[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
[Date Index] [Thread Index] [Author Index]
Return to main CEDA-L Archive Page

He/she, Racism, and the Boundless Hipocrisy of the L

The hipocrisy on this listserv would be funny if it weren't so sad.  Let's
review a few recent events: 

1. Mark Whitney from SUNY Morrisville posted a message explaining that
SUNY(M)  was leaving CEDA, at least for the time being.  The two main
reasons were the disconnectedness of the activity from the real world
experienced by his students, and the racism experienced within their
circuit.  I expected a flood of responses about these issues, but was
already involved in the Divisions thread on other fronts and figured Mark
could handle the racism thread - it looked like it would be an interesting
discussion.  Instead, the silence was deafening. 

2. A week and a half later, Mark posted another message shouting at the
community to wake up.  He restated the issues.  Now, some discussion has
started, but still nothing compared to the esoteric details of the
Divisions thread and Transfers. 

3. I posted a message supporting the idea that science majors should
participate more in debate (i.e. that we should diversify the community in
another dimension), and used a masculine pronoun.  A half-dozen answers,
rebuttals, and a full bibliography greeted me the next morning.  Nobody
bothered to ask why I chose that pronoun, or considered the possibility
that such a detail could be unimportant in the real world - it was assumed
that the choice was deliberate, premeditated, and representative of an
"antiquated" mentality that oppresses women through patriarchal language. 

You've proven you can talk the talk - why not try walking the walk? 

Now for some specific analysis of the "sexist language" issue, and an
explanation of my position on it. 

First, the "sexist language" critique makes the assertion (backed by a few
perception studies) that the use of the masculine pronoun shapes the view
women have of themselves in the world, and that this, in turn, leads to
our sexist social structure.  Nice theory, but I'm not a social scientist,
so I'm not quite so gung-ho to extrapolate small laboratory results to a
larger system without careful evaluation.  There is an obvious prediction
and corrolary made by this hypothesis: we would predict that women would
have to get the language changed before gaining significant equality to
men in the eyes of society, and as a corrolary, a culture with a
gender-neutral language would have very little entrenched sexism.  Women
in New Zealand are among the most liberated in the world, even though they
speak the King's English.  Large numbers of French women have owned
businesses and worked in "masculine" jobs since World War II, apparently
undaunted by their nation's sexist language (and how could Simone de
Beauvoir, a founder of feminism, have received an education and gotten her
ideas published in such a truly oppressive culture?).  Women in China,
which has a nearly perfect gender-neutral language, could hardly be
considered liberated.  Empirically, the hypothesis fails in real social
situations.

Second, this critique nicely illustrates exactly the hipocrisy I've
described above.  It is especially interesting to note that, while this
hypothesis has been around for quite awhile, it is only in recent years
that it has gained wide public exposure in the form of "political
correctness."  If changing the language is so important to changing the
culture, why were the Civil Rights demonstrations of the '60s and the
Women's Liberation movement of the same period so successful even without
the widespread use of gender-neutral and race-neutral language?  It seems
more likely that, as these movements have been assimilated into society
and lost some of their potency, their supporters have turned to "fixing
the details" rather than worrying about the loss of their cause's soul. We
refer to "people of color," but ignore the fact that they are still being
railroaded into dead-end jobs.  We insist that, in ambiguous cases,
"he/she" should be used as the pronoun, but spend comparatively little
time asking why there are so few female physicists.  I propose we make the
Senate half female and stop worrying about pronouns.  Mark tells the list
that racism and disconnectedness are serious problems in CEDA.  The list
responds by ignoring racism and practicing disconnectedness. 

Finally, in terms of the specific "violation" of this ridiculous
"standard," nobody bothered to ask if a gender-neutral pronoun was
appropriate in this particular case.  It just so happens that I have never
heard a female Nobel laureate present her work in the sciences, either
well or poorly.  The two examples I was referring to need not be named,
because I respect their science even if their speaking skills are awful. 
Both are male, both are white, both are late middle-age.  Barbara
McClintock died a few years back, so the chances of hearing a female Nobel
laureate in my field speak have been reduced to exactly zero.  The male
pronoun, in this case, simply illustrates a fact: the people to whom I
referred were male, as is their entire group.  Yes, there are female Nobel
laureates and at least one black one.  In the sciences especially, they
are grossly outnumbered by white (and more recently Asian) men, for
reasons which have nothing whatsoever to do with pronouns.  Change a
world, not a word. 

          --Alan

__________________ 
Alan Dove 
N3IMU 
ad52@columbia.edu
http://hs1304silver1.cpmc.columbia.edu/Alan_Dove/Alan.html
Follow-Ups:
Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
Return to main CEDA-L Archive Page