes at me.  I've written
before on the complications in this measurement and won't repeat myself here.
Even if, by some miracle, ALL TRACES of inequality of opportunity were to
vanish by midnight tonight, you could not reasonably expect that ratio - many
of whose causes have nothing whatsoever to do with inequality of opportunity -
to change by much for many years.)

2.  The main reason that it's hard to visualize a women fireman in you little
sentence is that there are very few women fireman.  This has NOTHING to do with
the language; it is a fact about the world with which each and every one of us
is intimately familiar.  If, 100 years ago, you had told people that a secretary
had smiled at you, they would all have assumed that you had been smiled at by
a man.  Today, they would all assume you had seen a woman.  If and when the
number of female fireman reaches the level that people no longer have any
particular expectations about the sex of a fireman, we MAY see the language
change; but then again, we may not - we may just see the expectations change
while "fireman" remains the word of choice.

BTW, if I say "When I meet your secretary, how will I recognize her?" - not
knowing, ahead of time that your secretary is female - many people consider me
sexist for making the assumption (although, the world being what it is, it is
a VERY safe assumption to make).  Why do they fell better when I say "... how
will I recognize HIM?"			      ^feel
							-- Jerry
						decvax!yale-comix!leichter
							leichter@yale