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From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.motss,net.singles
Subject: Re: homosexual associations
Message-ID: <1019@pyuxn.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 29-Aug-84 13:13:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxn.1019
Posted: Wed Aug 29 13:13:52 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 30-Aug-84 02:21:29 EDT
References: <4061@fortune.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J.
Lines: 41

>      I would like to know why straight people always think of males when
> they speak of homosexuals?  Lesbians are homosexuals too you know!
>      Most of the articles I read in the news papers and on the net usually
> refer to male homosexual behavior, but the word "homosexual" itself does not
> mean "male". 
>      Take for example AIDS.  Now that is a male homosexual disease, but until
> recently, most of the articles didn't point that out.  People always say the
> words "faggot" and "queen" when they're trying to be smart.  I'm not a faggot
> or a queen, but I am a homosexual.  Get my point?

It's related to the notion that men is *supposed* to mean "men" and/or "men and
women", that he is *supposed* to mean "he/she" on occasion, etc.  The
linguistic purists will be quick to claim that using masculine words as
pseudo-neutral nouns and pronouns is an accepted part of English language.
Yet one can see the results of this.  Since "he", when used to mean "he or she"
(unknown third person neutral), is often thought by the listener to mean just
what the word implies ("he", a third person male), androcentric assumptions
abound when other words (like "homosexual") are heard by such listeners.
Naturally (?) they assume the speaker is talking about male homosexuals, or
else the speaker would have specifically said "female homosexuals", right?
("Assume the speaker means male if no gender is specified.")  This is why
many people push for job descriptions free of gender bias (fireFIGHTER,
police OFFICER, instead of fireMAN, policeMAN), precisely to avoid having
people assume that they refer to males.  Insisting that "a policeman can
be a woman" doesn't hold much water if people interpret the word (even
subconsciously) to mean policeMAN.  Notice that even a word like homosexual
(which one would think is neutral in gender implication content) gets
interpreted to mean "male homosexual".  (Thus it may not be just in
particular words like "fireman", but in ingrained conditioned assumptions that
if no gender is specified, we're talking about males.)

Also, of course, there are other factors.  (Like assuming that the words
homosexual and lesbian are mutually exclusive.  I seem to remember that a
lot of homosexual organizations refer to themselves as the "Gay & Lesbian ..."
specifically to make sure that lesbians are included.)  But if you think about
it, it all boils down to large groups of people assuming that if you say a
word that may not even have ANY gender implication, you're implying "males".
-- 
WHAT IS YOUR NAME?			Rich Rosen
WHAT IS YOUR NET ADDRESS?		pyuxn!rlr
WHAT IS THE CAPITAL OF ASSYRIA?		I don't know that ...  ARGHHHHHHHH!