"Equality" is complete bogus when it comes to masculine / feminine designations.

I just thought about something, after being called "She" and "Her" about a dozen times in an English conversation the other day with a couple people who are Chinese, with a weak command of the English language. (Nothing wrong with that, just pointing out the setting.)

In Chinese, people refer to others (His/Her/etc) as 她 or 佢 and possessives are simply 她的 or 佢嘅, but all of this is gender neutral.

Now, you can look up gender equality in China…

China is ranked in 101st place in the 2011 Human Development Index, with a score of 0.687; under the Gender Inequality Index, the country’s score is 0.209 (35th out of 146 countries) In the 2011 Global Gender Gap index, China is in 61st place (out of 135 countries), with a score of 0.6866.[10]

*
… but I imagine you will have a hard time finding where gender neutral designations have really helped anything. Since the language itself has no gender identifying word for his or her.

There are of course other words specific to gender.

But I think my point is that in the West people have been trying to obliterate "Waiter vs Waitress", "Actor vs Actress" claiming that it is going to make people somehow more equal. Eventually, his and her will become heris or hiser, or "thing" and what kind of equality does it give us, besides making everyone equally dumber to the same degree?

To note: 伙計 Waiter or waitress.

I imagine this is reflected in dozens of other languages as well. Do they to have this super equality everyone is seeking out?

reply to post by boncho


Interesting thread Boncho.

French:

www.french-linguistics.co.uk... in French are divided into two categories. With nouns in the first category, the word for the is le and for nouns in the second category it is la. The two categories are generally called masculine and feminine.

I'm only assuming that this is what you are referring to tho.

Peace

Indonesians and Malaysians do the same thing, not just the village folk but even those who haved studied overseas and speak English quite well.

Also past and present tenses get mixed up alot here.

I personally think it comes down to just being willfully annoying.
I mean cmon, they were able to learn Chinese which is fricken hard when they were babies, you tellin me they cant pick he/she him/her his/hers in the correct context?????

I don't think gender language will change for some time.

I think, however, things might start to change if ever we get to a developmental and social point where we can 3D print designer replacement bodies, either for fashion, or, for any reason.

When/if we get to a point where a question of Gender, Race, and even Species is an affected transient whim of style or preference, it throws the entire question of IDENTITY itself up for debate.

When is you YOU, and WHO or WHAT is YOU?



Fun stuff.

I see your point, and I d agree that this current obsession with PC gender equality in language is getting a little moronic. All languages have something to identify the individual with, some are gender specific while others are not. For me to take people seriously when they complain that something like actor/actress, waiter/waitress are unfair is asking a bit much. Sure, we could go with performers and servers. Our language is varied enough to do it, a lot of words hold multiple meanings and equally so (no pun intended) a lot of objects/subjects can be identified with various words as well. It doesn't mean the gender specific ones are bad, by any means. To me, what that tells me about the complainer is that there's something in their life very utterly lacking (maybe self esteem?) that they have to nitpick to oblivion & back. That's my take on it.

Yeah, yeah, English is very grandiose & convoluted sometimes, but we have a variety of words with which to get our points across. In that aspect, and to channel Martha Stewart, that's a good thing. Variety in words is like the color spectrum to me, it helps paint a better picture the more you have. To restrict it because someone's unhappy little heart desires unrelenting sameness is pretty vanilla, and therefore is damn boring. To hell with (most) half-arsed political correctness, enjoy life's verbal variety in all it's incarnations & utilize them to their fullest extent. Words are the brushes of our mind.

jude11
reply to post by boncho

 

Interesting thread Boncho.

French:

www.french-linguistics.co.uk... in French are divided into two categories. With nouns in the first category, the word for the is le and for nouns in the second category it is la. The two categories are generally called masculine and feminine.

I'm only assuming that this is what you are referring to tho.

Peace

Indeed. And the french are known for being progressives Oui?

I'm french and, the gender is really different from english...
EVERY object or "thing" has a gender. ex. table, chair, room, apple, flower, car, these words translated in french are all "feminine" things... and a pencil, tree, plane, engine, shirt, desk are all "masculine" things...

another difference is in the possession, in english, if a man "possesses" something you say "his", and you will say "her" for a woman.
In french, the possession is based on the "sex" of the object, using "sa" for a feminine object, and "son" for a masculine object.
exemple1: you are a man, and you got a chair(feminine object) so in french we will say: SA chaise
exemple2: you are a man, you got a pencil(masculine object, we will say: SON crayon

reply to post by IkNOwSTuff

I personally think it comes down to just being willfully annoying.
I mean cmon, they were able to learn Chinese which is fricken hard when they were babies, you tellin me they cant pick he/she him/her his/hers in the correct context?????

Yes, but have you ever seen how they learn English?



Mando speakers, especially ABCs with parents who came overseas, will crack up to this video.

I need an wobunengnsi 我不能死!

reply to post by boncho


They also love to put the cart before the horse as in; lets learn grammar and to read and write first then learn to speak. Doesn't help that the parents expect Jr. to be fluent in English within 30 days while only having one class a week for one hour. Then they do zero practice of their lessons at home.

It's not just gender that they have problems with, as you pointed out it is also with the tenses of past, present and future. This is not in the Chinese language as it is in English.

Trying to take a language that is gender specific and make it gender neutral removes a portion of the dynamics of the language itself. On the other hand trying to add gender to a language that has no provision for it does nothing but cause confusion.

reply to post by pstrron


The thread is more about the West and PC policies, than it is about English or the interpretation of.

The post with the video is just satire. Probably worthy of a separate thread… My bad.

reply to post by boncho


Quite true, that is why I mentioned the removal of gender also removes the dynamics.

PC has gotten so far out of hand it is unrecognizable form a form to help prevent inequality to the point of causing division and promoting it.

pstrron
reply to post by boncho

 

Quite true, that is why I mentioned the removal of gender also removes the dynamics.

PC has gotten so far out of hand it is unrecognizable form a form to help prevent inequality to the point of causing division and promoting it.

I missed that. Apologies. Your example is entirely relevant. Yes indeed.

It's funny, if the PC spirals any further, eventually everything will be "it", "thing", "that", "them" etc. I find it kind of sad. There is something romantic about an "Actress". Faye Dunaway, Audrey Hepburn, et al.

Now we just have "Actors". And Miley Cyrus naked with duct tape covering her nipples.

Is it just me or has gender equality completely stripped class from the feminine mystique?

reply to post by boncho


No worries, no need to apologize.

This is the role of PC, remove all color from the picture language so that only black and white remains. Granted a black and white picture can have nice contrast but lacks the dynamics of full color. You are very correct, they have stripped the glory of the feminine mystique and left us with an unsightly nude patched with duct tape. Trading class for trash. And to think it all stated to roll with Anita Bryant and Christmas cards.

I'm personally getting a little irritated with everyone calling their significant others (see, here it works) significant other or SO. Just say husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend. Also stop saying partner. Even if you're gay. Just say boyfriend. I'm not entirely sure if this is a PC thing, but in many cases it seems like it. When someone is talking about their significant other (ugh) I want to know their gender. This helps me to refer to them later in the conversation. I don't want to keep referring to them as your SO or they or it. I also don't want to ask their name because in many settings it seems weird.

The new wage feminism thing gets REALLY ridiculous with all their new labels and hatred of labeling. I don't care that you're a post op transexual, otherkin, pansexual with a fluid gender that enjoys cross dressing and want me to use Xim as a pronoun. I'm not freaking going to.

I get how this becomes sensitive for transexuals and all that. I have no problem calling someone whatever gender they want me to. I do have a problem with creating an ever expanding list of appropriate titles so that no one is ever offended.

I just saw some business (maybe college) get flipped a metric ton of crap because they included queer as a sexual preference. Some people identify as queer, and some people get upset by it. It's getting stupid. I have also seen it suggested that saying something is stupid is 'ableism' and people who aren't smart or retarded will get offended. FACEPALM.

I'm all for common sense PC. I don't want to hear people throwing around slurs willy nilly but I also don't want to see us become a society so freaked out at the thought of accidentally (thats what's key to me) offending someone that we start changing the language a ridiculous amount or begin inventing new words.

Sincerely straight young middle class white man. I get I'm not the most diverse breed.

reply to post by boncho


People have grown to believe that equality = the same. That's not the case, not by a long shot. We're all different, but we're all equal. It's a dead simple concept utterly destroyed by the overly politically correct of the world today.

Let's put it this way, in a very simple way: I have two items, both made out of the exact same material and crafted by the same person using the same tools for both. However, one is shaped like a triangle and the other a square. Both also are painted differently. Are they the same? No. They're quite different. But in terms of quality and craftmanship, they're identical.

Now, replace those objects with people. Women and men, different races. We're all made different but with the same material. We're equal. And the terms "his, her" and other words denoting sex only define which shape we're in. Not what we're made of as I mentioned above, we're all the same.

I have no clue why I wanted to post this, I'm just so tired of political correctness gone awry in todays society.

reply to post by Auricom

I have no clue why I wanted to post this, I'm just so tired of political correctness gone awry in todays society.

Well I'm glad you did. Very well put. There are quite a few people that should read what you just wrote.

reply to post by boncho


The only equality that exists is the equality you make. Words are meaningless. There's many women and men in this world that would have me piss sitting down like a woman in the name of equality.

Men and women are not equals and not every man is his brothers equal. The saying "Women can do anything a man can do or better." is a half truth. It should be, A woman can do anything a man can do, amongst other women.

Men are physically superior to women we are not equals. Men can only plant seeds we cannot birth life into this world. Its very obvious what nature intended for the majority of all species of male and female.

The world is built by men but it is for women. Men are bricks and women are mortar. Together we are a wall of strength. Bricks without mortar will fall with the first gust of wind.

I'm all for EQUAL RIGHTS, gay, straight, other, black, white, brown, tall, short, skinny, fat, male, female. Whatever.
REAL MEN will never submit to facist feminism and blind radical ideology of equality in all things being equal that are not. REAL MEN will never force submission on those just because they are not their equal.

When people want to point their fingers at the ideology of the western world, and how language is used to define that world. They need to start with Plato and work their way up. They might find out they are not equal to the task.

reply to post by SasquatchHunter


Beautiful post. Something I say often, we aren't equal, we weren't meant to be equal (if we were we'd be asexual) and if you don't believe it just check a woman's natural testosterone levels.

And yes, I realize there are people in between, as you do, and nothing wrong with that, but just because there are minorities, does not mean the majority should be thrown out the win dow. There was nothing wrong with celebrating the differences between the sexes.

If an actress can be discriminated against, so can a "actor".

Bring women into the workplace? Sure. Stop calling them women? Huh…

reply to post by boncho


It began with the idea of equal rights - nothing wrong with that, but this equality of rights somehow got confused with equality across the board: men and women should be the same when they are clearly not. Is a bird equal to a fish? Men and women are different and this is a good thing. Our respective differences should be a source of creativity and richness. The idea of across- the- board equality is silly and destructive. It limits men and women. It is a misunderstanding of what the issue is really about.

reply to post by boncho


Well your post was the inspiration. Words do not make us what we are, they only define the qualities that make us what we are. The progressive thinking spawned from the minds of oddities of nature say we can longer question certain things or face social backlash. Instead they would strip us of the qualities that make us definable. Like one poster that has fantasies of robot bodies and some gender neutral dystopian future. Just because a few people aren't happy with their DNA or are defective doesn't mean we should all throw away everything that makes us human.

I don't see anyone poking out their eyeballs because some people are born blind, and I don't see anyone saying we shouldn't be finding a cure for being born blind. Society has no problem letting you know being born blind is a defect.