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Saying "freshman" is sexist...don't say it.
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Zackback



Joined: 05 Nov 2010
Location: Kyungbuk

PostPosted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 2:20 pm    Post subject: Saying "freshman" is sexist...don't say it. Reply with quote

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.
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Fox



Joined: 04 Mar 2009

PostPosted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 3:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

"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).
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Leslie Cheswyck



Joined: 31 May 2003
Location: University of Western Chile

PostPosted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 4:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

What will this do to Buddhism?
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Kuros



Joined: 27 Apr 2004

PostPosted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 5:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This kind of legislation is really lazy.
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sirius black



Joined: 04 Jun 2010

PostPosted: Fri Jul 05, 2013 11:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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?
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nicwr2002



Joined: 17 Aug 2011

PostPosted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 11:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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.
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Titus



Joined: 19 May 2012

PostPosted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 6:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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.
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chellovek



Joined: 29 Feb 2008

PostPosted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 9:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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
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chellovek



Joined: 29 Feb 2008

PostPosted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 9:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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.
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NovaKart



Joined: 18 Nov 2009
Location: Iraq

PostPosted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 9:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Replacing penmanship seems especially idiotic to me, even though a reasonable 2nd option exists. Does the man actually refer to a man?
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Titus



Joined: 19 May 2012

PostPosted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 1:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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.
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transmogrifier



Joined: 02 Jan 2012
Location: Seoul, South Korea

PostPosted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 11:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm sure we've discussed this before.
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yodanole



Joined: 02 Mar 2003
Location: La Florida

PostPosted: Tue Jul 09, 2013 4:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I suggest "manhole cover" be replaced with "buttplug".
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KimchiNinja



Joined: 01 May 2012
Location: Gangnam

PostPosted: Wed Jul 10, 2013 9:11 pm    Post subject: Re: Saying "freshman" is sexist...don't say it. Reply with quote

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.
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rollo



Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: China

PostPosted: Thu Jul 11, 2013 9:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I feel much safer now!!
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