Talk:Gender-neutral language/Archive 1

NPOV

I had been waiting for one of the authors of this page to either respond to the NPOV issue (perhaps defend the article as it is) and/or start editing the article. But since it's been about a week now and nobody's responded, I've begun the proccess of modifying the article so as to make it more NPOV. As of right now, I've started with the intro paragraph. I've replaced "sexist language" with "more traditional language," and I've made "gender neutral language" the first term used, as it is both a more neutral descriptive term (no so much embodied allegation or argument) and, at least judging from the number of Google hits, it appears to be the more common term. --Blackcats 19:46, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

In my view this article is still far from a NPOV, and I think it requires a section proper to itself wherein gender inclusive language is critiqued at length. Perhaps I will do so soon. Lostcaesar 00:43, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

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I think that in order to make this article NPOV, its name must be changed. "Gender neutral" language is a much more neutral term do describe what this article is about, as it doesn't contain an embodied accusation in its very name that language which does not meet the criteria is "sexist." Also, "gender neutral language" seems to be the more popular term, as Google has almost twice as many hits for "G.N. language"[1] as it does for "N.S. language."[2]

So I don't see any purpose for using the less common term that has more embodied ideological bias - other than to advance a POV - clearly not in keeping with NPOV policy.

Blackcats 22:30, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

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In the near future, I will work on adding in a "criticisms" section - to better present the rebuttal argument. If you guys aren't familiar with educated, well thought out, and intelligent arguments against the theories of "sexist" and "non-sexist" language, I strongly encourage you to read this article: http://www.friesian.com/language.htm

But work definitely needs to be done on much of the rest of the article to make it NPOV. In many places, the authors lapse into asserting ideas as indisputable fact, rather than presenting them as opinions.

Just a few examples:

From the History section:

"Awareness of the social effects of language was largely a 20th century phenomenon....."

This assumes that language in general, and allegedly "sexist" language in particular has certain "social effects." But there is no agreement as to what social effects, if any, the use of non-P.C. language has.

"However, a program to rid Norwegian of sexist presuppositions dates from the mid 19th century..."

This states as fact that certain presuppositions are sexist, while that is certainly not a universal opinion.

Never mind the existence of sexist presuppositions, how about the fact that no such program exists in the Norwegian language? It is true that there was (and is) a program of gradually reforming Norwegian, dating from about 1850, but it had nothing to do with sexist language. Instead it was intended to bring the written language, which was very heavily influenced by Danish, into conformity with the spoken, particularly the spoken language of the working class. This is certainly an example of trying to use language reforms for political ends, but the ends are class-political and nationalistic, rather than feminist. Accordingly, I've removed the sentence. --King of Men 01:37, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

From the Neologising section:

"Nonetheless, the case for the singular they is quite compelling from a linguistic point of view."

This is asserting and arguing for this point of view, not merely presenting it.

From the Serbian section:

"Like the most other Slavic languages, Serbian has more gender problems then English."

Is the Serbian language's gender system a "problem"??! It may well be a problem for you if you're trying to impose certain politically correct standards on it, but I'm pretty sure that the majority of the Serbian people are not particularly bothered by it. (The use of the word "problem" like that - to describe a difficulty in making the language conform to PC standards - is found in the discussions of a number of the other languages as well - I just chose that one as an example.) This raises the question of cultural imperialism as well - when people - presumably native English speakers - label certain aspects of other people's languages as problematic.

Sorry to butt in here, but this comment was obviously written by a non-native speaker of English, presumably a Serbian speaker. They don't mean "problem" as you are reading it (something to do with "political correctness") but simply that as a highly gender-inflected language the issue of creating "gender balance" comes up far more often in Serbian grammar than in English (where it's largely down to the use of third-person singular pronouns and a few job titles) and is trickier to solve, with no one obvious solution (an experience common to "most other Slavic languages"). We should be grateful that native speakers of languages like Serbian are sharing their knowledge with us, and go easy on them a little! ProhibitOnions 23:57:32, 2005-09-08 (UTC)

Also, the authors sometimes engage in what is essentially name-calling - when they refer to language that does not conform to their standards as "sexist language." That's equivalent to when "pro-life" people refer to "pro-choice" people as "pro-death." So much for sensitivity - LOL!

Feb 3rd, 2005

I've continued the process of editing for NPOV. As of now, I've made it as far as the "Enforcement, persuasion, or evolution?" section. I think that ultimately this page will have to be moved, as one of the biggest NPOV issues is the use of the term "non-sexist language," which implicity states that traditional use of gender in English (or other languages) is sexist. And of course there's no concensus, among scholors or the general public, that this is true. Also, as I pointed out earlier - "gender neutral language" is also the more commonly used term. --Blackcats 08:12, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've now further continued the process, making it through most of the foriegn language stuff. At the rate I've been going, the page should soon be pretty NPOV, with the exception of its title. I'll soon start a talk section about moving the page to "Gender-neutral_language." --Blackcats 03:22, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Summary of my edits

advocates of non-sexist language generally argue that it would be better to state, "Tomorrow I will meet Dr. Smith, whom I hope is friendly." After this part, I added these two sentences:

(Critics would point out that this example is rather contrived, since non-defining relative clauses are extremely rare in everyday speech. The person in this example would be talking like a book.)

That is really true. In real life, people rarely use non-defining relative clauses (I am referring to the clause whom I hope is friendly).

might deem it inappropriate to ask her, "Who is he?"; rather, one should ask, "Whom are you dating?" After this part, I added this:

"to allow for the possibility that she might be dating a woman."

Just to clarify the intent of the example.

I also added this paragraph under the "Neologizing" section:

Some critics claim that words like "he or she" are not real English words, for they only exist in print, not in speech. In print it is easy for an editor to employ rules of non-sexist language, but speech is practically impossible to control. People simply don't use words like "he or she" in their everyday speech; instead they use "they" or "he". Only the most determined reformer would actually use "he or she" in a casual conversation.

--68.123.237.104 19:19, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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More generally, nonsexist styles can include the use of brackets or capital letters to insert feminine endings (étudiantEs) or repeat gendered words

I have never seen any use of capital letters for feminine endings, only brackets (étudiant(e)s) in french from France. Are capital letters used in other french speaking countries ?

I've not seen the capital E either. -- Tarquin

Quebec, especially in leftist publications. I don't just make this stuff up, you know. - user:Montrealais

I have seen this but not known what it was all about until now. --Daniel C. Boyer 15:36, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

of course you don't. I was just wondering where it was used and how much vulgar it was. So the answers are Canada and out of the ordinary used. user:anthere

Capital letters for feminine endings are (sadly, IMO) common practice in German official documents. Usually the feminine variant of a word is used in favour of the previously generalising masculine one and the feminine ending is capitalized -- in other cases Newspeak words have been made up to cover all genders, which tends to result in very awkward phrases. --194.149.241.3 15:06, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You probably mean the de:Binnen-I (example: InformatikerIn). Although it's widespread in some environments that might regard themselves as progressive, e.g. trade unions, universities, and of course feminists, it's not regarded as correct German. No administration documents use it, and only one of Germany's daily papers (de:die tageszeitung) uses it. However, you're right that the use of the generalising masculine is coming or has come out of fashion, the German Wikipedia (yet?) being an exception. Dealerofsalvation 07:52, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

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And under consideration for removal of sexist implications in the English language:

Human --> Huperson

Manatee --> Personatee

Manhatten --> Personhatten

Emancipation --> Epersoncipation

Manx --> Personx

Elementary --> Elepeopletary

David de Paoli

The majority of these above are of course rather foolish jokes, sometimes mistaken by the naive for real examples of words sometimes considered to be sexist. The element "man" in such words is not related to the English word "man", has no connotation of masculine gender, and such words are not actually targetted as sexist or in need of revision.

Also, "Manhattan" is misspelled. - user:Montrealais

Those sort of puns are tired now. They were kinda funny in the early 80s when we were all getting used to the concept ("Ms Fossington-Gore said they were a tribute to the achievements of personkind" -- Sue Townsend, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4, probably misquoted, my lousy semiphotographic memory) -- Tarquin 21:55 Sep 26, 2002 (UTC)

Must be that your semiphotographic memory is out of film. BTW, they're not puns, nor is your comparison accurate. Unlike the "personkind" example, and as the poster immediately following me noted, the "man"s replaced in my lampooning examples don't refer to the word "man" in English. Lastly, as far as "being tired", I'm not offended in the least when I realize this criticism comes from someone who thinks "bogeys" (sic) are hillariously funny, especially when annoyingly repeated.David de Paoli

The whole "bogey" thing has been overblown out of all proportion: it was sarcasm on my part after we got a string of new pages on various activities which I didn't consider terribly, erm, encyclopedic. BTW, why the "sic"? That's the correct spealing --

Sorry. I simply thought your examples for criticising my little joke were erroneous. Normally I take criticism very well. As far as the (sic), I see you're form the UK? That might explain the difference. In American usage, the word "bogey" (boe- ghee) distictly refers to either the golf score or the military slang for an unidentified aircraft. I would use "boogey" or "boogie" as the diminutive of the slang "booger", but, hey, I've been wrong before.

Perhaps the reference is to the "boogey-man" (which is not related to boogers, but may be related to the military slang). If so, it derives from "Bugis," a large ethnic group in Indonesia famous for their sea-faring skills, which they have employed as traders and, I guess, as pirates too (or perhaps in resistance to Dutch colonialism?)Slrubenstein

Have we just managed to write a whole article on the etymology of the word "bogey" between us? Hooray! -- Tarquin

"Bogey" and "bogeyman" -- or "boogie-man" -- has nothing to do with Indonesia. They come from the old Welsh word bwg, meaning a monster. Other words from the same root are "bugbear" and, yes, "bug"! --FOo 03:09, 15 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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How NPOV is a page full of commands; eg, "Indeed, do not use terms such as..."? It seems to me that it is rather forcefully taking the point of view that "if you don't use this stilted form of the language, you are wrong." --the Epopt

On a brief skim, it doesn't look it's saying "you are wrong", but that you wouldn't be using "non-sexist language" as it is defined in this article. --Brion 23:09 Sep 26, 2002 (UTC)

I think it's a valid article to describe non-sexist language by providing a list of rules therefor. I tried to explain this in the first part of the article. Perhaps it should be italicized or something to set it off from the rest of the article. user:Montrealais

How does this look? Notice the first paragraph. - mtlais

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Not exactly the most NPOV article on WIki. Apart from grammatical clangers (like using the word 'goal' twice (which I have axed), it presumes that there is such a thing as 'non-sexist language', which is widely disputed, the argument being that 'non-sexist language' simply involves 're-sexing language' in the other direction on occasions, providing terms that are not gender-neutral but feminised, which by definition is sexist language. Simply writing non-sexist language in that form presupposes the validity of one side of the argument, which by definition is POV. In a correct NPOV article on this topic where a term and its validity is disputed it should be writen as 'non-sexist language', indicating that the author is neither validating not invalidating the term, merely highlighting it is a disputed status. Other disputed terms in a specific context (eg, terrorist, etc) can also be contextualised as an opinion, not a 100% accepted fact, by writing it as 'terrorist', etc.

This article's NPOV could be strengthened by making equal use of published opinions by academics challenging the issue, validity and grammatical accuracy of some 'non-sexist language', something this article barely touches on. Nor, as this article suggests, do all publishing houses and publishing manuals accept the validity of 'non-sexist language'. (My own (woman) editor will not publish anything whose author refuses to use some of the terms listed, saying she is interested in publishing 'english, not a politically correct bastardised version of it to keep feminists happy!') Nor is it just non-feminists who are opposed to 'non-sexist language'. Many feminists too are deeply critical of it, regarding it not as an attempt to change attitudes but to hide the true sexist nature of society by window-dressing language, a common argument made against political correctness in general. Simply not being able to use 'offensive' language, whether sexist, rascist, homophobic or whatever, doesn't mean that behind the 'proper' language, those same attitiudes aren't just as present.

I am not taking sides on the debate, merely pointing out that this article, perhaps unintentionally, does so, which means it isn't NPOV, but in tone, language, content and structure implicitly endorses 'non sexist language'. JTD 04:05 Jan 28, 2003 (UTC)

I'd have to agree on a lack of NPOV as noted above; and also from a somewhat different angle. The article as it stands also has a bit of a schizo quality to it. In those paragraphs which criticized by JTD, there was a "pro-" bias; in alternating paragraphs; there also is a tendency to imply that the topic is practically a secret form of evil mind control by tyhe forces of "political correctness". As a result, neither side really makes a complete argument - they don't even seem to be addressing each other.

For example, lines like: Such usage, and indeed any expression that either explicitly or implicitly marginalises women should be banned seem a teeny bit over-the-top; at least in how the topic is generally interpreted amongst laymen (or should I say, "amongst the laity"? :)) Surely, there is a range of opinion on this topic?

At one point, it might have been considered "politically incorrect" (or the equivalent perjorative of the day) to insist on not calling a black man "boy" (the term could have been argued to seem neutral, e.g. "good ol' boys"). Today, we don't typically use the term "boy" in that way (in most of the US, at any rate) because social changes have rendered its use to be seen as rather offensive (as opposed to "politically incorrect"). (Unsuprisingly, racism continues to exist).

Considering the above, to someone like me standing outside the argument, it seems like some new usages have become generally (not universally) socially accepted as certain concepts became part of general cultural currency, and in other areas, it just seems to fade out because the related ideas don't become common currency ("womyn", "herstory", etc.). Sort of a chicken-and-the-egg thing; shades of gray and all. And these changes don't appear to be controlled solely by either the forces of "political correctness", or the decryers of "the 'bastardisation' of language for political purposes". The line Others argue that a change in language should evolve organically from changing public attitudes towards gender issues, rather than be enforced by Political Correctness ahead of such a change" is close to this idea, but it implies that the organic change doesn't include the voices of those who call for the type of changes that the proponents of 'non-sexist' usage call for.

I'm sure the original promulgators of the article topic had certain socio-linguistic theories which they used to justify coining and insisting on the use of these terms; and as noted by JTD, we can then present both sides (pro- and con-) of those theories in that light - and I might even learn something! :)

A possible suggestion on form would be to have separate sections relating to

• reporting on (not endorsing or condemning) what appears to have become "standards" (such as NYTimes, etc.), as a sort of social barometer of the general acceptance of newer usages like "firefighter" and "news anchor".
• a history of who first started pushing the specific idea of "non-sexist" language academically, in what context, and with what reasons;
• criticisms of these arguments from a linguistic and political viewpoint.

Makes me wonder - do we have a "gender-neutral" policy at Wikipedia? Chas zzz brown 07:46 Jan 28, 2003 (UTC)

I disagree with your questioning of the line Such usage, and indeed any expression that either explicitly or implicitly marginalises women should be banned. That is word for word the description of 'non-sexist language' given at a 'non-sexist language' university debate I attended, by a Professor of Women's Studies. (The debate involved six women, three for and three against.) As to the issues, the paragraphs cover the different arguments, and there are differing arguments. For the article to come down for or against the issue of non-sexist language would be by definition a POV and thus breaking Wiki rules. If the article's coverage of both sides' views is confusing and conflicting, it is because the arguments and perspectives are confusing and conflicting.

The issue of using 'boy' in a rascist sense is completely irrelevant and bares little parallel. The vast majority of people agreed that such terms and their contexts were rascist. Such overwhelming unity of opinion does not exist on 'non-sexist language', which pits some feminists who champion enforced 'non-sexist language' from others who disagree. It divides linguistic experts, publishing houses, newspaper house styles, men from other men, women from other women, etc.

Among the issues in 'non-sexist language' are

1. Is language inherently 'sexist'?
2. are words interpreted by the vast majority of their users as 'sexist', irrespective of what campaigners say?
3. Who defines what is 'sexist'?
4. If a term is 'sexist', should it be changed by decision or by evolution?
5. If by decision, who makes the decision?
6. How should it be enforced?
7. Should grammatical rules be followed or ignored in constructing 'gender-neutral' terms?

Your mention of the New York Times is interesting but it is by no means the standard. A proper evaluation should compare many newspapers, both broadsheet and tabloid in the US, Canada, Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, etc.The scale of that work would produce a fascinating article but it must be careful not to be centred purely on the United States. For all too many articles on Wiki take US standards as the right standard, an alternative to the British-focused styles elsewhere, but equally unacceptance in an encyclopedia that is not just the property of the US but of the world wide web. But the scale of the work involved in producing such an article would be immense, and I don't know who is going to do this.

Regarding 'political correctness', this is one of many issues that divides much of the rest of the world from the US. Whereas many in the US see political correctness as a positive force, in much of the rest of the world, to call something political correctness is to give it the kiss of death, because political correctness is seen, rightly or wrongly, as agenda-led manipulation. If 'non-sexist language' was seen as political correctness in much of Europe, for example, it would kill it stone dead, with many people 'deliberately' going out of their way to break its rules to give the proverbial two-fingers to what is perceived as attempts to bully them into following rules made by cliques. That may indeed be unfair, but that is how it is perceived. In Ireland, for example, The Irish Times newspaper, which by its own admission is the most PC of Irish newspapers, has had columnists, notably John Waters, who have described some feminists as 'feminazis', arguing that in issues such as 'non-sexist language' a small minority of fanatics are trying to manipulate everyone else into obeying their agenda, whether they like it or not. In mentioning hostility to 'non-sexist language' and political correctness, I deliberately toned down much of the language critics use. Mind control would be a polite term used. Feminazis a stronger one. There are others far stronger.

I'm not taking sides in the debate, and I'm certainly not expressing any opinion. I'm simply pointing out that there are differing views. The article does need work, but it is less one sided than before, which is by definition, NPOV instead of the previous POV by implication. JTD 02:46 Jan 29, 2003 (UTC)

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Moved discussion of non-sexist usage in French to User:Montrealais/Non-sexist usage in French. - Montrealais 14:20 Oct 5, 2002 (UTC)

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There have been studies on how sentences like "When a doctor sees his patient, he should first put her at ease." are interpreted. I heard of one which estimated that, for some texts, 60% of readers took a gender-specific interpretation, and 40% took a gender-neutral interpretation. However, that was from a comparatively biased source, so I want to try and find better.

I've also heard of studies purporting to show that changing language use by coercion and enforcement is essentially futile, and language change really only occurs when the user makes a positive decision on how sie wants to speak. Again, need a definite source. Martin

I've now found quite a few sources on studies done on the first point. As far as I can make out at this stage, it's pretty much a settled point that use of generic "man", "he", etc does have a gender-distorting effect on the reader/listener. To look for such sources I've looked through some of the various style guides, most of which quote their sources and these kinds of studies. I'm tempted to include this as a statement of scientific fact, unless I can find any studies which didn't show a result. Martin

Originally it was gender-neutral; I forget the original qualifing term, I think was something like 'vir', or maybe 'wir', with wirman being male, woman being female, but the male qualification died out. In the modern sense, if it was an absolute scientific fact that it is generally perceived as gender specific, then it is hard to fathom why so many women opt to use it is words like chairman, as I found to my cost when I was chair of a branch of a political party and a civil war broke out between the new woman chair, who took offence at chairperson and thought chairwoman loony, and insisted on 'Madam chairman'. The (woman) secretary wouldn't agree, but the (woman) treasurer agreed, as did about two thirds of the women in the meeting (ranging in age from 19 to 71). A forty minute row erupted. Similarly, as I know from the horsebreeding world, many women take high offence at 'horsewoman' or 'horseperson', demanding to be called 'Horseman'. As someone who invariably used terms like chairperson, horseperson, etc I was flabbergasted at finding that it was women more than men who wanted to keep using the version with 'man'. (I saw a woman in a restaurant - mid 20s - fly into a rage when an American tourist called her a 'waitron', telling her manager the tourist had 'insulted' her. When the 'tourist' called her 'waiter' she lashed back 'do I look like I have a pair of balls?' She demanded to be called a waitress, to my surprise.)

Outside language, too, attitudes towards sex seem confusing. I remember when in my local constituency two of the three party candidates were women, middle aged women made an issue of it, how women were finally getting equality. Yet my generation (20s at that stage) never noticed. I realised, as did my friends, that we were indifferent to gender in elections, to the extent that it made no difference to us whether the chair of the Irish senate was male or female, whether the deputy prime minister was male or female, or the fact that in the 1997 presidential election four of the five candidates were female. (It has only dawned on me as I write this hat my local constituency organisation chair, secretary and half the officer board are women. I've never thought in terms of male or female in that context!) Most people I know under the age of 40 have become gender-blind, voting for the best candidate without noticing what gender they are. In language too, most people I know of my generation don't attach gender-specific meanings to words. So you'd need to clarify how scientific were the studies, have representative was the pool, what was the age structure, were there differing meanings attached by differing age priofiles, etc. JTD 19:46 Jan 29, 2003 (UTC)

All the studies I've heard/seen are investigating use to describe hypothetical people, rather than specific people. Obviously if you're speaking to a woman you're not going to suddenly think she's male just because she wants to be known as Madame chairman, or whatever. Incidentally, in those situations, I would just go along with the choice of the woman in question, just as I would go along with Ms, Miss or Mrs.

Anyway, I can see you're skeptical about these studies. They have appeared in scientific journals, so it's not a case of random undergrads faking statistics. But I'll investigate further. Martin

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However many publishing houses, dictionaries and stylebooks decline to accept these guidelines, believing them to amount to the 'bastardisation' of language for political purposes.

I'd like some proof of this, in the shape of links to such style guides. I've not found any, and I have looked...

Partly personal experience, but because they involve private dealings with my own publishers I cannot name names. My own attempt to use non-sexist language in a book led to a bollocking from a British-based company who said bluntly to "cut the PC crap and turn it into 'proper' english. This isn't fucking California -PC land. Just because yanks want to bastardise their language to keep feminists happy doesn't mean we do it here." Vicious or what? (That was in an email I got from my agent, who thought it so funny she sent it to me!) And sexism, homophobia, etc is almost a requirement for some tabloids. (I have had great fun writing for papers that are hyper PC, then writing for editors who are the opposite (one called it 'that PC crap'. You have to remind yourself whether the article you are writing is for a PC or non PC paper. Woe betide you if you send a non-PC piece to a PC paper, or a PC piece to a paper that detests PC!)

I've made a couple of minor changes. Notably wrote non-sexist language as 'non sexist language'. The reason is that, as I have found editing documents, simply using the terms can be read by readers as POV or endorsing something. Putting ' ' around a term is interpreted as neither validating or rejecting the term, merely clarifying that you are taking no position, explicit or implicit, as to its validity. Saying non-sexist language in a sentence can be seen as accepting there is such a thing. (I believe there is, but it isn't my job to express that POV. Qualifying it by writing 'non-sexist language' implies a recognition that some people use and accept this term, others don't and you aren't taking sides. JtdIrL 23:06 Mar 6, 2003 (UTC)

I guess the problem is that tabloids and other reprobates don't have style guides... or indeed any style! ;-)

Personally I think putting the phrase in scare quotes throughout is unnecessary - we mention the issue explicitly at the start, using scare quotes, is this not enough? Martin

I only wish it was. One of the joy of editing a student magazine years ago was to discover how you could neutralise every single reference to something and leave one undone and next thing the door would burst open and someone would rush in accusing you of pushing an agenda in that one unneutralised word! One of the things I learned in the job is that, if a term is disputed, the safest thing is to neutralise or qualify a controversial term everywhere, because somewhere out there there is always someone waiting to be offended by something, or read into a non-neutralised term a POV even when you have striven to make it clear you are not taking a POV. It is better to have them all consistent than have someone next week or month read a disputed term that has not been neutralised, take offence and start an edit war, accusing the previous version of bias. And the issue of non-sexist language, sorry 'non-sexist language', is one of those 'red flag to a bull' topics, like Israel/Palestine, genocide, abortion, Northern Ireland, historical monarchical names, etc that some people feel very strongly about, strong enough to go to war on (edit war. at least!). JtdIrL 00:38 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

I have reverted the article. Someone changed the line that they 'do not accept these arguments as valid' to they 'do not agree with these arguments'. These two lines do not automatically mean the same thing and the change completely misrepresented the point the line was making. It is perfectly possible to accept the validity of an argument but disagree with its conclusion. The point the line in the article was making was different, not that they don't agree with the conclusions reached from the argument, but that they don't believe the arguments themselves are valid. In terms of mathematics, for example, one can agree to add 2 + 2 but disagree that they reach 4. That does not mean the same as disagreeing with the validity of the sum, namely you don't accept that 2 should be in the equation or that you don't accept that they should be added. One means simply disagreeing with the conclusion, the other means disagreeing fundamentally with the issue which produced the equation in the first place. In this article, the disagreement is with the theories that produce the argument, not simply with the conclusion drawn from the argument. Do not accept these arguments can be interpreted to mean either they do not accept these arguments' validity or they do not accept the conclusions drawn from the arguments. Saying they 'do not accept these arguments as valid' is 100% unambiguous, hence its use here. ÉÍREman 03:55 May 8, 2003 (UTC)

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This article seems to be lacking in an important respect: it should have a set of examples of English "non-sexist" word-replacements that have been proposed! (A couple are mentioned in the article, but only in passing.) The current article is almost entirely devoted to arguments pro- and con-, without saying what people are arguing about. User:Stevenj

It does give some examples, and I'm not sure whether there'd be a real benefit from including more. Perhaps you could edit it appropriately to show us what you mean? Martin 00:33 31 May 2003 (UTC)

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What about the sexist use of profanity and derision, at least in English? Do certain words carry a connotation? Are they used specifically against one sex or the other? (e.g. calling a woman a bitch, calling a man a dick, etc.) If we're discussing language, especially such use of language as is felt to be offensive by some, should we also discuss these? Any thoughts? Paige 15:46, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

This absolutely must be discussed in the article. --Daniel C. Boyer 17:56, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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Is "try to enforce it on everyone else" NPOV? Maybe it should be, "try to encourage everyone else to... or enforce it on them..." I don't know exactly but this should be changed. --Daniel C. Boyer 15:36, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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I have a problem with the phrase "Gender-Neutral". To me, the phrase suggests that using non-sexual language tries to erase *any* forms of gender. IMHO, non-sexist language does not do this. Instead, non-sexist language attempts to show that our language is not male only. It is for everyone. I suggest "gender-sensitive" language instead. See http://www.tniv.info/qanda.php#9 for more on this.

hoshie 10:25, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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This is Wikipedia in English, but not specifically on English, right? The predominant part of this article describes issues and phenomena more or less specific to the English language. Shouldn't it be therefore more profoundly noted and labeled as such? --Marcvs 04:43, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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I find the "list of positions on NSL" to be rather broad and stereotypical, and rather pejorative, if it comes to that. It also uses a bad example: I don't think I've ever heard someone argue that "postman" is sexist language when it refers to a man, as opposed to a position or an unknown person. - Montrealais

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Some critics claim that words like "he or she" are not real English words, for they only exist in print, not in speech. In print it is easy for an editor to employ rules of non-sexist language, but speech is practically impossible to control. People simply don't use words like "he or she" in their everyday speech; instead they use "they" or "he". Only the most determined reformer would actually use "he or she" in a casual conversation.

Say what? Not only is this distinctly un-NPOV (well, the first sentence is NPOV although weaselly; the third and fourth are definitely not NPOV), but it's also patently false. I use "he or she" all the time in everyday speech, and I'm no reformer - I just learnt English that way. And this in India, in the early 90s. In addition, I've heard a substantial (10%?) number of people I come across use the phrase without sounding pretentious. I simply wanted to find out if I'm moving around in the wrong crowd :-) Ambarish | Talk 09:44, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

rewritten. Ambarish | Talk 00:19, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

True or false??

True or false: there are still a great many Americans who don't think it is important to use non-sexist language, including many who are aware that they are using sexist language. 66.32.244.119 19:03, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Years ago I had read a brief article about sexism in languages. The author pointed out that those opposed to alteration had noted that there were cultures with highly sexist languages that had very little sexism, and cultures with gender neutral languages that were highly sexist. I see little discussion of such things. Perhaps an expansion of a skeptical section is needed. -- A Friend

Turkish

The Turkish bit seems wrong to me, since it talks about using morphemes "Adam" and "KadIn", yet uses -adam- in the complete word in both cases.

I don't know enough Turkish to know whether the second example in each case should use -kadIn- or whether that morpheme is modified in the compound word. -- pne 07:10, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

singular they

I added a paragraph under "Neologising" explaining how the singular they has been used since the Middle Ages and Shakespeare and Chaucer both used it.

Sexist language continues to be in common use

Why does sexist language appear to continue to be in common use?? Please explain using whatever detail you can. 66.245.7.254 21:21, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Spitting Image

Is there a point in referring to the name of a satirical show (such as Spitting Image) without including the satire itself? Bobblewik  (talk) 15:39, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Poll on Wikipedia's adopted gender-neutral pronoun

I can easily tell that there have recently been a few Wikipedians who want Wikipedia to use sexist language (Vapier and Smrits) by saying "The correct gender-neutral form is he". Somewhere at Wikipedia, perhaps at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style, we need a poll on what pronoun Wikipedia should adopt the use of as a gender-neutral pronoun. Please try to include at least 4 choices. 66.245.100.121 19:27, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Before that happens see Wikipedia:Survey guidelines. Hyacinth 21:15, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

See also: Talk:Non-sexist_language#Poll_on_Wikipedia.27s_adopted_gender-neutral_pronoun. Hyacinth 01:25, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Your link seems to be broken... what are you referring to? Axlrosen 02:28, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Intro

I'm thinking over what to do with the intro. If non-non-sexist language is to be identified as sexist in the intro, I think it should be pointed out, also in the intro, that this is a term almost exclusively used by advocates of non-sexist language, not an uncontroversial fact. Also, although I think it is accurate to say non-sexist language attempts to use gender-neutral words, because it is done in a nonstandard and sometimes awkward way, so-called sexist language does use male-specific words, it does not attempt to do so. And is so-called sexist language universally male-oriented? If not, that should be changed as well. Even if it is, maybe something like "which has historically favored male-specific words" would be appropriate. [[User:CyborgTosser|CyborgTosser (Only half the battle)]] 23:47, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree with much of CyborgTosser's critique of the intro. Reffering to non "non-sexist" language as "sexist language" is about as NPOV as when anti-abortion people refer to pro-choice people (people who support legal access to abortion) as "pro-death."

Feb 3rd, 2005

Actually if something is non-sexist that means it is not sexist. If something is not non-sexist, then it is sexist. This is not POV, its just the way the meanings of those words work. The only people who would use the term "non-non-sexist language" are opponents of the concept of non-sexist language. What is POV is the original assertion that non-sexist language is not sexist. Hyacinth 00:36, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It is POV because how the term "non-sexist language" is used, and the topic of this article, is something more specific than "language that is not sexist". If non-sexist language truly meant "language that is not sexist", then yes, non-non-sexist language would be sexist. But non-non-sexist language encompasses a lot more than overtly (or even covertly) sexist language. It is everything that is not accepted as non-sexist language by it proponents. And perhaps there is some credibility to the claim that all such language is sexist, but this is a point of view, not a fact. In particular, it is not at all uncontroversial that there actually is or even can be such a thing as "sexist language". Taking for a second the point of view that there is not (and can not be) sexist language, all language is "language that is not sexist", but that does not make it non-sexist language as the term is commonly used.

Wow, my head is spinning. I don't think the intro needs to get into the issue this much, but I think it is important not to put a single point of view in the intro. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 08:15, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

...and by the way, although I am an opponent of non-sexist language, I would use the term non-non-sexist language regardless of my opinion, out of necessity for precision. Calling it "sexist language" is imprecise and loaded. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 08:18, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Proposal to move this article

Ok, so by now I've finished all major editing of this article to the point where I feel that all major NPOV issues have been resolved - all except one that is. The article's name. "Non-sexist language," in my opinion is a very loaded term. It prejudices the reader by implicitly arguing, before any evidence is even considered, that to use non gender-neutral language is to engage in sexism. Now I know that a lot of people feel that way, and they're certainly entitled to their opinion, but Wikipedia is supposed to be NPOV and not argue for any such position. And as I've pointed out previously in the discussion here, opponents of this sort of language modification do not feel that there's anything sexist about using the male gramatical gender for both males and as a more generic gender for mixed male/female groups or when the gender is unknown. Of course there might still be a case for using "non-sexist language" as the title if it were the mostly commonly used term. But it's not. A Google search brings back about twice as many hits for "gender-neutral language" as it does for "non-sexist language."[3] [4] So in light of this, I feel that any reason there might be to continue using "non-sexist language" as the title is far outweighed by the fact that it is both a very POV name and the less popular name.

My proposal is to move the contents of this article to "Gender-neutral language" and for this page to redirect there. Over the past couple months, there has been little or no response to my comments here or edits. I waited some time to hear from people here before I started editing a couple sections, and then waited a while longer to finish editing the rest of the article. I've taken that lack of response to mean that folks here either agree with me or don't care. But as moving such a large article is a fairly major step, I'm gonna go ahead and wait for discussion one more time before taking that final step. If after seven days there is still no response then I will go ahead with the move. --Blackcats 23:55, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Use common names of persons and things: "Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things." See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names). Hyacinth 00:30, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

So since "gender-neutral language" is the most common name and does not conflict with the name of anything else, I'm assuming that you're stating your agreement that the article should be moved? (Please correct me if I'm mistaken) --Blackcats 00:39, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I disagree that "gender-neutral language" is the most common name. Do you have any sources to back up that assertion? Hyacinth 00:59, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes I do have a source - as I cited earlier - A Google search brings back about twice as many hits for "gender-neutral language" as it does for "non-sexist language."[5]

[6]

Those guide-books you refer to are generally written by people who advocate gender-neutral language modification, so they would be inclined to use a term which implicitly argues their case. I'm pretty sure the standard Wikipedia uses is the term which people generally refer to something as (better reflected by the

number of Google hits and such) - not the term which specialists/advocates prefer to use.

Also, even if you were right about "non-sexist language" being the more common term (which I'm quite sure that you're not), that same guide that you cited also says "some terms are in common usage but are commonly regarded as offensive to large groups of people" and that we should avoid using such terms, which goes along with the NPOV problem with this title. [7]

--Blackcats 23:00, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A quick look indicates "non-sexist" is most commmon:

• Guidelines for non-sexist writing, by Manju Sah, ASIN: B0007B2J6U.
• Fields Reference Book of Non Sexist Words and Phrases by Fields Enterprises Inc Staff, ISBN 0944719023
• Ronald Searle's Non-Sexist Dictionary, by Ronald Searle, ISBN 0898153220
• Guidelines for non-sexist use of language, by Virginia L Warren, ASIN B0006QBL0G
• The A-Z of Non-Sexist Language, by Margaret Doyle, ISBN 0704344300

Hyacinth 01:19, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A quick look at what, exactly? Here are the number of results I get from searching Amazon.com:

• "non-sexist language": 1
• "gender-neutral language": 4
• "non-sexist" language: 9
• "gender-neutral" language: 33

This is a completely objective data point which indicates that "gender-neutral" is the more common term. (As does Blackcat's Google search, above). I support the renaming.

Axlrosen 02:23, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The last number meaning there are more books which mention something "gender-neutral" and "language". How many books about the topic actually use that terminology would be a much more appropriate measure. I know of five books which use "non-sexist". Hyacinth 04:45, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well since you specifically asked for it Hyacinth ;-) I went ahead and ran an Amazon.com search to your specifications and it came back with one book for "non-sexist language" (Link removed for revert)

and three books for "gender-neutral language." (Another link removes)

But like I said above, the number of books written isn't the most important factor, but that Amazon search tab on my Firefox sure is fun :-) --Blackcats 23:47, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I propose we move the page to non-sexist writing or gender-neutral writing, as that appears to be more common. Hyacinth 22:25, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm... wouldn't that imply that these issues are only relevant to writing and not to spoken language? Which isn't the case. Axlrosen 19:34, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Gender-neutral writing" and "non-sexist writing" each came back with less than 1,000 Google hits, [8] [9] so I don't know that they're more common terms. I also agree with Axlrosen that "language" is a better, more eoncompassing, term than "writing." And incidently, even with this re-phrasing, "gender-neutral" still gets more hits that "non-sexist." --Blackcats 05:42, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Since this discussion seems to have come to somewhat of a stand-still - with only two people responding (one yea and one nea) - I've gone ahead and put in a formal page-move request to bring in more input from the broader Wikipedia community...Blackcats 23:54, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Compromise proposal

I have a proposal that I not only think everyone can agree on, but it's actually more accurate too. Let's look at the list of supposedly sexist language constructs:

• Use of what they consider to be exclusively gender-specific pronouns like "he".
• Use of "man" to refer to all people.
• Use of gender-specific job titles.
• Use of Miss and Mrs. (see Ms.).
• non-parallel usage, such as "man and wife".
• Stereotypical words such as virile and ladylike

Only the first 3 of these have to do with "gender-specific language". The last 3 do not. Therefore, "gender-neutral language" and "non-sexist language" cannot be synonyms, and one should not redirect to the other. Instead, I think that most of this article should go under "gender-neutral language". The "non-sexist language" article should remain, and it should: (1) list these 6 constructs that some people object to (2) link to all of them, as well as "gender-neutral language" and (3) make clear that not everyone agrees that such language is sexist. How about that?

Axlrosen 22:42, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it may be a good idea to spin off some of the content as you discussed. But I don't think that "non-sexist language" would be the best title for the contents or whatever page either. A more NPOV title like "allegations of sexism in language" or "language often seen as sexist" would be more appropriate. --Blackcats 05:57, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sexism in language is a common subject heading amonst my local libraries. Hyacinth 08:08, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yeah... while "allegations of sexism in language" might be the most accurate, it just seems really unwieldy as an article title. I think "sexism in language" is OK, as long as the article makes it clear that this alleged sexism is not universally accepted. Or do you really think that "Allegations of Sexism in Language" is an OK title? Axlrosen 02:24, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I would be down with "alleged sexism in language." That may still be just a tad akward, but I still think that's trumped by its NPOV value. For now I'm gonna focus on moving the main article, and wait and see a bit later about any category or contents page. --Blackcats 23:44, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Prime numbers

They feel that the male gender in traditional English is simply more general, analagous to "numbers" as compared to "prime numbers".

This is a poor analogy, I'll try to replace it with a better one. The problem is that "he" can refer either to all of humankind, or to one subset of it. "Numbers" does not have this property. The analogy would only hold if you could use the term "numbers" to mean only the non-prime numbers, as well as to mean all numbers.

Axlrosen 03:06, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The prime number analogy is quite appropriate, and here's why (besides the fact that it's the analogy that the author I cited used), Numbers can refer to either all numbers or to only numbers which aren't prime. Mathemeticians don't see non-prime numbers as so much of a special case, so they typically just call them "numbers." Where as prime numbers, like females in most Indo-European laguages are (for better or for worse) more "marked." For example let's say I have three sets of numbers the first (4, 9, 15, 16, 22) (all non-primes) is usually refered to as "numbers," the second set (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) (mixed primes and non-primes - in this case only one non-prime) would also be generally refered to as simply "numbers," not "prime and non-prime numbers," and finally the third set (1,2,3,5,7) (all primes) would be refered to as "prime numbers." The author argues that this set up, does not inherently imply that non-primes (analogous to males) are any more valued or "more numerical." They're simply the more general category, which could well mean that they're seen as less special. He cites speculation about prime-eval matriarchies, which he says could well be the original origin of this sort of gender system. You should check out the article - it's a really thought provoking piece (IMO) - whether you end up agreeing with it or not.

Mathemeticians don't see non-prime numbers as so much of a special case, so they typically just call them "numbers." I have to say that I totally disagree with this sentence. A group of numbers which happen to be all non-primes would be called "numbers", true. But so would a group of numbers that happened to be prime. But if that group of numbers is defined to be prime non-prime, then you'd refer to them as prime or non-prime.

By your logic, nobody should object to the sentence "Every number has other factors besides 1 and itself." But of course that's only true if you use the term "non-prime numbers" instead of "numbers".

Since nobody seems to want to weigh in on this, I changed the analogy back to the sheep one as a means of stimulating discussion on this. Anyone else have an opinion? Blackcats, are you arguing aginst sheep analogy because you think it's actually worse than the prime numbers analogy? Or just because it's what that author uses? Axlrosen 02:51, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

But at any rate - since that's the analogy that the author uses and he's one of the most well known critics of gn-language modification, it should remain in the article. --Blackcats 23:28, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree, unless we think it's a really bad analogy. I think it's a really bad analogy, let's see if I can convince you :)

Axlrosen 17:04, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It is a confusing analogy. Jonathunder 00:18, 2005 Apr 12 (UTC)

I still feel that the prime number analogy is appropriate, because it is the analogy which Mr. Ross used. But I am willing to compromise. The sheep analogy is not adequate, because it does not express the point which Mr. Ross was making. He wasn't simply saying that the same word can have more than one meaning in different contexts. He was making an analogy between matematcial set theory and the male and female gramatical genders in Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic languages. Numbers and prime numbers are just one of many examples of a set and sub set. Ross was making the point that the male gramatical gender was analogous to the larger, more general set, while the female gramatical gender was analogous to the smaller, more special (or "marked") set. I'll go ahead and change it to automobiles and Cadillacs. Whatever analogy ends up being used, it's important that it be an example of a set and subset, because the point he was trying to make isn't just that the same word can have a different meaning depending on the context, but rather that the historical marking of the female gender could actually mean that females were historically seen as more valued than males. Blackcats 04:46, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

PS - I think Mr. Ross's set analysis will make a lot more sense when you consider the examples of "men" and "women," and "male" and "female." You could say something like: "All humans are men (in the generic sense of the word), males are simply men, while females are women. --Blackcats 05:28, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Axlrosen that it is a bad analogy. I also think it is misleading to draw other similar analogies that are simply a case of set and subset. The usages are just too different. Men in the generic sense is not appropriate in just any discussion of persons in general, whereas numbers is appropriate in any discussion of numbers in general. Moreover, I don't think there exists a good real world example in another domain of language that captures the subtelties of gender-neutral language. If it is so important to have an analogy, I know several have been offered, they are just constructed rather than real world examples. The most thought-provoking I've seen is perhaps Douglas Hofstadter's satirical paper by one "William Satire" that puts forth an argument that we should "continue" using phrases like "mailwhite" and "milkwhite" to describe a mail carrier or a milk delivery person, regardless of race. Of course it's not a real world example, but it is a near perfect analogy, whereas these various attempts to shoehorn a very much non-analogous real world example into an analogy don't accomplish much but to confuse the reader. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 05:56, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

CT - What you (and perhaps Axlrosen) seem to be missing is that it doesn't need to be an analogy that everyone agrees with to be included. It simply needs to be analogy which is used by a noteworthy opponent of gender-neutral language modification, which Mr. Ross certainly is. Obviously his opponents are likely to disagree and find fault with the analogy, but it is none the less a noteworthy argument and one which is included in one of the most frequently cited pieces opposing GN-language modification. And most importantly, it's presented (with a citation), not asserted, so therefore there is no reasonable (NPOV) reason for its exclusion.

If you want to include your "milkwhite" analogy and have it presented as a commonly used argument for GN-language-modification, I won't object. Though of course it, like the one I've included may be countered with how opponents feel it doesn't fit. But a pro-GNL analogy is certainly not a replacement for an anti-GNL analogy. And I could just as easily argue that it's a shoehorn and confusing. --Blackcats 20:41, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I clearly missed the point of the original analogy, probably because it was out of context by the time I saw it. I agree that we shouldn't replace an anti-GNL analogy with a pro-GNL analogy, but this might be a good opportunity to directly compare some of the arguments. The prime number analogy may be a very weak argument (I certainly think so) but if it is used often, then it is notable. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 05:46, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

How about a brand name that is also used as a category name, like Kleenex, or Q-Tip, or Chapstick? E.g. "kleenex" can mean either the category of facial tissue, or one specific kind, just as "man" or "he" can mean either the entire category of people or one specific kind. Axlrosen 21:42, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The point which Mr. Ross was trying to make was that traditionally (in Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic languages) the female gender, not male, has been more marked. So if you want to use the "Kleenex" analogy, the more marked "Kleenex" would have to refer to women, while "facial tissue," like "men," can refer either to all brands of facial tissue or to all brands which are not Kleenex.

But these analogies wouldn't work so well, because the more marked name has come to be colloquially used to refer to the entire class of items. And that certainly is not the case with "women." I'm not wed to any one analogy, but it needs to be one where the word which is analogous to men is more general and the one for women is a more special and/or specific subset of that. For example, "diamonds" could be analogous to "women" while "gems" was analogous to "men." Or "lasagna" for women and "Italian food" for men. Etc. Tiene sentido?

--Blackcats 20:27, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Percentage

As of 2005, what percentage of Americans are opponents of non-sexist language?? Georgia guy 23:36, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think that question is a perfect example of how loaded a term "non-sexist language" is. I oppose sexist language, I simply don't feel that there's anything sexist about using the male gramatical gender as a common gender in cases where the gender is unknown. If you did a survey and phrased the question like that - you'd probably get a lot of people saying they support "non-sexist language," (though I think a significant percentage would still say they didn't). But among the group which said yes, I think a majority would soon get pissed off if someone started correcting them every time they didn't rephrase their speech or writing with something akward like "he/she," the "singular they" in a case where it clearly doesn't sound right, or change their sentence to the plural when it was easier and more natural for them to have it in the singular. I think the better question would be what percentage of English speakers use "he," "him," "himself," "his," etc. in cases where the gender is unknown and would be upset if they were forced to quit doing so.--Blackcats 23:59, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, what is the percentage?? Georgia guy 16:41, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

GG, since you're so fancinated by that question, maybe you should do some research and see if any such surveys have been done. All I know is that it continues to be a controversial issue, and my concern is making sure to make sure that the opinions of people on both sides are fairly represented here. --Blackcats 05:26, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm sure such surveys have been done, but I agree with Blackcats that those numbers would hardly be useful. What if I wanted to know what percentage of Americans really care about the environment? "Everyone cares about the environment in a phone survey" (name that movie :). I wouldn't rely on a survey. There have been literally hundreds of studies to show that how a question is worded, in what order questions are asked, what kind of survey (random phone survey, magazine mail survey, internet survey, etc.), and many other factors create such a large variance in any survey about people's opinions or beliefs that the results of such surveys are useless. I'm talking tens of percentage points of variance. So the best we can probably do is "less than 100% and more than 0% of Americans are opponents of non-sexist language". CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 06:08, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Gender vs. Sex

Although gender is used colloquially as a synonym for sex, such usage renders a page like this nearly incomprehensible. Better to say sex when you mean sex ! Ailanto 05:30, 2005 Apr 2 (UTC)

I agree. Chamaeleon 10:59, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What about language vs writing vs communication vs discourse? Hyacinth 11:05, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Move vote

As the move deadline has come and gone I suggest that this discussion is broken down into a simple list of possibilities on which people can vote. My personal choice would be Gender-neutral language, but there is too much above for people to come along and try to find the possibilities. violet/riga (t) 21:05, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with the title of "Non-sexist language". (Even if it is kept, I'd lose the hyphen.)

I think "Gender neutral" is OK.

Another possibility is some variation of "bias." I see that as somewhat between the two. That is, bias itself is not inherently bad, or its degree of badness varies. (An example off the top of my head: Alphabetical order.) Maurreen 08:32, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Removing the hyphen is fine with me. As is using "neutral" instead of "non" to address User:Blackcats' point above. But sex is *not* gender, and I strongly oppose confusing the two. Why not Sex neutral language? Ambarish 08:51, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't think they're being confused at all because it is gender roles rather than biological facts that are being discussed. If anything, it's the word "sexist" that's confusing the two. But that's just my opinion. - furrykef (Talk at me) 08:59, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Please see response below. Ambarish 03:15, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My vote is for "Gender-neutral language" because the phrase "sexist language" is obviously loaded, so I feel "nonsexist language" is similarly loaded (by suggesting that not using it is sexist language). While not everybody will agree with me, a term that has such potential for being perceived as loaded can't possibly be NPOV. - furrykef (Talk at me) 08:59, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually, gender is a grammatical concept. In many languages (German, Sanskrit, to name two), nouns (typically) have gender, independent of whether they refer a male, a female or an inanimate object. Gender has nothing to do with the sex of a living creature. Now please tell me what you mean by "gender roles" again? I like to think of it as sex-designated roles. Also note that "sex" doesn't mean just "sexual intercourse". The column in all those forms where you fill in "F" or "M" is captioned "sex". Ambarish 03:15, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Support the move to gender-neutral language.

Although it is an article about language, I don't think there is any confusion over whether it is gender roles or grammatical gender that is being referred to. I am willing to bet that the phrase gender-neutral language is never seriously used to mean a language that doesn't have grammatical gender, except where this fact about a language is used to argue that the language is inherently non-sexist.

Far be it from me to quibble over the correct uses of the words "sex" and "gender", except to say that when someone has chosen a gender role different from his or her biological sex, part and parcel with that is usually a desire to be referred to with language appropriate to the chosen gender role. I believe that the debates over non-sexist language are largely about language specific to a gender role, and that someone refusing to acknowledge the differences between sex and gender in their speech is an orthogonal concern. To rename the article to "sex-neutral language" (which is far less used than "gender-neutral language" anyway) implies that this debate only touches language specific to a biological sex and never to a gender role, which is probably pretty far from the truth. For the same reason, I agree that it is the term "sexist" that is inaccurate, even disregarding my comments above about it being loaded.

The current title carries with it a point of view, whereas gender-neutral language is a techical distinction and does not carry a point of view. I would also agree that something along the lines of "non-gender-biased language" is neutral and a compromise would be acceptable; however, it is still probably better to go with the more commonly used term. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 05:07, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Support move just as proposed. The hypen makes "gender-neutral" act together as an adjective. Jonathunder 00:59, 2005 Apr 30 (UTC)

Actual vote

There needs to be a simple yes or no vote on the proposed move. Otherwise, list article's listing will lanquish on the move-request page with no conclusion. How about we have a vote for five days on the proposed move, then when that's over, if the vote is to not move the page, the discussion can continue as to what the title of the article should be, and when a really good idea is suggested, another move request can be made. Please vote support or oppose below. Lachatdelarue (talk) 01:50, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Move Non-sexist language to Gender-neutral language:

Support

1. Maurreen 16:09, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
2. Jonathunder 17:33, 2005 May 2 (UTC)
3. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 04:05, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
4. furrykef (Talk at me) 06:02, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
5. user:Anthere
6. Proteus (Talk) 20:37, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Ambarish 04:46, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Discussion

Just want to point out to anyone else who's going to vote that 'gender-neutral' is the first term used in the article, and is subsequently used about 50 times, while non-sexist only appears about 15 times. Lachatdelarue (talk) 01:17, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

This article has been renamed as the result of a move request. violet/riga (t) 11:19, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Removed NPOV tags

I was the one who had orginially put them up there. Then I fixed all the major issues excpet for moving the page (which apparently happened about a month ago, but I had gotten busy with other stuff). Anyhow - I don't have any major POV concerns here at this point, but of course if someone else does they're more than welcome to post the tags again. Blackcats 03:29, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

sexism in English "freezes" (a.k.a. "binomial expressions")

Hi. I dont see this mentioned in the article yet, so I am pointing it out here. English is an inherently sexist language that is difficult to change in areas that are as subconscious as this. First, I explain the concept. Then, I show the sex-bias interacts with the phenomenon.

English has hundreds, if not thousands, of conjoined words of the type:

WORD_a + and + WORD_b

where the order of conjoined items cannot occur in reverse order (i.e. WORD_b + and + WORD_a). These conjoined elements have been called freezes by Háj Ross, but are also called binomial expressions and other names (I call them freezes because Háj is who introduced them to me, but binomial expression is perhaps more common (?) ). Examples of these include:

• flip-flop   (but not *flop-flip)
• helter-skelter   (but not *skelter-helter)
• liver and onions   (but not *onions and liver)
• red beans and rice   (but not *rice and red beans)
• peanut butter and jelly   (but not *jelly and peanut butter); also: PB & J   (but not *J & PB)
• this and that   (but not *that and this)
• here and there   (but not *there and here)
• in and out   (but not *out and in)
• up and down   (but not *down and up)

Note that not all conjoined elements in English are freezes. For instance, on and off and off and on are accepted as equally grammatical by many speakers.

Often when conjoined elements have idiomatic interpretations they will be freezes, but if they are interpreted non-idiomatically then they will not be freezes. Example:

• the cat and mouse = the mouse and cat   (non-idiomatic)
• She's playing cat and mouse with me. but not, *She's playing mouse and cat with me.  (idiomatic)

The order of elements seems to be determined phonologically, semantically, and pragmatically. So, some of tendencies are

• high vowel before low vowel
• front vowel before back vowel
• meat before vegetables
• proximal before distal
• most culturally important/salient member first

The sexual bias is seen in the fact that male nouns usually occur before female nouns:

• king and queen is better than *queen and king
• (I now pronounce you) man and wife is better than *wife and man
• his and hers is better than *hers and his
• brothers and sisters is better than*sisters and brothers
• Sonny and Cher is better than *Cher and Sonny
• Mr. and Mrs. is better than *Mrs. and Mr.
• men and women is better than *women and men
• etc., etc.

Freezes are a fact which non-native speakers must learn about if they desire to not sound "funny". If sexism-conscious English speakers were to counteract the effects of the freezes by consciously reversing the order, their speech may sound a bit odd to other speakers (who are not as sexism-conscious). Additionally, counteracting the sexist language here is difficult as the grammatical phenomenon of freezes runs rather deep (mostly subconscious) in the English language (as can be evidenced in the freezes that are constrained by phonology and other semantic domains).

Anyway, I think that this is rather interesting stuff — perhaps you think so, too. Feel free to search for more freezes (there are many, many more). Maybe one could test their number of occurrences in search engines. Háj's paper is listed below, along with a link to a Linguist List posting with more references. peace. — ishwar  (SPEAK) 09:20, 2005 Jun 8 (UTC)

• Cooper, William E.; & Ross, ["Háj"] John R. (1975). World order. In R. E. Grossman, L. J. San, & T. J. Vance (Eds.), Papers from the parasession on functionalism (pp. 63-111). Chicago, IL: Chicago Linguistic Society.
• http://linguist.emich.edu/issues/5/5-695.html

You bring up an interesting point, one that I think I should look into more before saying too much in response. I would like to, however, advise caution to anyone who would use this evidence as proof that English (or any other language) is sexist, and to claim as such in the article (although mentioning the argument is certainly appropriate). There are of course many plausible explanations for this phenomenon. Although the explanation that it reflects some inherently sexist quality of the language or a subconcious process in the speakers seems to be the most obvious explanation, it may be that the reason this explanation is obvious is that it is politically charged and most people spend more time thinking about politics than cognitive linguistics. Perhaps the best course of action would be to briefly mention the argument, provide a link to an article on freezes, and let the discussion continue there so that alternative explanations don't get sidelined as irrelevant to this article. CyborgTosser (Only half the battle) 28 June 2005 12:50 (UTC)

hi. yes, i agree. the Cooper & Ross paper is a squib (although a very good one) that happens to suggest an answer. the paper does not focus on language and gender but on a much larger picture (they go so far as to suggest that the phenomenon leads from an "embodied" mind, i.e. see George Lakoff). the idea is that the first member of the conjunct has to do with an idealized speaker who is someone like Archie Bunker, i.e. white, male, meat-eater, etc. so, as language reflects the collective thinking of a lineage of speakers, perhaps this grammatical constraint is a part of that. i dont know what Pinker or any of the other references on Linguist List have to say about it. if you read Cooper & Ross and other references you will know more than me. my main reason for the mention here is to promote article growth as language & gender is an ever growing area of research that has more to it than just pronominal reference (plus i find it fascinating). thanks & peace – ishwar  (speak) 2005 June 29 22:14 (UTC)

Counterexamples: ladies and gentlemen, bride and bridegroom (?), mother and father (?)

comment

hmm. I didnt read the whole article, but i say anyway that the article does not cover enough to warrant its title. There is much more to sexist language than gender neutral reference. See the work of Deborah Tannen (male & female speech styles) for one area. Another area is where many languages have different consonants that are used exclusively by either women or men. There is stuff to mention from sociolinguists and anthropologists. I will provide a bibliography some time in the future. peace — ishwar  (SPEAK) 09:57, 2005 Jun 8 (UTC)

perhaps this is not the article I was expecting. is there a general Language and gender article somewhere? — ishwar  (SPEAK) 10:17, 2005 Jun 8 (UTC)

reference sectioning

I think that the section on gender & reference could be better if it is sectioned into at least parts: (1) reference & pronominal forms, and (2) reference & lexical items (i.e. "content" vocabulary). peace – ishwar  (speak) 12:24, 2005 Jun 24 (UTC)

Chinese

I did a fair amount of editing of the Chinese section, because I felt it implied things about grammatical case that weren't correct. A language without case could still have gender (both sex-related and non-sex-related). Spanish has only traces of the Latin case system left in its pronouns, but it has 2 grammatical genders. Heck, English is a great example. We not only lost virtually all of the Proto-Germanic case system, but we lost grammatical gender and ended up just with third person singular pronouns that indicate sexual gender.

I still have some concern because Chinese is really (at least from an objective linguistic standpoint) multiple languages (because most of the "dialects" are mutually unintelligible to each other). I only know about Mandarin, and I think whoever wrote that section also only knew about Mandarin. The issue with the Chinese characters applies to all Chinese, since they pretty much all write with the same characters (and usually in Mandarin, too). But statements about grammar and spoken words may be incorrect for some dialects. In particular, I do *not* know whether the other dialects also have only one spoken form of the third person singular pronoun. This is a tough issue, because although linguists pretty much agree Chinese is not one language, most Chinese laymen don't agree with them.Anybody have any thoughts on how to handle what is essentially spillover of a controversy from a different article?

My other issue is with the following:

For example, the word for doctor is yīshēng (醫生) and can only be made gender-specific by adding the root for male or female to the front of it. Thus to specify a male doctor, one would need to say nányīshēng (男醫生). This particular construction would admittedly be rarely used due to the stereotypical perception in Chinese society that doctors tend to be male, but that is not a feature of the language itself.

I'm deleting the last sentence. It makes a number of speculative leaps with no evidence:

1) That a doctor is as prestigious a position in China as in America (and/or the rest of the Western world, if it's the same as America). But, I don't know if that's true. Proffesional jobs have in the past not been paid very well and not been held in high esteem in Communist countries by the establishment. I have personal experience with this in the former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union. China is in transition, so who knows how it works now? Besides, what about traditional Chinese medicine versus Western medicine? How does that factor in?

2) That most doctors in China are either male, or that is the common perception. Who knows? Again, I know there are a lot of women doctors in the former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union. I'd want more proof before leaving what otherwise sounds like biased opinion in.

3) Even if Chinese society is totally sexist, etc, that's the reason why the construction is rare. Although the other 2 give me great pause, I know less about the answers to them. I am not an expert on Mandarin, and my abilities in it are limited and very rusty, so I can't say for sure, but I do not think it is common to specify the gender for professions or any other type of noun referring to a kind of person (except for words like boy and girl, etc.). That's just not the kind of thing the language tends to require at all. And I don't see why rarely using that construction would indicate sexist language anyway without making the other leaps that sentence does. It seems to be more inline with what feminists want to see in English.

I have yet to look through the other language sections, but if there are other statements of that nature, especially if I know anything about the language, I will delete or change them. It is important to be careful in making assumptions about the structure of foreign languages (or even your native language) unless you know something about linguistics and that language.

If someone has some sound reasons for putting that sentence back in, I'd be glad to listen to them, but otherwise . . . --Tox 19:53, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

The Chinese Female Emperor Wu Zetian

Would anyone be interested in joining a discussion regarding whether the female Chinese monarch Wu Zetian should be refered as an Empress or Emperor? I know that in Chinese the term Emperor does not strictly imply gender and that Wu Zetian forced all her subjects to call her the Chinese term for Emperor rather than Empress. I am advocating Emperor for historic accuracy and Chinese linguistic accuracy even though one user has suggested that using the term Emperor for Wu Zetian would be gramatically incorrect in English. Allentchang 10:15, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Organization and scope

I can see what you're trying to do, Ish Ishwar, but I think those topics would be better handled in another article, perhaps "Gender and language" or "Gendered language". First this article is already overlength. Second, if you look at the redirects, it functions as a aggregator of the "non-sexist language", "inclusive language" topics, which are overwhelmingly about treatment of sex differences in referents. "Gender-neutral" is my experience more of a copy-editor's term than a linguist's term. If the topic of gender-neutral referents really belongs with the issues you've raised, perhaps this article could end up as a sub-article of a broader article on gendered language.--Chris 17:30, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

hi. yes, this article is becoming a bit ridiculous in length (as i imagine people will continue to add further lang examples ad nauseam). it is not really about gender-neutral language (whatever that may be), but about the systems encoding grammatical and/or natural gender in a few languages (with usual bias towards European langs) and the expected/prototypical referents of certain lexical items. of course, it focuses on pronominals since that is what popular writing focuses on.

To be blunt, we need an article written by people who are competent in linguistics. That means shunting off to this article people whose main interest is in feminism (pro- or con-) or in editorial standards on "non-sexist" language. I'm not sure this article needs to be separate from "non-sexist pronouns", but I don't really care if it is.--Chris 17:23, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

it's ok to have information about this, but these are hardly the only ways in which masculine and feminine (and homosexual & heterosexual) forms of speech can differ. if certain groups are interested in trying to change language usage for whatever reason, they will need to develop a deeper understanding of gendered speech. this article is only the surface: much of language is used unconsciously. i was hoping someone who was interested in this stuff would go do some research, but it hasnt happened yet. i know linguistics is rather specialized & not really part of general knowledge, still i thought someone would pick up a book as gender studies are becoming increasingly more popular & argued about.

There seem to be a fair number of academic linguists in WP, and other people with some competence in linguistics. Still, a lot of that is specialised knowledge about individual languages. Gendered language is more likely to be of interest to cultural-studies types, who are likely to bring a fairly strong POV to the issue. Still, an article seems doable to me. One issue is, once you get into hetero/homo forms of speech, aren't you really entering the general area of linguistic subcultures rather than gendered language per se?--Chris 17:23, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

so, yes i think there needs to a general article about gender and language. it needs to have linguistic and anthropological references. the current article should a sub-article of this general article. most research on gender and language isnt really interested in the topic of this article anyway. just to give 2 examples of other topics: (1) one classic early study of children's language pointed out that in making requests boys used imperatives while girls used interrogatives (e.g. "Give me the ball" vs. "Can I have the ball?") thus leading to discussions of whether or not women are usually politer than men (and if so, why?); (2) American comedians often make jokes about homosexual men. In these jokes, they not use only stereotypical body movements and vocabulary; they also use stereotypical speech styles and certain pronunciation changes (such as fronted "s"-sounds that are more like "th"-sounds).

Absolutely. About homosexual language, obviously very few if any gay men could be mistaken for the typical standup comic's version of a gay man. But a significant minority aren't so far off, think of the one designer on "Queer Eye" - you know the one I mean. Also, I've heard it claimed that directors of gay men's choirs have trouble getting clean S's in their overall sound, so there is some basis to the notion of a gay lisp. The odd thing about that is, while most features of stereotyped gay speech can be explained as feminised speech, women don't typically lisp.--Chris 17:42, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

peace – ishwar  (speak) 06:57, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Slight change to the Japanese section (6.10)

I pushed the sub section (6.10.1) on Japanese speech styles up one level, so now it is simply the third paragraph of 6.10, and removed the stub notice. Personally, I find that it is detailed enough to fit in with the rest of the entry, doesn't really need a seperate section, and the entire page flows better without only one sub-sub-sub category. Koweja 03:00, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Yup'iaq/Yup'ik

I am loath to remove an entire language section, especially in the case of a minority language (one of WP's purposes, IMO, should be to document minority/endangered languages.) However, the Yup'iaq/Yup'ik section has almost nothing to do with the subject of the article; stripped of the off-topic material, this section really just amounts to

• Yugstun (the Yup'iaq language) is a gender neutral language.

which by itself (with neither explanation nor example) is pretty much valueless.

With regret, then, I am removing it. Perhaps someone out there who knows something about this subject could incorporate the relevant material into the Yupik article. Vilcxjo 16:27, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Hungarian

However there is a way to distinguish between male and female persons having a certain profession by adding "nő"-"woman" to the end of the word. This though does not work with all the professions as quite many would sound very awkward (as "postás" meaning "letter carrier", lit. "someone associated with the post", where there is no such thing as "postásnő" "mailwoman").

Google may tell you that a "postásnő" may exist, though it's quite rare and is only used if someone wants to emphasize that the person in question is female (& I don't think that it sounds "very awkward"). Other examples like "légiutaskísérő" (flight attendant) would be better. (If someone wants to emphasize that the flight attendant is female, he_:) has to use an English word /stewardess/). --194.152.154.2 01:28, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Brother vs. Sister

Is using sister more appropriate than using brother as an adjective? A sister site instead of a brother one? I think it should be Brother site, because site (project etc.) is of male gender, whether a sister car is more appropriate than a brother car, because the noun car is female.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Stanton BG (talk • contribs) 15:05, 4 April 2006 UTC.

Nouns that aren't people's names don't have gender in English. Hrimfaxi 13:23, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

French: NPOV

Recently, the following was added to the section on French:

"The use of non-sexist job titles in French is common and generally standard practice among the francophones in Belgium and in Canada. By law in Quebec, the use of gender-inclusive job titles is obligatory if the writer has not opted for gender-free terms. In France, however, the practice of using exclusively masculine job titles is still current and has been upheld by the overwhelmingly male-dominated Académie française, whose rulings, though, are not binding and do not always reflect common educated usage."

I would like to know why it is that using the same titles for male and female professions is "sexist" in French, but not in English. French speaking actresses should supposedly be offended if they happen to be called acteur rather than actrice, all the while English speaking feminists are trying to replace actress with actor... It all sounds like ethnocentric POV to me.

The needless reference to the "overwhelmingly male-dominated Académie française, whose rulings, though, are not binding and do not always reflect common educated usage" smells of bias. Can't the same be said about all language academies in the word -- not to mention other public institutions? FilipeS 15:59, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I'm answering FilipeS, CJGB or a sockpuppet of the latter since the deletions and the above comment are uncannily close. In any event, I'll answer the FilipeS's queries first and then respond to what was erroneously corrected.

First, I think you meant "same title", not "same titles"; in that case, you'd be referring to the masculine. In French, the masculine, when used for a job title, is neither neurtral or generic. It is at the heart of French, Spanish, and other romance languages to use the appropriate gender for the sex of the person doing the job. The only exceptions are words that refer to humans, but are not jobs, such as personne, victime (both feminine, by etymology), etc. So, logically and grammatically, it is natural to have feminized job titles. With respect to anyone's logic and to French grammar, "Madame le Ministre" is incorrect, though it is used. What is considered sexist in French (mind you, not misogynous, as is sometimes understood) in terms of using the masculine job title only is the argument that the jobs are intrinsically masculine-gender as say, personne and victime always feminine. Non-sexist job titles in French are ones that fit the sex of the person doing the job; therefore, "non-sexist" is a misnomer, as it is in English when people use "female actor" and "male actor". Just because "actress" was eliminated does not mean that the sex distinction, i.e. sexist terms, is gone. How you find the section on French or the debate (because that's what the situation is, a debate full of contradictory practices) "ethnocentric" is beyond me. Did you mean another term of opprobrium/neutrality? Certainly "ethnocentric" is not what S.I. Hayakawa would call a purr word, for those who aren't anthropologists, sociologists or sociolinguists.

The reference to the Académie française is utterly essential. In most discussions of the non-sexist/gender-neutral language in French, be they formal or informal, people evoke the Académie. It's an ironic situation because in the debate over feminization, the Académie is truly male-dominated yet has no actual power over how people speak given that the Académie cannot write law. Convention is what tends to be the norm. Personally, I do not like mentioning the Académie. It is, nonetheless, a crucial point of reference in both people's minds and most broadcast discussions and newsprint sources.

As to supposed offense and eager feminists, that doesn't apply to French-speakers at all when it comes to your example of "acteur" being used on/at/for a woman. No French-speaking actress is offended by being addressed as "acteur", should that word be used. The first thing that would come to mind is that the speaker does not have French as a first language and has screwed up the gender. Note that if someone used "les grands acteurs" (the great actors), there's ambiguity without including "et les grandes actrices": the first expression is both all-male and gender-inclusive. Go figure. Now about English-speakers, you don't need to be feminist to want non-sexist or gender-neutral (not the same) language to be used. It is unclear that your use of "feminist" was a political epithet or a mental shortcut. Could you clarify that?

Now for the so-called biais. You may choose to interpret that as bias, but that would be grossly incorrect. The Académie is male, French (since there are the scant Algerians, West Africans in it), and white-skin dominated. There is a striking interview between journalist Denise Bombardier and an "Immortel" (masc.) from the Académie in which he goes wild about her being a woman and being feminist, etc. He even sexually harasses her. What's ironic is that she's neither feminist nor against using masculine job titles for women. You can find the interview or a transcript of it on the Net. Back to the Académie as a whole, I included it because it's the one time when the make-up of the Académie, its presence on everyone's lips, and its contradictions are pertinent. On most other topics, it's not important or relevant.

Obviously, you don't know my personal views and, as you can see, I'm not fond of political userboxes. Therefore, please don't assume anything. Ask me to confirm the doubts you may have and don't imply, please. As for the deletions, not corrections, that were made, there was some very important relevant information therein. The fact on same-sex marriage, which happens to be law in both Belgium and Canada, renders the point about using feminine titles to designate a male dignitary's wife null. In both these countries there are homosexual dignitaries and members of government and some of whom have spouses. Reread what I wrote in the article: if a female ambassador (ambassatrice) has a female spouse (traditionnally called "ambassatrice") there is no more point. As you can see and will agree, "non-sexist" language has deep ramifications for protocol enshrined in tradition and cultural/national identity. CJ Withers 02:34, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Let me assure you I am nobody's sockpuppet; I made the edits independently of FilipeS's comments, which I have only read now.--Chris 08:39, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't really have anything to say here, except to ask: When you say "logically and grammatically, it is natural to have feminized job titles" are you referring to a universally accepted rule of French morphology, or are you arguing for a particular position? If the latter (as I suspect), then this is not wikipediable material, though you'd be justified referencing a source that expresses this position. --Chris 08:39, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

The contention that same-sex marriage is relevant to this issue is an argument[10], and therefore inadmissible without a reference to an acceptable source.

I'll respond to your reversion of my edit on feminizing suffixes. First, I disagree about it being a defining clause; it works better as a non-defining clause. Second, on reflection, I think your contention is false, or, if true, irrelevant. Let me explain:

The most common process for femininizing job titles in French has been to add suffixes that often follow the patterns for adjectives. The most common suffixes used are -e (l'avocat → l'avocate), -eure (le docteur → la docteure), -euse (le travailleur → la travailleuse), -esse (le maire →la mairesse), -trice (le directeur → la directrice). For job titles ending in epicene suffixes such as -iste (le/la dentiste) or -logue (le/la psychologue), the only change is in the article (le → la) and any associate adjectives.

If you're suggesting that the suffixes you've listed here are essentially adjectival and have pressed into service as nouns (like -if in le substantif) then I disagree. It seems to me that most are essential nominal. Even -e, which at first glance supports your view, is descended from Latin -a, which (in the relevant cases) is equally a nominal and an adjectival ending.

If you're merely suggesting that most of these endings are sometimes used for adjectives (while being primarily nominal), then you're right, but it's not a terribly relevant point. This isn't an article on French morphology.

I'm sure the Acadamie are a bunch of out-of-touch old men. But expressing that view indirectly (through the phrase "male-dominated") is POV. Again, you could reference a source that takes the Academie to task for its sex bias. The point about their rulings not being binding is fair game, but a bit argumentative. I've made an edit that tries to imply this point without making a big deal about it. --Chris 08:39, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

It's an extreme lack of both netiquette and editing tact to insert text into a post that was signed and dated. I moved all your comments to then end, where they belong according to Wikipedia standards, general custom, and basic logic. Also, you totally misunderstood the sockpuppet comment. It's FelipeS who possibly seemed to be the sockpuppet, not you. Please re-read, for I would never call you a sockpuppet.

Your qualifying the pertinent comment on rulings is unjustified and by its nature argumetative and pure conjecture, regardless of how you attempt to justify it through misuse of Wikipedia guidelines and standards. The A.F. is an honorary institution, not an authoritive body, hence the pertinent fact on how its rulings are not law. Again, read the article on the A.F. You seem to have misunderstood the reality of the A.F. and how is is essential to understanding the issue of non-sexist language in French.

As a linguist and language professional, I assure you that the clause is clearly essential. Your opinion "it works better as a non-defining clause" discredits you entirely on this grammar point, the more so in that the originally was true to the meaning.

If you choose to add a meaning that is egregiously wrong, then marr the article. Do we need to vote on such a blatant fact or are you trolling? For that matter, why are you debating the subject when your expertise is ostensibly not on or in the French language? Also, the adjective male-dominated might, yes, titillate the misandrous and displease edgy males, i.e. those who read something that is not there. Removing it was a good idea so as to prevent ire or glee from being spontaneously kindled within those folks. I never implied that the Académie was out of touch. I'm sorry that you should miscontrue that comment. What connection did you see between "male-dominated" and "being out of touch"? I see none.

Instead of mixing some indeed justified corrections with outright misdirected deletions and modifications, please edit the pages related to the gay community and gay rights, you should have fun proding people there. Not only are your formulaic tactics to discredit any factual contribution evident, they will fuel those, unlike me, who do not have facts. :-) CJ Withers 11:28, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry CJ Withers, your comments -- which descend to personal attack in your final paragraph -- are so blatantly abusive that I will not respond to them. I'll generallly stand by my edits, though no doubt I am liable to error like anyone else. If you want to discuss this article or any other matter with me, please amend your tone.--Chris 16:13, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Just for the record, I edited nothing in this article, this month, and I do not appreciate having baseless accusations thrown at me. FilipeS 14:30, 11 May 2006 (UTC)