From: utzoo!decvax!minow
Newsgroups: net.women
Title: easy problems and hard problems
Article-I.D.: decvax.565
Posted: Wed May  4 19:26:54 1983
Received: Thu May  5 03:55:55 1983


The continuing battle in net.women (and elsewhere) on what sort of
pronouns the language ought to have in order to be "non-sexist" has
begun to remind me of one of Brechts "stories about Herr Kreuner":

    It seems that Herr Kreuner was arrested for stealing some groceries
    and brought before a judge.  "What do you want, the civil oath
    or the religious oath?" asked the judge.

    "I want a job." was the reply.

People, please: while you are spending your intellectual energy worrying
about what sort of words the language has, you are choosing not to
worry about day care centers for working women, equal pay for equal
work, equal opportunity for advancement, and a whole host of other
real, serious problems in our society.

The proper time to worry about pronouns and linguistic gender is when
women themselves feel they are "fully equal" to men.


Martin Minow
decvax!minow