Forced to use (gender) language conventions in university

[innonimatu]

Imagine being so hateful that you actually refer to calling people by the pronouns they want to be called as a "virus"

Who are "they", how many are "they", and why haven't "they" ever talked to be about it or asked me about how I want to use language before attempting to redefine it? "They" are better than me and get exclusive right to decide on it?

I so see some hatefulness at work here, it just doesn't seem to come from me...

 

[Lexicus]

Who are "they",

People who don't conform to the gender binary, in one way or another.

 

[innonimatu]

And why should I turn the entire corpus of the language confusing (I gave one example of the use of "actor" for women, instead of actress, in a news piece about sexual harassment) just for the sake of a handful of people? Language is a shared medium, as with everything else in life that is shared, someone must be left unsatisfied. I don't see why it should be the many for the sake of the very few. What about all the people who want to have the language acknowledge their gender binary, whatever it is? Are they lesser people than those who oppose the use of gender in language?

Eliminating gender in language is as absolutely unreasonable demand. And, unsurprisingly, it is being treated as such.

 

[Arent11]

Imagine being so hateful that you actually refer to calling people by the pronouns they want to be called as a "virus"

He called the attempts of injecting language into academia a virus, not the people who want to be called by their pronouns. Your accusation is especially vacuous as this is not even about personal pronouns, it's about nouns that these activists say must be made gender neutral for one reason or another. As such, the metaphor is actually very fitting, as that is exactly what viruses do, injecting themselves into cells to alter the "code", in this case language, that is being produced by them.

You should apologize for your unfounded accusation.

But that is the point. Don't think it will stop with language. Next, they will demand that you vote for the right party, dress the right way, think the right thoughts. And if you don't, they will whine that you "hate" transgender people. And then, they will have a pretense to give you bad grades, fire you or beat you up - not because you didn't obey their orders, but because you are "hateful"

It's clever, isn't it? I really admire them for their cleverness, I would just hope they were less evil.

What about languages which don't have gender, e.g. Finnish, Hawaiian?

English has words for male and female because Proto-Indo-European developed syntactic forms to distinguish between three morphological paradigms. Nothing more nothing less.

A better argument would be a language that has no word for male or female. Shouldn't there be some language, where, maybe, the words "man" and "woman" are the same & the difference only designated by context? If not, that would be an argument in my favor. If there is - and such languages are common - that would be an argument in your favor.

 

[Lexicus]

But that is the point. Don't think it will stop with language. Next, they will demand that you vote for the right party, dress the right way, think the right thoughts. And if you don't, they will whine that you "hate" transgender people. And then, they will have a pretense to give you bad grades, fire you or beat you up - not because you didn't obey their orders, but because you are "hateful"

It's clever, isn't it? I really admire them for their cleverness, I would just hope they were less evil.

This is utterly loony paranoid fantasy

someone must be left unsatisfied.

I just think being "left unsatisfied" by having to refer to people they way they want to be referred to is a fundamentally misanthropic, mean-spirited position to take. How would you like it if I started calling you "jackass" instead of "him"? There is absolutely no reason for me to do that, it's just gratuitous nastiness. Similarly using people's pronouns when they ask you to is basic courtesy.

 

[innonimatu]

I just think being "left unsatisfied" by having to refer to people they way they want to be referred to is a fundamentally misanthropic, mean-spirited position to take. How would you like it if I started calling you "jackass" instead of "him"? There is absolutely no reason for me to do that, it's just gratuitous nastiness. Similarly using people's pronouns when they ask you to is basic courtesy.

So you agree that we should keep using "him" and "her"? If someone wants to declare a new gender outside the existing ones, fine by me. Make up a new word, I don't mind the addition to the lexicon. Just don't try to forbid me from using those that already exist and are appropriate, when they are appropriate.
The issue here, I should remind, was a demand that new words be used everywhere, superseding the existing ones.

 

[Lexicus]

The issue here, I should remind, was a demand that new words be used everywhere, superseding the existing ones.

Ah, that's a bit different. I, too, find that to be a bit much. But I have absolutely no patience for anyone in a specific situation who is asked to use pronouns to refer to some specific person or group of people and refuses to do so.

 

[sophie]

A better argument would be a language that has no word for male or female. Shouldn't there be some language, where, maybe, the words "man" and "woman" are the same & the difference only designated by context? If not, that would be an argument in my favor. If there is - and such languages are common - that would be an argument in your favor.

That's...literally what I just said. Neither of those languages distinguish between genders. ia can mean "he", "she" or "it". ipo means both boyfriend and girlfriend, etc. This isn't even that rare of a phenomenon in linguistics. None of the languages from the Austronesian, Uralic, or Turkic language families have gender. The Swahili language distinguishes between 18 different noun classes (genders, if you will), and none of those noun classes are tied to sexual gender. If a language does have gender, it's because their parent language did, and in the case of IE languages, that came about as a result of the need to create abstract forms resulting in a splitting of the inanimate class into two morphological paradigms.¹ It's also worth noting, that one notable exception exists in the IE family, viz. Hittite, in which there is only masculine and neuter genders; no feminine.

I mean, the IE languages also originally distinguished between singular, dual, and plural. It's understandable why it might develop - we have two arms, two eyes, two legs, two hands, and two birth-parents, but that doesn't mean that the dual form is an intrinsic, natural, or necessary function of every language system everywhere.

¹An example of how this might work: opus (gen. operis) = artistic work. opera = plural form. New art form develops in which writing (story) and music and stage design are fused into one whole, opera (gen. operum). What do you do if you want to talk about more than one opera though? You invent a new noun class in which -a is the singular, and then develop endings that follow the same paradigmata of the other two classes.

 

[Akka]

This is utterly loony paranoid fantasy

Actually, that's pretty much spot-on. That's exactly the vibes I get from people who want to dictates their point of view right into every aspect of society, including the very fabric of the language.

 

[Synobun]

I'm skeptical about the legitimacy of anything outside the gender binary and am fully willing to admit to that, and even to acknowledge that this probably puts me on the wrong side of history if the 2010s are anything to go by.

That being said, I think it is silly to believe that efforts to remove gender from language where it is not needed is akin to the foundations of a dystopia where you get sent to the gulags if you misgender someone. That this will somehow lead to authoritarianism of the highest degree that will function solely to oppress the innocent cis seems to align fairly well with Lexicus' claim that this is a product of incoherent paranoia.

You lose nothing if these changes are enacted, and there is no reason to believe that accommodating these changes will lead to a doubleplusungood society.

 

[Akka]

As I've said often, it's about the thought process first and foremost. When one wants to control your thoughts, the limitation from morality is already gone, the only limitation comes from how much (or how little) actual power he has.

 

[Senethro]

That’s such a low threshold off thought control that advertising and public education sail way over it. I doubt you homeschooled your children so why regard transgender people and their pronouns as nefarious?

 

[Hrothbern]

Somehow I think this degenderising of language, will follow at some distance the slow but so far unstoppable emancipation of women, and gender liberation.

" The Church of Sweden is urging its clergy to use gender-neutral language when referring to the supreme deity, refraining from using terms such as “Lord” and “he” in favour of the less specific “God.”
The move is one of several taken by the national Evangelical Lutheran church in updating a 31-year-old handbook setting out how services should be conducted in terms of language, liturgy, hymns and other aspects.
The decision was taken on Thursday at the end of an eight-day meeting of the church’s 251-member decision-making body, and takes effect on 20 May on the Christian holiday of Pentecost.
A former state church, headquartered in Uppsala, some 37 miles north of the capital, the church has 6.1 million baptised members in a country of 10 million. It is headed by a woman, Archbishop Antje Jackelén".

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...sweden-to-stop-referring-to-god-as-he-or-lord

 

[warpus]

" The Church of Sweden is urging its clergy to use gender-neutral language when referring to the supreme deity, refraining from using terms such as “Lord” and “he” in favour of the less specific “God.”

Our Thing, Which art in heaven
Hallowed be Thy Genitals;
Thy privilege come,
Thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily pronouns,
and forgive us our microaggressions,
as we forgive those who trigger against us;
and lead us not into appropriation,
but deliver us from oppression.

A*mxn.

 

[The_J]

Actually, that makes some sort of sense, given that both male and female were created according to the image of god.
So cannot really refer to this deity as a male.

 

[warpus]

Actually, that makes some sort of sense, given that both male and female were created according to the image of god.
So cannot really refer to this deity as a male.

Didn't God create man in his image first, and then created woman out of one of man's ribs when God realized that man was bored?

 

[Gori the Grey]

That's one of the stories. J is referencing the other.

 

[Arent11]

Somehow I think this degenderising of language, will follow at some distance the slow but so far unstoppable emancipation of women, and gender liberation.

" The Church of Sweden is urging its clergy to use gender-neutral language when referring to the supreme deity, refraining from using terms such as “Lord” and “he” in favour of the less specific “God.”
The move is one of several taken by the national Evangelical Lutheran church in updating a 31-year-old handbook setting out how services should be conducted in terms of language, liturgy, hymns and other aspects.
The decision was taken on Thursday at the end of an eight-day meeting of the church’s 251-member decision-making body, and takes effect on 20 May on the Christian holiday of Pentecost.
A former state church, headquartered in Uppsala, some 37 miles north of the capital, the church has 6.1 million baptised members in a country of 10 million. It is headed by a woman, Archbishop Antje Jackelén".

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...sweden-to-stop-referring-to-god-as-he-or-lord

Well, I would actually not be opposed to call god "it", if it were done for religious reasons, since he is a "spirit". I'm just not sure whether that's actually the case here.

 

[Camikaze]

My church growing up would interchange 'he' and 'she' at random when referring to God. It was nothing to do with gender politics, and everything to do with rejecting an 'old man in the sky' theology.

Eliminating gender in language is as absolutely unreasonable demand. And, unsurprisingly, it is being treated as such.

Eliminating gender in language is quite a different proposition to eliminating gender in the English language. Which are we talking about?

 

[Kyriakos]

People who don't conform to the gender binary, in one way or another.

All this terminology sounds rather cyberpunk to me; as if we are part of Beneath a Steel Sky

Didn't God create man in his image first, and then created woman out of one of man's ribs when God realized that man was bored?

Yes. The jewish religion never was much for humanism anyway.