Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 October 26

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October 26

How did men become exclusively male?

Nowadays, people will feel offended when men is used inclusively. My question is, why do people think that "men" doesn't include them to the point that they insist on having a separate word just to indicate femininity? I mean, in Mandarin Chinese, no one feels offended when Tā is used. In fact, it is normal for a speaker to ask, "So, is this person you're talking about male or female?" because in spoken Chinese and historical written Chinese, the pronouns are all identical. And no one feels offended when they use the exact same pronoun Tā for men and women. Instead, the common way to express gender in Chinese is to add 男 or 女 characters or use relational terms (大哥 for oldest brother). To circumvent the traditional pecking order, sometimes English nicknames will be used like "Maria" or something strange like "Tomato" or "Young Boy". Somehow, for English speakers, the given name is most important, because that signifies the person's identity, and gender is part of that. For Chinese, it seems the reverse is true. That relationship (including gender) is priority, while given names are different and changeable depending on the situation. So, anyway, how did "men" become exclusively male? How come gender for English speakers is so intertwined with personal identity than one's relationship to other people? 64.134.39.74 (talk) 14:36, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

"Men" certainly referred to both sexes in the Book of Common Prayer composed during the 16th and 17th centuries; an example is in the Nicene Creed: “Who for us men, and for our salvation came down from heaven...”. A Prayer Book Glossary says: "Man/Men- an inclusive term for all human beings". Alansplodge (talk) 16:39, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

[Edit Conflict] Gender in English and Grammatical gender may contain information of interest. See also Man (word)#Etymology. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.202.208.54 (talk) 16:40, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

By 1776, it seemed to not include women, as "All men are created equal" didn't intend to grant women equal rights with men, such as the right to vote. "Mankind", however, still has the broader meaning, as in "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind". StuRat (talk) 16:44, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

The Declaration of Independence wasn't intended to grant anyone rights, but rather to dissolve a governmental relationship; it didn't grant anyone a right to vote (and in the early US, many men were not granted the right to vote, as many states limited it to white male property owners.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:59, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

One reason for the DoI E was so that all men could have equal rights, but not women. StuRat (talk) 17:30, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Stu, is this trolling, or are you seriously contending that the Department of Energy was instituted to strip women of their rights? Or did you mean the Department of Education? μηδείς (talk) 18:09, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

I mean DoI, of course. Now corrected. StuRat (talk) 23:12, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

That still leaves open the question of the Declaration depriving or denying rights to women. I see no evidence of this. μηδείς (talk) 00:09, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Not depriving them, just not declaring that women deserve equal rights with men. If it really meant that, then the total lack of any attempt to do so, such as granting women equal voting rights, once the American Revolution was won, would mean the DoI was either a lie or was largely ignored. StuRat (talk) 01:50, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

The Declaration of Independence is not an enforceable legal document, and in some respects stated aspirations rather than anything which was expected to be implemented immediately. For Abraham Lincoln's explanation of this, see http://www.bartleby.com/251/pages/page415.html ... Anyway, some women had the right to vote in New Jersey before 1807. AnonMoos (talk) 09:08, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

One thing I'm finding interesting is this Google Ngram result for the phrase "men and women" (the usage of which suggests a separation), which seems to drop off hard in the late 17th century, then regrow. --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:08, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

64.134.39.74 -- if you want to go back to the origins, then Old English had three separate words: wer with exclusively male reference, wīf with exclusively female reference, and mann, which basically meant "human, person" (a meaning reinforced by its similarity to the impersonal or indefinite pronoun man, which meant "one" or unspecified "they" as verb subject). AnonMoos (talk) 00:03, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

See Gender neutrality in English#Generic words for humans. --69.159.60.147 (talk) 07:43, 27 October 2017 (UTC)