Apathy and Political correctness
Exerpts of messages I wrote on this issue on my bbs
political correctness
Thu Feb 23 15:23:00 1995
A thought I hear expressed a lot is that "Aw geeze, would ya lighten up!"
attitude ... I think it's mostly because of laziness ... uncaring ...whatever.
(apathy?).
Now you think I advocate using only the politically correct terms (well,
untill I said this line, which indicates that I don't) ... The politically
correct terms will not be politically correct within a month or so of writing
them ... 1) you can't keep up with knowing the correct ones 2) anything you
write will lose all sence of caring when your document goes from being
politically correct to politically incorrect ... so ... I can understand the
people that have the "hogwash on political correctness" idea.... although ... I
still don't agree with that as being a very nice way to be ..
I think the words are NOT what is important ... this does not mean I'm
going to rag on anyone using "s/he"'s in their speech ... what a whiney person
I'd be to whimper over that... It's "the thought that counts" idea I'm going
for here:
I notice it when I read a public article using only "he" as a pronoun ...
I don't feel angry at the author ... you can never use words that will endure
the test of time regarding political correctness ... but I feel a little down
that the "hogwash" approach was taken and there is no signs of even an ATTEMPT
at seeing that people won't feel negative while reading your article..
When I see that one or two line attempt at the beginning of an article "I
will use the pronoun 'he' in this article .. please take this to mean
everyone. It is just easier for me to type" ... and then the rest of the
document is written however the author feels most comofrtable, then I feel
"wow, what a nice thing to do" and it makes it the best article I've read all
day regardless of the content of the writen work just because it showed a
little caring (it's just showing that the person gives a damn about the
feelings of other humans... it's good to see that there ARE a few people on the
planet that do) ..and it made me feel happy...
hmm ..I don't know if i said everything i wanted to on the subject ...or very
clearly ... but there's always follow-up's to take care of that ...
The girl on the wall
Tue Feb 21 15:37:56 1995
>What's better then getting plastered and then laid, and even by the girl those
>guys are talkin' about on THE WALL. That'd be nice.
Normally I'd move this into the Pit and then rag on all the users ... but
I've mellowed a little ...
Although, talking about a female in this manner (esspecially when she doesn't
even call here to defend herself against you guys) REALLY bothers me .... but I
don't want to censor evrything just because it bother's ME ... (although, this
isn't really a democracy I'm trying to run here...I can do what I want when it
comes down to it ... but that's really the type of person I am) ....
I'll put it to this...there are many impressionable people on this bbs
(ie, everyone ... since we are all affected by our environment) ... if you do
not promote talking about females in this manner ...and don't like the idea
that people would get used to that if it was made a common way of talking
...then no one would think anything of saying how much they'd like to "stick
it" to your little sister .... THEN DON'T TALK LIKE THAT!!
of course ... maybe it's the anonymity thing ... I suppose I could help
get rid of the perverts that hide behind a cloak of shyness in public (ie, no
one would suspect it was them treating females that way), by just taking down
the wall .... Really, it should NOT be used for anything that is appropriate
only for the pit. (hey, this ISN'T party palace ... if you want to talk that
way, you should go there (and let Christian deal with these problems :))
anyway ... please try to treat people like humans ... Would you "big men"
talk the same way if she called here? Or maybe you would act really sensitive
like because you know that's what females like in a guy (whatever it takes to
get what you want eh?) ... I think this is how you show your true selves ...
Is this who you are?
gender neutral
Mon Feb 27 00:01:08 1995
Well, that looks like an extreme but there's one flaw i noticed in your
example. Your example was in french. The french language has completely lost
the abilitity for politically correct terms as far as gender goes because of
their masculine and feminie verbs.
Your example was with professions ... yes, that's annoying to read, in
that case I would have MUCH prefered to have them either chose masculine or
feminine (or whatever other option is available) and have the one sentance at
the beginning explaining that it is not intended to be sexist but it is too
hard to read otherwise.
In english we tried to make professions BECOME masculine and fminine in an
attempt to make the language more gender neutral before realising how backwards
a way of doing that we were trying (I think it was because of the little
"political correctness fear" initiated when hearing the word "man" in a word
... we jumped at 'policeman', garbage man ... and all the rest ... making a
policeWOMAN and so forth ..when, to achieve the desired goal, we should have
made it policePERSON right from the start ....
The weird little endings we throw on the end of words other then 'man'
were also dealt with ... actor/actris ... the word "man" isn't in there
anywhere ... so we don't need to change the original word to make it gender
neutral (unless the "or" means 'male' or 'female' or something and I'm just not
aware of it) ... so we just throw away the second term since it serves no
purpose other than to specify gender ...and that should be relevant, so out the
door with actris. (and all other terms that fall in that group)...
I know, this was all very obvious ... but I think there are a lot of people
that don't want to offend anyone and get exasperated with not knowing WHICH
term is the nice one .... well ... these terms will all be incorrect
eventually, ... but at least you'll be able to think about what is in a word
that makes it sound a little buggy if you havn't already noticed these things
before.
E-mail: emcinnis@hotmail.com
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