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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!decwrl!dyer@tau.DEC
From: dyer@tau.DEC
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Saying It Nicely
Message-ID: <280@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Sep-85 16:30:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.280
Posted: Tue Sep  3 16:30:56 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Sep-85 00:43:22 EDT
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Re: Saying It Nicely___________________________________________________________

>> [It is possible to perceive as sexist articles which say] things like "men
>> do <something>," or "men are <something>."
>> 	The use of the word "men" is ambiguous.  Does it mean *some* men or
>> does it mean *all* men?  The ambiguity is likely to lead to somebody being
>> offended on grounds of sexism.
>> 
>  As previous discussions here have indicated, the terms "man", "he", and
>  "his" are simultaneously representative of both men and women.  They are
>  also simultaneously representative of both the whole collection and any sub-
>  group thereof. . . . The term "men" is just as ambiguous about gender as it
>  is about number.  Why don't you support solving [its] gender ambiguity?

	Excuse me, but why do you say I don't support that?  The subject has
come up many times in this newsgroup (almost always leading into a rathole),
and every time it has, I've set forth my objections to the sexism implicit in
the male term and the generic term being the same.  (The most recent example
is my article "Nomenclature - Gay/Homosexual/Lesbian", posted to both net.motss
and net.women.)
	At any rate, your argument is meaningless.  You seem to be saying that
I shouldn't complain about the use of "men" to refer to "some men" without my
complaining about the use of "men" to refer to "men and women."  Two problems:
(1) as I just said, I *do* complain about the latter usage of the term; and (2)
the argument itself is completely _ad_hominum_ and irrelevant to the subject of
my original article.  (So let's not get into the nonsexist generics issue.  It
just isn't relevant to this subject and it often leads into a rathole, and this
newsgroup is stuck in too many of them right now.)  (For those of you who can't
resist posting about that subject anyway, START A NEW NOTE!  Again, it is com-
pletely irrelevant to this subject.)
	I am well aware that the term "men" can have two meanings:  "some men"
or "all men."  In fact, I said that in my article.  My point is that because it
is so ambiguous, it would behoove us to be more precise about what we write.
If we mean "some men," let's write "some men;" if we mean "all men," let's
write "all men."
	By the way, there is at least one other way of interpreting the term
"men."  People say that men {are|do} something and mean that all men are *sup-
posed* to {be|do} that something, but some of them {aren't|don't}.

> . . . I've indicated that in ANY case of dealing with stereotypes such as
> "men" or "masculine" which accounts for any (near)majority group of approx-
> imately HALF the entire population, that there OBVIOUSLY [has] to [be] MANY
> exceptions to the stereotype.

	When one uses ambiguous terms, nothing is obvious.  There is no short-
age of bigots who will say "{men|women} {are|do} this," and mean it for *all*
{men|women}.  Some bigots, confronted with evidence in conflict with their pre-
judices, opt for the "all are *supposed* to {be|do} this, but there are always
exceptions" approach.

> If I ever said "all men", I don't recall having done so.

	If I ever said that you said "all men," I don't recall having done so.

> Therefore, you may presume that rather than talking of half the population in
> toto, I'm referring to the generic average stereotypical representative.

	If you wish, I'll presume that.  But that's not going to stop other
netters - especially newcomers - from misinterpreting ambiguous prose.
	But who, pray tell, is the "generic average stereotypical represent-
ative?"

	I'll repeat my plea:  Let's be more precise with our terms and we can
avoid having our articles misunderstood as sexist (or, even worse, have such
a misunderstanding serve as reinforcement for others' sexism).
		<_Jym_>
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:: Jym Dyer :: {allegra|decvax|ihnp4}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-vaxuum!dyer ::
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