lesbian HISTORY Re: [lbo-talk] etymology

Gar Lipow the.typo.boy at gmail.com
Fri Jul 1 15:17:51 PDT 2005


On 7/1/05, snitsnat <snitilicious at tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
> They aren't making some bogus etymological argument or even the more common
> argument that, because man, son, etc. _Mean_ male now (though they didn't
> way back when), the words can influence our perceptions. (I'm not big on
> either of these approaches mind you.)

While the second can be overdone, I'm not certain it is invalid. When I was 11 I read Shaw's "Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism"; I think its use of "she" "her" and "woman" as general synonyms for human being made a point that still sticks with me, though I can't remember any of the actual arguments for socialism.

Also there are some reasonable historical arguments to be made against using "he" and "him" and "man" as general terms for humanity in English. In the 19th century "he" and "him" had switched so decisively to meaning male that people started using "they" as the gender neutral term - even when referring to a single person. This was not done out of any feminist conciousness, not in Victorian England. It was simply the way the language was evolving. The British Parliment passed a law mandating that male terms should be considered generic terms in 1850 to preserve a form which was otherwise passing out of existence. At the same time whem women sued to be admitted to a British medical society they were refused on grounds that the societies rules talked of "men" and that it this context it could not possibly include women.

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