|
Korean Job Discussion Forums "The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
View previous topic :: View next topic |
Author |
Message |
Zackback
Joined: 05 Nov 2010 Location: Kyungbuk
|
Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 2:20 pm Post subject: Saying "freshman" is sexist...don't say it. |
|
|
No matter what they call them I still love those that enter their first year of college/university.
Anyway, don't call them freshman anymore...in certain places.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/washington-state-gets-rid-sexist-language-162549523.html
In Washington state, the word "freshman" is out. And "first-year student" is in. In total, 40,000 words have been changed as part of an effort to rid state statutes of gender-biased language.
The bill, signed into law earlier in the year by Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee, went into effect this week.
And it was no small task. "This was a much larger effort than I had envisioned. Mankind means man and woman," Democratic state Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles of Seattle told Reuters.
"Fisherman" is now a "fisher." "Penmanship" is called "handwriting." And "manhole cover" is, well, still "manhole cover." Some words don’t have an easy replacement.
Others do: "His" is now “his and hers.” "Clergyman" is now "clergy." "Journeyman plumber" is now “journey-level plumber,” according to the Daily Mail.
According to Reuters, Washington is the fourth state to officially remove gender-biased language from the law. Others are Florida, North Carolina and Illinois. Nine other states are considering similar gender-neutral laws.
"Words matter," Liz Watson, a National Women's Law Center senior adviser, told Reuters. "This is important in changing hearts and minds."
France recently officially banned the term "mademoiselle" from official documents. The Gallic term means "miss," and French officials contended it forced women to acknowledge their marital status.
The French also bid adieu to "maiden name," which they dismissed as "archaic." They should know: Paris only recently got rid of a law that banned women from wearing pants. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
|
Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 3:15 pm Post subject: |
|
|
"Journey-level plumber?" Good to see feminism still has so many important battles to fight.
Regarding "his or hers," I'm willing to be reasonable: I advocate for "their" to be usable as a gender-neutral third person singular (along with "they" and "them" of course). |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Leslie Cheswyck
Joined: 31 May 2003 Location: University of Western Chile
|
Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 4:45 am Post subject: |
|
|
What will this do to Buddhism? |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
|
Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 5:44 am Post subject: |
|
|
This kind of legislation is really lazy. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
sirius black
Joined: 04 Jun 2010
|
Posted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 11:21 am Post subject: |
|
|
What about 'history'? What do we call a 'mannequin'? And the female cadets at the Naval Academy are no longer 'Midshipmen'?
And a 'man-o'war' is now called what? And we can no longer say 'Oh boy!' as an expression? A 'cowboy' is now what? |
|
Back to top |
|
|
nicwr2002
Joined: 17 Aug 2011
|
Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 11:22 pm Post subject: |
|
|
This sounds eerily similar to "Newspeak" where they keep getting rid of words to force people to forget how to think. Then they just cover it up by saying they are getting rid of the words in the name of sexism. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Titus
Joined: 19 May 2012
|
Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 6:37 am Post subject: |
|
|
nicwr2002 wrote: |
This sounds eerily similar to "Newspeak" where they keep getting rid of words to force people to forget how to think. Then they just cover it up by saying they are getting rid of the words in the name of sexism. |
The system is a combination of Huxley and Orwell. Why pick one, the elite decided. We're now receiving a monthly Two Minutes of Hate too. We are in a slow moving Bolshevik Revolution. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
chellovek
Joined: 29 Feb 2008
|
Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 9:28 am Post subject: |
|
|
nicwr2002 wrote: |
This sounds eerily similar to "Newspeak" where they keep getting rid of words to force people to forget how to think. Then they just cover it up by saying they are getting rid of the words in the name of sexism. |
I thought Linguistic Determninism was somewhat contested? (The idea that one's range of thought is significantly affected by language) Thought is not constrained by language, the concept of "a female student studying in her first year of university" will still exist whether the term "freshman" is used or not. All they've done is try to ban the word, they can't ban the concept. People will still see first year university students and think "niiiiccce".
Also, Newspeak isn't real, it was literary device used to dramatically illustrate a polititcal point raised in a fictional story. So don't sweat it (wo)man.
Last edited by chellovek on Sun Jul 07, 2013 9:31 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
Back to top |
|
|
chellovek
Joined: 29 Feb 2008
|
Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 9:29 am Post subject: |
|
|
Titus wrote: |
The system is a combination of Huxley and Orwell. Why pick one, the elite decided. We're now receiving a monthly Two Minutes of Hate too. We are in a slow moving Bolshevik Revolution. |
Yes, "Peace, Land, Bread, and the end of sexist language" was indeed the rallying slogan of Bolshevism. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
NovaKart
Joined: 18 Nov 2009 Location: Iraq
|
Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 9:41 am Post subject: |
|
|
Replacing penmanship seems especially idiotic to me, even though a reasonable 2nd option exists. Does the man actually refer to a man? |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Titus
Joined: 19 May 2012
|
Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 1:23 pm Post subject: |
|
|
chellovek wrote: |
Titus wrote: |
The system is a combination of Huxley and Orwell. Why pick one, the elite decided. We're now receiving a monthly Two Minutes of Hate too. We are in a slow moving Bolshevik Revolution. |
Yes, "Peace, Land, Bread, and the end of sexist language" was indeed the rallying slogan of Bolshevism. |
The Bolsheviks did demand that revolutionary language be used. Their goal, like the modern Bolshevik goal, was to completely destroy the family and everything else from the previous order. To destroy the family it is necessary to destroy concepts of familial roles and this is achieved through propaganda and laws. Peace, land and bread were in no way/shape/form goals of the Bolshevik revolution.
Don't take my word for it.
Lev Davidovich Bronstein (aka Trotsky), the Bolshevik's Bolshevik, lamenting Stalin's removal of Bolshevism from the Soviet Union:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch07.htm
Quote: |
The revolution made a heroic effort to destroy the so-called “family hearth” – that archaic, stuffy and stagnant institution in which the woman of the toiling classes performs galley labor from childhood to death. The place of the family as a shut-in petty enterprise was to be occupied, according to the plans, by a finished system of social care and accommodation: maternity houses, creches, kindergartens, schools, social dining rooms, social laundries, first-aid stations, hospitals, sanatoria, athletic organizations, moving-picture theaters, etc. The complete absorption of the housekeeping functions of the family by institutions of the socialist society, uniting all generations in solidarity and mutual aid, was to bring to woman, and thereby to the loving couple, a real liberation from the thousand-year-old fetters. Up to now this problem of problems has not been solved. The forty million Soviet families remain in their overwhelming majority nests of medievalism, female slavery and hysteria, daily humiliation of children, feminine and childish superstition. We must permit ourselves no illusions on this account. For that very reason, the consecutive changes in the approach to the problem of the family in the Soviet Union best of all characterize the actual nature of Soviet society and the evolution of its ruling stratum.
It proved impossible to take the old family by storm – not because the will was lacking, and not because the family was so firmly rooted in men’s hearts. On the contrary, after a short period of distrust of the government and its creches, kindergartens and like institutions, the working women, and after them the more advanced peasants, appreciated the immeasurable advantages of the collective care of children as well as the socialization of the whole family economy. Unfortunately society proved too poor and little cultured. The real resources of the state did not correspond to the plans and intentions of the Communist Party. You cannot “abolish” the family; you have to replace it. The actual liberation of women is unrealizable on a basis of “generalized want.” Experience soon proved this austere truth which Marx had formulated eighty years before. |
America is a slow moving Bolshevik revolution. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
transmogrifier
Joined: 02 Jan 2012 Location: Seoul, South Korea
|
Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 11:05 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I'm sure we've discussed this before. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
yodanole
Joined: 02 Mar 2003 Location: La Florida
|
Posted: Tue Jul 09, 2013 4:23 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I suggest "manhole cover" be replaced with "buttplug". |
|
Back to top |
|
|
KimchiNinja
Joined: 01 May 2012 Location: Gangnam
|
Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 9:11 pm Post subject: Re: Saying "freshman" is sexist...don't say it. |
|
|
Zackback wrote: |
In Washington state, the word "freshman" is out. And "first-year student" is in. In total, 40,000 words have been changed as part of an effort to rid state statutes of gender-biased language. |
Washington state is total Fem-Nazi land. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
rollo
Joined: 10 May 2006 Location: China
|
Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 9:33 am Post subject: |
|
|
I feel much safer now!! |
|
Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|