tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9215117687149149963.post60657108207029569..comments2023-10-31T05:06:08.839-07:00Comments on Reality Apologetics: Gender Neutrality and LanguageJonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09594949524027204661noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9215117687149149963.post-77636024022857544522008-02-29T16:01:00.000-08:002008-02-29T16:01:00.000-08:00Remarkably, having said all that, I don't even lab...Remarkably, having said all that, I don't even label myself a liberal. I would call myself a "social libertarian," I strongly believe the law has no place distinguishing between male and female, black and white, gay and straight, and so on. I find the juxtaposition of my position against your position amusing considering you self-label as a liberal and I do not. Hmmm.RaplhCramdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02582705522624090052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9215117687149149963.post-38090017848486686762008-02-29T15:56:00.000-08:002008-02-29T15:56:00.000-08:00I think you dismiss the original meaning of "all m...I think you dismiss the original meaning of "all men are created equal" too easily. Way too easily. Men may have been endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, but until the last century the men with penises got to vote and the men with vaginas did not. And the men without penises only got these rights that all men have by having it explicitly specified that men with penises as a separate class (women) did legally have those rights. <BR/><BR/>The distinctions between men with penises and men without penises persist to this day quite oppressively in societies ranging from Saudi Arabia (where only men with penises can drive and where a man without a penis needs the permission of a man with a penis to leave) to Afghanistan (where men without penises would be beaten by men with pensises if they went out without very full body coverings and where education for men without penises was very much more unusual than education for men with pensises) to many places in Africa, where men without penises routinely have their little mini-penises cut right off! while men with regular penises get to keep their junk. <BR/><BR/>If we could teach and learn "all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights" for hundreds of years without ever wondering why it only seemed to actually apply to men with penises, then I think we can safely say in real life usage that "men" meant something quite different from "people" or "humans." <BR/><BR/>I am a red-blooded heterosexual american male, happy to view pornography and visit strip clubs, happy to hold doors open somewhat more readily for women than men, and do all these other sexist things. But I am also an engineer, a former professor, and perhaps most importantly, and old guy (50). I KNOW how much stronger male/female stereotyping as a directive thing was in my own lifetime, from school dress codes forbidding pants to men without penises (had to wear dress or skirt) to 99.99% male professions all over the place like my father's engineering floor at Grumman Aerospace. <BR/><BR/>I find it more helpful to think not so much of morally wrong or right in using "man" to sometimes mean all men, other times only men with penises, but rather to think of where we are and where we would like to go. For every Berkeley where brilliant women and men do what they want with effectively no outside constraints based on sex, there are 20 hispanic, moslem, or a host of other households where the allowed behavior for women is QUITE different from that allowed for men. <BR/><BR/>Interestingly, as society has changed to be less sexist, the language has evolved itself, so that many people now DO use "they" and "them" for the 3rd person singular gender neutral pronoun. What better evidence that it does matter and that "man" means "humans with penises" and not "humans" than that in real life, people move the language to reflect the usage they want all on their own, without waiting for the academics to lead them. <BR/><BR/>Have a good one,<BR/>MikeRaplhCramdenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02582705522624090052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9215117687149149963.post-32205522130095534482008-02-28T15:48:00.000-08:002008-02-28T15:48:00.000-08:00....that's what she said!....that's what she said!Jonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09594949524027204661noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9215117687149149963.post-66320522687533478912008-02-28T12:08:00.000-08:002008-02-28T12:08:00.000-08:00I figured someone would say that. Like I said in ...I figured someone would say that. Like I said in the post, I think that that's actually rather irrelevant--the historical context in which the word was created, or even the way the word was used 250 years ago, doesn't seem to matter to the current discussion. The feminist point is that we need to get rid of any apparent gender-reference in language right now, because it's adding to the oppression of women right now. My point is that, no matter how it might have begun, 'all men are created equal' now means something gender neutral to most people, meaning that the symbol 'men' in that sentence is functioning differently than it is in 'all men have beards.' Like you said, today we use it to mean 'all of us are created equal;' that's what matters.Jonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09594949524027204661noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9215117687149149963.post-31917229884209657372008-02-28T10:08:00.000-08:002008-02-28T10:08:00.000-08:00That's all very well and good, and I completely ag...That's all very well and good, and I completely agree that the campaign for gender neutrality in language is useless, not to mention something that only English-speaking feminists could have cooked up, (English being the least gender-dependent language in its family). Try taking gender out of Spanish language and you'll just confuse the shit out of yourself, not to mention the hell of a time you'll have deciding if it's sexist that the word for "skirt" is feminine while the word for "dress" is masculine--gender in language is something that, regardless of whether it was arbitrarily assigned in the beginning, has become random through time and usage. <BR/><BR/>However, you've made one true patriarchal faux pas, and that is to assume that when the statement "all men are created equal" was written, it referred in the least to women. It's true that I wouldn't presume to attack the crafters of this great statement; however, I think the best credit we can give them is to assume that they honestly intended to say that among men, all men are equal, and among women, all women are equal, but never that women might be equal to men in any area. In a sense, perhaps we are okay with the "separate but equal" philosophy of gender equality; however, I do not think that even that was the concept rooted behind "all men are created equal." It was an idealistic statement shrouded in the shortsightedness of the era; this is why we must both recognize its shortsightedness while also being able to use it today to understand that it really means that "all of us are created equal."Bughttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17755997814928981740noreply@blogger.com