Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 02:02:53 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <200203140702.CAA08522@cathedral-seven.mit.edu>
From: Craig Fields <cfields@MIT.EDU>
To: lphelan@mit.edu
Cc: nutso-flaming-pikans@mit.edu
Subject: Re: your, by which i mean my, mom

Now, I would like some gender neutral pronouns as much as the next
<gn>, but it's hard not to notice the plethora of masculine nouns
promoted to that status in contrast to the dearth of feminine ones. In
fact, I don't think I've seen a single proposal for the promotion of a
feminine noun to neutral.*  Sure, there have been various atrocities
put forth, such as "hirs" for the possessive, but nothing decisively
feminine.

(*Perhaps I just don't hang out in the right circles.)

So it appears that the very efforts for the advance of an egalitarian
language have been doomed by their own sexism from the start; the
consistent preference for the masculine is telling. While in an ideal
world words with neither feminine nor masculine roots would be used
for this job, there are certain offenses of history that remain to be
reconciled.

So, as a small gesture to recognize these affronts, it seems
appropriate that some feminine noun _should_ be advanced to be used as
gender neutral. Indeed, with an appropriate choice of noun, perhaps
even some penance could be done.

For example, consider the noun "doll." Doll is not only frequently
used (in old movies anyway) to refer to a female, but also carries
undertones of objectification. To use it as a gender neutral could
simultaneously

	(a.) provide a fine gender neutral,
	(b.) subject males directly to the derogatory
	     connotations of being referred to as "doll," and
	(c.) slowly blunt the objectifying edge of the word.

Clearly this must be the right way to go, and I think that pika is
the perfect place to begin promoting it. So I would like to propose
this alternative to Luke's unilateral decision.

Bad					Sweet
"He played with dolls."			"Doll played with dolls."
"She is a general contractor."		"Doll is a general contractor."
"She is a history prof."		"Doll is a dudestory prof."
"He likes He-Man and She-Ra."		"Doll likes Doll-Doll and Doll-Ra."

etc.

So, dolls, go to it. And be nice to Luke's mom, or he (Luke) will kick
your ass.

Craig

-----

A few hours ago, Luke wrote:

dudes*:

(stuff removed)

be nice to my mom or i'll kick your ass,
puke

*i've decided that dude is gender neutral.  i don't want to hear anything
about its history, i'm familiar with any number of eytmologies. we need a
gender neutral pronouns and i am unilaterally deciding that dude is it.
you may freely use it in place of he or she now.  but not in place of it
as dude is for people only.

examples:

Bad                                     Sweet
"He played with dolls."                 "Dude played with dolls."
"She is a general contractor."          "Dude is a general contractor."
"She is a history prof."                "Dude is a dudestory prof."
"He likes He-Man and She-Ra."           "Dude likes Dude-Dude and Dude-Ra."