h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes Fragilis the Beautiful! So sad where're so far apart.
You are one of the few women who impressed me!

Your Wonko, quite off topic

But Wonko, I wouldn't want to get involved with a fellow who already has two wives. A girl's gotta have her limits. You can call beautiful all you want, though.

Eh. Sorry, everyone else. Wonko and I can continue this elsewhere, I'm sure.

I live in NZ - New Zealand English is really just a grimly incomprehensible sub-set of American. Gotten, elevator, garbage, cere-mony, all sorts of pronunciations etc. Had a telemarketer last week who kept saying gotten, she sounded about 17 years old, kept wanting to say to her "Don't you know that's incorrect?" was afraid she'd think me a negative old woman (as compared to her, I'm Old, I suppose). NZers just slavishly adore all things American. As Brit (NZ) variety, it makes me totally puzzled and slightly ill. Re something else, how can these (I assume men) say that he and man are generic? Nonsense! Maybe once but not now...

Hey, Fragilis, what a neat name! I am a straight woman, a strong feminist, and very interested in language - I get really worked up about inclusive language, one of my pet hates being people who use 'man' and 'he' as generic. They aren't. Latin and Greek have separate terms referring to: males/females/and people as an inclusive whole. English used to, until males appropriated the word for people and made it means males. Sadly, that's what it now means! Children all know this, and laugh at adults using 'man' to mean the human race, as they (especially little girls) know that it doesn't include them! I read an idea in "Ms" decades ago: a woman vowed (and reading her, I did the same), to use she 50% of the time when referring to unknown beings i.e., "look at that duck, she had better be careful crossing the road", or "Oh, I hope I didn't step on that ant and kill her". Now it grates to hear women in supermarkets, telling their toddlers "Oh, look at that cow, isn't *he* cute"! My son knows cows aren't 'he', he's known that since he was two. He corrected me for calling Jenna a 'girl' in 'Blakes Seven' the other night!

"Latin and Greek have separate terms referring to: males/females/and people as an inclusive whole. English used to, until males appropriated the word for people and made it means males. Sadly, that's what it now means!"

Posh! English is a language with quite a few words that have the same spelling and pronounciation, yet have different meanings. We've compound, a group of buildings within a barrier, compound, regarding interest, compound, a substance made of two or more distinct materials. We've cleave, to bifurcate, and cleave, to cling. We've the symbol @, each, and the symbol @, at. Why not just put it that "man" can mean the single male and "Man" can mean people as a whole? Simply because a word has acquired a new meaning doesn't make it lose the old meaning!

"males appropriated" As opposed to the females who were opposing the appropriation? I'm certain there were women who were instumental in the adaption of the word to its new meaning. It isn't just a male thing; don't make it one.

"Children all know this, and laugh at adults using 'man' to mean the human race, as they (especially little girls) know that it doesn't include them!" I'm also certain there are many children who understand that "Man" refers to everyone. It is also a very shaky practice to base grammatical rules on the opinions of children. Most children would also probably take issue with the use of the subjunctive in, "If I were"; most would say, "If I was."

Note about the author: I have grown up in a very egalitarian household; my parents split the chores. My parents' incomes are relatively equal, though my mother gains a small amount more per annum. I, too, know a cow isn't "he." I know a fox isn't "she." I know a chicken isn't "he." I prefer to call an animal "it."

--Cooper

Yeah, animals are "it". Unless they´re somebody´s pets. But what we need is a word you can use for babies without insulting the mother. If they´re so young you can´t tell the gender what are you supposed to call them? You don´t want to say the wrong gender, but saying "it" doesn´t sound that good either.

Personally I wouldn´t be surprised if the feminists as a publicity stunt sends a woman to the Moon to be able to say "One giant leap for Womankind". Just to get back on men.

Cooper, I wrote as a woman who was a little girl, and suffered a lot of angst - I recall asking my Mum when I was 8 or so, why I had to address a letter to my great-aunt Molly, to Mrs Clive etc., and at school I would listen to talk about 'primitive man', 'mankind' and I'd wonder where there were early women, and if not, how the human race kept going? Sure, there are words with multiple meanings, I realise that, but even so 'man' is just darn confusing, and not only to children! As for animals, we're in NZ, we get 80% of our TV from the USA here, and you shld watch American TV some time. DragonballZ is a good example, try being a woman (or a girl) and watching that! (I watch it because I have a 14 year old son and am constantly being told I'm warping him and he;ll be impotent because I am a feminist. Goodness, some men are insecure! (I mean men here, not anyone on h2g2...)

Don't turn your anger/angst/frustration with men into a worldview, that's all. There's a point at which you should move for social change, but you've to have limits.

I am from America--and therefore watch American TV (though my radio is on BBC as often as possible). As little as possible, though. With as much stupid pro-male TV as there is, there are also a number pro-women programmes which are just as bad. I've never seen Dragonball Z, though I know a number of women and girls who enjoy it on a regular basis.

As for the confusion of "man" vs "Man": Lucy was a female; many famous proto-human skeletons are. My education didn't try to hide the fact of female proto-humans; that would be a stupid and ineffective strategy.

I plan to take my wife's surname--mostly because I go by my surname already, so I will be able to have the cool-sounding name "A. Cooper Suchandsuch".

Another point: all of the sexist parts of English have very little or no bearing on the concept of grammatical gender.

--Cooper

Don't turn your anger/angst/frustration with men into a worldview, that's all. There's a point at which you should move for social change, but you've to have limits.

I am from America--and therefore watch American TV (though my radio is on BBC as often as possible). As little as possible, though. With as much stupid pro-male TV as there is, there are also a number pro-women programmes which are just as bad. I've never seen Dragonball Z, though I know a number of women and girls who enjoy it on a regular basis.

As for the confusion of "man" vs "Man": Lucy was a female; many famous proto-human skeletons are. My education didn't try to hide the fact of female proto-humans; that would be a stupid and ineffective strategy.

I plan to take my wife's surname--mostly because I go by my surname already, so I will be able to have the cool-sounding name "A. Cooper Suchandsuch".

Another point: all of the sexist parts of English have very little or no bearing on the concept of grammatical gender.

--Cooper

Okay, Cooper, I get that you are feeling a lot of frustration with feminist women - or maybe, it's just with me! Okay, I am majorly frustrated with many men - of course, I have an ex husband or two on the horizon... Even so, I still believe my points are valid. Re Dragonball Z, I believe it, in the words of Bart Simpson, 'does the impossible: it sucks and blows at the same time'. Not just because all Saiyans and Nameks are male, a 'King' Namek created the whole race by laying eggs (surely, he is a she and a Queen, as any being which lays eggs is female by definition!!!!), but because DBZ is all about devaluing brain and winning through violence all the time. My special needs students love it (many of them do) and that tells something, as many of them are socially and emotionally five year olds, even if they're physically teens. I think that in order to enjoy it, many women and some girls, would have to wilfully ignore things like the above. Hard to do. I know from childhood experience.

One problem is that for many femininists it isn´t about equal rights between men and women. It´s about how it is now the women´s turn to supress the men. They´ll almost make their little boys feel guilty about not being girls, and it´s those we don´t like

Okay, this isn't really about grammatical gender, but it is about gender. I am a feminist and I've been hearing since the 1980s about how feminism is about women taking their turn to oppress men. This is not true!!!! I never wanted to oppress any male, I wanted only to get out from being oppressed by them (an ex-husband (sorted), bosses etc). Now, years later, I am all about ignoring men. As for trying to make my sons feel guilty about not being girls - I'll cop to part of that, I wanted girls. Not instead of my boys, but as well as them! But I've never had a girl. I don't make my sons feel guilty that they are not girls. I just wish they had sisters. The issue is exclusive language, however, and it's one of my pet hates.

I believe what Xanatic was saying is that there are some women who call themselves "feminists" who want to oppress men. The term "feminist" has lost its real meaning, and so it is availible to anyone who wants to use it. There is no set of criteria for feminism any more.

Strictly from the word, "feminist" is closer to the oppressive definition than the egalitarian definition. I prefer the term "egalitarianist." It goes over much better.

--Cooper

While I see your point, Cooper, I have a problem with 'egalitarianist', because of a sarcastic old party (male, of course) who wrote a book about gender and language, who insisted on referring to feminists as 'egals'. He had some sort of rationalisation based on his assumption about what feminists thought. I want to stress that feminism is NOT monolithic. There are lesbian feminists, separatists (some of whom are lesbian), ambitious business women who claim to be feminists but who'll stomp on other women in their quest for the top, and turn into purring 'girls' when being obsequious to the boss... There are reproductive rights feminists, who seem to care mainly about abortion/contraception. (That's the category most male 'feminists' I've encountered come into.) There are pro-life Christian feminists (me included) and it goes on! I don't see how any men, not even Rush Limbaugh, can genuinely believe (tho' they may claim to) that feminists (Or to use Rush' term feminazis) are really a threat to anyone! But I see that many men do feel threatened, tho' they need not!

Yes, feminism isn't monolithic!

So don't be offended when Xanatix complains about someone claiming that label. The term "feminazi" I've always taken to mean a woman who IS militantly pro-woman-at-the-expense-of-all-men.

As for an ambitious business woman stomping on other women: if she stomp on men, too, then obviously gender isn't a criterion for who gets stomped. Of course, sexual obsequeity for job advancement is stupid and wrong.

"But I see that many men do feel threatened, tho' they need not!" That is very close the same language Xanatic used when talking about feminists. I'm certain that very few men would take that as an insult or an assertion that men are monolithic.

--Cooper

Also, since feminism ISN'T monolithic, then can you argue with someone feeling that a particular set of feminists are a threat?

--Cooper

It depends what you think they are a threat to. Are feminists going to start a global thermonuclear war? Probably not. The ones weird enough and capable enough to do that are too few to be wildly effective. Could a certain brand of feminists make it tougher for you to buy a Playboy down at the local 7-11? Sure! That's a possibility.

It annoys me when feminists are branded a 'threat,' when it is never clarified what exactly the threat is.

There are lots of percieved threats because feminism isn't exactly a clearly defined concept, but the over-arching theme is that of a threat to the status quo.

And to male identity, I think that´s what most men are afraid of. If women become capable of opening pickle jars, where is our place in the world then?

Hey, I'm a feminist. But I'm never afraid to ask a man to open my pickle jar.

(Why does it sound so much naughtier when I say it?)

I do believe the status quo can use a good knock upside the head now and then, though. That's how change happens. If everyone sat around satisfied with things as they are, we'd still be in the Middle Ages.