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From: desjardins@h-sc1.UUCP (marie desjardins)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: sexist language/bad attitudes
Message-ID: <309@h-sc1.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 29-Apr-85 19:01:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: h-sc1.309
Posted: Mon Apr 29 19:01:49 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 1-May-85 05:49:32 EDT
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Organization: Harvard Univ. Science Center
Lines: 25

> Tom West:
> 
> >   There are those who claim that 'he' is the gender neutral pronoun in the
> > English language.  They are, in a grammatical sense, correct.  The problem
> > comes with the people.  When the term 'he' is used, a *male* image is 
> > thought of, regardless of the fact that the term was supposed to be neutral.
>
> This is an example of the fairly sloppy post hoc egro propter hoc reasoning
> that seems to be becoming increasingly prevalent these days.  As Tom points
> out, studies have shown that "when the term 'he' is used, a *male* image
> is thought of".  So far, this merely establishes a correlation between the
> two events.  How one can infer, from this correlation, that there's some
> sort of causal connection between the two isn't clear to me.  

I postulate the following theory:  The use of the word 'he' as the gender
neutral pronoun came into use because the male was considered more 'typical'
of the species, not to mention more important.  Now, whether or not you
agree with this attitude, if this theory is correct, then that IS why you
use that pronoun.  I think that there is something wrong with this, and it
should be changed.

If you don't agree with this theory, I would like to see any alternatives
you may have.

	marie desjardins