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niyad Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-16-08 03:14 PM
Original message
"gender neutral blues"


"Lems Kristin Talkin Gender Neutral Blues lyrics"

I was walkin down the street one day

Reading the signs that passed my way

And after a while I started to see

That none of those words referred to me...

Good will towards men, all men are created equal,

Praise Him!


Well I asked some friends if they agreed

That they felt left out in the things they read

They told me yes, and added some more

And soon we all felt pretty sore

You got your Congressman, spaceman, sideman....

But I never heard a no house husband!


Well some men came by and a fight began to grow:

"You girls are so dumb you just don't know,

These here are called "generic words"

They're meant to include both the bees and the birds."

Well gee fellas, how am I supposed to know?

I certainly don't feel included!


Ok said I, if that's so true,

I'll just use "woman" to cover the two

"It don't make a difference to us," they said

"If you wanna use woman, go right ahead."

I said, thanks, that's really sisterly of you

Glad to see you believe in sportswomanship!


"Now hold your horses," they started to cry.

I think I'll hold my mares, said I.

"You're leavin all of us guys behind."

Why no, we're all part of womankind.

So don't fret friends, take it like a woman

You'll get used to it, just like we all did!




There has been much discussion--and denial-about sexism, here and, good heavens, even in the media.
Today I am going to focus on one aspect of sexism--language.


During the third wave of the women's movement (60's and 70's), we spent a great deal of time and energy working on gender-neutral language, to replace the so-called "generic"--but always male--terms and expressions. "ChairMAN", "congressMAN", mailMAN", . . .man, . . . . man, . . ..man (feel free to fill in the blanks). There was even a commercial years ago that featured milk-giving cows with male voices. There was no term for a woman who did not wish to be identified by her marital status, until Ms.

Gradually, perception and language shifted, and we heard "chairPERSON", "congressPERSON" or "representative", "mail carrier", etc., and s/he. In recent years, however, I have noticed the return of male-oriented language, even in such esteemed places as the NYT. There are more examples every single day. Women are referred to by their marital status again, and women with titles such as "senator" do not have that honorific used. Think how many times you hear "Mrs. Clinton", rather than "Senator Clinton", although she is hardly the only one.

Think about how many words and phrases that describe or refer to women are used as insults-- "you throw like a girl", "that is girly", "sissy". The list goes on and on. Women are referred to as "ho's" and many other unflattering, insulting terms.

Language expresses our thoughts, our cultural imprints, our deepest biases. Pay attention. Open your ears, and your minds, it is all around you. Do NOT tell us to "be quiet", or that we are making it up, or to "get over it". Think about it.

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me b zola Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-16-08 03:53 PM
Response to Original message
1. K&R
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niyad Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-16-08 04:16 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. thank you
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Triana Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-16-08 08:13 PM
Response to Original message
3. Thank you! K & R (n/t)
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undergroundpanther Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-16-08 10:24 PM
Response to Original message
4. Gender stinks
I myself am not male nor am I female. I have been surgically altered to be myself,a person and not a damn gender..
Gender is to me, nothing but a cage, You a man OR a lady? Both are two ends of the same damn mental cage.A cage made of expectations, lies and illusions that end up CONTROLLING what a PERSON can and cannot be based on what is between thier legs!. From day one pick one it's pink or blue..and there nothing in between.Society is so hung up on what's between the legs,I think it's sickening, I think it's all about the domination system,division of labor,social control and I think it is time people just threw away the whole dumb game of gender and realized we are all just unique people.

There are gender neutral pronouns like.. Zir Zim,Zi and Zer

Read about the possibilities of a world without gender...


X: A Fabulous Child's Story — by Lois Gould © 1972

Once upon a time, a baby named X was born. This baby was named X so that nobody could tell whether it was a boy or a girl. Its parents could tell, of course, but they couldn't tell anybody else. They couldn't even tell Baby X, at first.

http://etransgender.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1850
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TahitiNut Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-16-08 10:31 PM
Response to Original message
5. Be thankful we don't speak German, French, Spanish, or other languages ...
... wherein EVERY noun has gender. :shrug:
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undergroundpanther Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-16-08 10:48 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. In latin
there are gender neutral prefixes and such. But predictably male was the default.
There are ridiculous uses of "man," as in the title of a research paper: "Development of the Uterus in Rats, Guinea Pigs, and Men." LOL!!
http://aetherlumina.com/gnp/

Non sexist writing..
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~cjacobso/gender.html
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/quizzes/nova/nova6.htm

Gender neutral baby names!
http://www.yeahbaby.com/popular-baby-names/article.php?page=144
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TalkingDog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-16-08 10:49 PM
Response to Original message
7. Oh, man up and stop being such a dick.
Big boys don't cry. You are tougher than that.


That knife cuts both ways.

And while the perception is that "they" are on top and in charge...they are forced to run the show from inside a very small cage.

Does that mean we ignore it? No. It means we react to it reasonably.

And a reasonable person has to question whether somebody who has been in a position of real power and wealth for most of their life can be the "victim" of sexism. A target of sexism, definitely.

But when one suggests that a powerful woman is a victim of sexism, you not only undercut her authority and power, you denegrate people who truly suffer the consequences of that mindset.

The victims of sexism in this instance are the children and adolescents who are learning from the media and their parents that because of their genitals they are victims, that they can only be victims no matter how strong, powerful or intelligent they are. Or because of their genitals they are not allowed to be soft and yeilding or scared or even subject to the leadership of someone who is allowed those things.

my $0.02

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seabeyond Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-16-08 10:52 PM
Response to Reply #7
8. "big boys dont cry" is said to a boy. "dont cry like a girl" is said to a boy.
Edited on Sat Feb-16-08 10:52 PM by seabeyond
just to state the obvious.

no one says to the girl, dont cry like a boy.....you throw like a boy...... ect.
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TalkingDog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Feb-17-08 12:59 AM
Response to Reply #8
9. not disagreeing with you here
I'm simply suggesting that females aren't the only people hurt by sexism.

To create division effectively, it is smarter to use different tactics in dealing with each group. If the same ideas are suggested to both sides they can see the obviousness of the ploy.

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glowing Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Feb-17-08 09:27 AM
Response to Original message
10. That was great.. Thank you.. This is one of the best ways that I have
heard it described.. and what I hate the most is women (we don't even get to divorce the men factor in our gender)who defend the system even more than their husbands.
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noamnety Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Feb-17-08 11:14 AM
Response to Original message
11. I have posted this before, but it is still one of my favorites
A paper demonstrating the effect of using pronouns, titles and suffixes to denote race instead of gender, with white always being the default.

A Person Paper on Purity in Language

... Most of the clamor, as you certainly know by now, revolves around the age-old usage of the noun "white" and words built from it, such as chairwhite, mailwhite, repairwhite, clergywhite, middlewhite, Frenchwhite, forewhite, whitepower, whiteslaughter, oneupwhiteship, straw white, whitehandle, and so on. The negrists claim that using the word "white," either on its own or as a component, to talk about all the members of the human species is somehow degrading to blacks and reinforces racism. Therefore the libbers propose that we substitute "person" everywhere where "white" now occurs. Sensitive speakers of our secretary tongue of course find this preposterous. There is great beauty to a phrase such as "All whites are created equal." Our forebosses who framed the Declaration of Independence well understood the poetry of our language. Think how ugly it would be to say "All persons are created equal," or "All whites and blacks are created equal." Besides, as any schoolwhitey can tell you, such phrases are redundant. In most contexts, it is self-evident when "white" is being used in an inclusive sense, in which case it subsumes members of the darker race just as much as fairskins.

There is nothing denigrating to black people in being subsumed under the rubric "white"-no more than under the rubric "person." After all, white is a mixture of all the colors of the rainbow, including black. Used inclusively, the word "white" has no connotations whatsoever of race. Yet many people are hung up on this point. A prime example is Abraham Moses, one of the more vocal spokeswhites for making such a shift. For years, Niss Moses, authoroon of the well-known negrist tracts A Handbook of Nonracist Writing and Words and Blacks, has had nothing better to do than go around the country making speeches advocating the downfall of "racist language" that ble objects to. But when you analyze bler objections, you find they all fall apart at the seams. Niss Moses says that words like "chairwhite" suggest to people-most especially impressionable young whiteys and blackeys-that all chairwhites belong to the white race. How absurd! It's quite obvious, for instance, that the chairwhite of the League of Black Voters is going to be a black, not a white. Nobody need think twice about it. As a matter of fact, the suffix "white" is usually not pronounced with a long "i" as in the noun "white," but like "wit," as in the terms saleswhite, freshwhite, penwhiteship, first basewhite, and so on. It's just a simple and useful component in building race-neutral words.

But Niss Moses would have you sit up and start hollering "Racism!" In fact, Niss Moses sees evidence of racism under every stone. Ble has written a famous article, in which ble vehemently objects to the immortal and poetic words of the first white on the moon, Captain Nellie Strongarm. If you will recall, whis words were: "One small step for a white, a giant step for whitekind." This noble sentiment is anything but racist; it is simply a celebration of a glorious moment in the history of White.

...

Another unlikely word has recently become a subject of controversy: "blackey." This is, of course, the ordinary term for black children (including teenagers), and by affectionate extension it is often applied to older blacks. Yet, incredible though it seems, many blacks-even teen-age blackeys-now claim to have had their "consciousness raised," and are voguishly skittish about being called "blackeys." Yet it's as old as the hills for blacks employed in the same office to refer to themselves as "the office blackeys," And for their superior to call them "my blackeys" helps make the ambiance more relaxed and comfy for all. It's hardly the mortal insult that libbers claim it to be. Fortunately, most blacks are sensible people and realize that mere words do not demean; they know it's how they are used that counts. Most of the time, calling a black-especially an older black-a "blackey" is a thoughtful way of complimenting bler, making bler feel young, fresh, and hirable again. Lord knows, I certainly wouldn't object if someone told me that I looked whiteyish these days!

...
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TalkingDog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Feb-17-08 12:59 PM
Response to Reply #11
12. Nits are so tiny. It's always a shame to pick them...
(The point of the article aside, as it makes valid assertions which are not in question.)

"After all, white is a mixture of all the colors of the rainbow, including black."

Technically, this is incorrect on so many levels.

White light is composed of a spectrum of colors which you see as individiual wavelenghts when they are separated by a prism. Black is not and cannot be included in that spectrum. Black, is not anything. It is the complete absence of light or color or wavelength (as far as that is physically possible).

While you can "create" white light by mixing all the spectrum colors, you can never achieve white light by including black. That's sort of like saying you can achieve pure water by pouring ink into it.

In pigment (as in paint or ink) the opposite is true. All the color approximations of the spectrum of colors in white light, when mixed together, create a "black" or at least a very muddy indistinct color.

You can never achieve white pigment by mixing any color pigments together anymore than you can achieve white light by including black.

Mixing the rainbow in light = White

Mixing the rainbow in pigment (or physical stuff) = Black.

Neither comes close to the assertion of the original author. The average reader may not know or care. I'd like to think that DU has above average readers.


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noamnety Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Feb-17-08 01:34 PM
Response to Reply #12
13. Within the context of the article
it's comparing "of course black people are included in whitekind (insert faulty logic)" to "of course women are included in mankind (insert faulty logic)".

I teach color theory - including hexidecimal color codes and why mixing red and green makes yellow - in my design courses. My partner here is an optical engineer. So yes, what you are saying is correct, I can confirm that, but probably an unnecessary diversion from the topic.
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TalkingDog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-18-08 09:02 AM
Response to Reply #13
15. Only off topic if the meaning and impact of words don't matter.
Your post suggests that using faulty logic creates faulty thinking. That this faulty thinking is reflected in our language (namely that: men and women, blacks and whites are not equal, but it doesn't matter because language has no real impact) and leads to groups of people suffering diminishment at the hands of others. And how pointing out the underlying meaning and real impact of words, pointing out faulty logic and faulty thinking can bring to these things to consciousness and help correct the underlying problem, to wit:

Words have impact and meaning. Using them arbitrarily allows people to justify certain types of faulty logic, thinking and behaviour that has negative effects on others even if that wasn't the original intent.

I thought that was the entire point of the discussion.

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nemo137 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Feb-18-08 04:31 AM
Response to Original message
14. it's a damn shame we lost the masculine prefix.
It used to be that XY-chomosome bearing people were wermen*, and XX-chromosome bearers were wifmen. We lost that, oh, say a millennium ago, and now we have this unfortunate imbalance where "man" means both human (the OE would be mancynn - "man-kin") and a male human.

I realize that complaining over the disappearance of Old English gender prefixes is crying over spilled milk, but it's no less silly** than opining that women are stuck with "man" in that word, and can't get rid of it.

Whoever said that taking Medieval lit was useless?

*yes, like werewolf.

**oddly enough, this one originally meant "blessed."
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