House language now gender neutral
This made me really happy today.
In its new package of rule changes, the House has finally decided to make its official language gender neutral, recognizing the growing representation of women in Congress (including as Speaker of the House). Gone are references to "he," "chairman," and phrases such as "his duties."
I'm literally giddy. Melissa breaks down why this is so important:
[A]n inevitable effect of regarding "male" as the Norm is regarding "female" as the Other. Every time we engage in the little, unimportant thing of male-universal language, we are reinforcing the very foundation of inequality upon which the entire structure of institutional sexism rests.
In short, language matters.
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Amen. AMEN!!! Have I said "amen" yet? This is fantastic news.
Next up, remove all references to God as male.
Or, just remove all references to God...
Great news about the language change!
I think it's amusing how often right-wingers try to paint language as something we shouldn't care about (in the case of using gender neutral language), but then turn around and cite "language" and "redefining words" as why gay marriage shouldn't be legal.
Besides, if it *really* didn't matter which word to use, why not just use "she" or "-woman" everywhere, then? Even when talking about men?
this is great. I would like to hear people stop calling women and girls, guys. How about folks? or everyone? just stop with guys, hey guys. Boys would never accept hey gals - or hey girls. Stop with GUYS! It makes makes everyone who is not a guy - invisible.
Y'all also works. :)
I love referring to people as "folk". Reminds me of Firefly.I love referring to people as "folk". Reminds me of Firefly.
Well that was odd.
I'm trying to get "guys" out of my system. I am trying to use "you all" instead, where applicable. I don't want to say "y'all" because it sounds like I'm trying to be southern and/or hip-hop.
I'm with Zoe on that, it's
trully annoying and even
worse when older women and
young girls seem to use it
equally to themselves..
Lately, I've been hearing
people reffer to OBJECTS
as "those guys over there"
and "these guys"..Geez :)
I didn't know the language wasn't gender-neutral yet otherwise I would have been up in arms about it! Thank goodness it's changed. It's a huge pet peeve of mine when people don't use gender neutral terms in contexts when they should and it's infuriating when people think you're being too "PC" when you point it out.
I'm working at the second women's organization in DC where some of the older women still use terms like "congressmen" to refer to all members of congress. Has anyone else faced this? It's tiring to try to educate not only the masses but also women who I think would know better.
Hello from Tennessee, where one of our House Members refers to herself as "Congressman."
http://blackburn.house.gov
!!!
I'm surprised she's referred to as a "her" and "she" in her bio instead of "him" and "he" :)
I will be very, very glad when I no longer vote from an address (my parents', and my old one) within Blackburn's district. Her security there makes voting for that seat feel sort of useless.
Where in Tennessee are you?
I think this is great, but I'm a little confused about how "such" works in place of "his." (What's wrong with the singular "they"?) Can someone provide an example of how that would work/sound?
I think it's in that context. It refers to certain sections. We'd probably have to know what the proper form of the bill is to fully understand.
I went over to the link and there was the example of "his responsibilities," which would make sense as "such responsibilities."
I am so excited about this!!! Wonderful. And yes, "you guys" has to go...there are so many other options, it's such an easy fix.
An even better solution is going back to Old English-style gender-naming, where the word "werman" represented male, "wifman" represented female, and "man," short for "human" was synonymous with "person." Hence any instance of the suffix "man" would be truly gender-neutral. It's really striking the root of the issue of male-dominance influencing language once you realize this, much like the influence of religiousness on English (see http://www.creationtheory.org/Morality/AtheistMorality.xhtml ), even if it's not a practical solution. It's even more appealing when you realize other languages have gender-neutral pronouns (I think German is one of them)
This webpage was pretty insightful on the subject: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~cjacobso/gender.htm
(German isn't, but for example Finnish is. Everyone is "hän". [haen])
We do need gender neutral words. But man isn't necessarily derived from the word human. If you trace it back to its Sanskrit/Hindu root -Manu-it's the name of a male father figure. Even if it was a gender neutral term at one time, it's too late to remove the male association and return to that usage today. For more info, see my essay on this at
http://www.academinist.org/mp/mp_archive/archive/march05/amp025.html
this is wonderful news !
congratulations !!
Hooray!!!