Hi all, I've been thinking, there are a lot of feminists who talk of 'sexist language'.
They talk of people referring to doctors as he, and nurses as she.  They talk of the term 'god' being used in a masculine sense as sexist, yet the 'devil' and all of his minions are referred to as 'he' yet there is no talk of that.
Another source of concern for feminists that voice concern over sexist language are the swear words related to females, such as the 'c' word which is a slang word for vagina, when there are many many phrases referring to male genitalia.
feminists are often quick to refer to a murderer or rapist as he, or a victim as she, and yet little is said about that.
To which most of the respond to me 'you're just a male chauvinist pig.'. 
Am I the only one seeing this?

ps. please excuse the gratuitous use of the word 'refer'.

Be careful not to generalise feminists. The actual, genuine, dictionary definition of a feminist extends to a lot of good, sensible people (myself included) and the general image of militancy or hatred that is often associated with the term is thoroughly unwarranted.
What you'll probably find is that the people you describe consist of a tiny proportion of the general population, or even of the feminist movement. Female sexists do exist, and should be treated as any other stubbornly ignorant group (racists, militants, etc.) - in my experience, people of that kind will not listen to reason and are best ignored.

I would, however, argue that referring to doctors and nurses as specific sexes IS somewhat insensitive.

I agree, what I meant to say was that there are a lot of double standards *some* people have, like switching between 15th century chivalry and modern feminism as they like. It's just those I dislike.
Posted on: August 08, 2008, 07:19:02 PM

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I'll clarify, Those that complain about sexist language towards women often forget that with the masculine positive connotations of  words come with the negative connotations.  (murderer, gunMAN madMAN terrorist, etc. etc.)

Well, there are people who understand that women are equals (of both sexes) and there are people who are what we sometimes call crazies.

Sensible authors alternate using he and she in examples.

Crazies shout at you when you try to hold the door for them.

The crazies I don't care for, and what they say is of little consequence. The sane people tend to be considerably more apathetic if there is some unintended "sexism." A lot of women just don't care if there are some "sexist" features of the language.

Anyway, what's more important than forcing people into using she instead of he here and there is working on the cultural shift towards the understanding that all humans, regardless of type or sex are equals. I think that there has been a lot of progress towards that direction. I also see it as a continuing trend. As such, I think extremism is unwarranted.

I'll raise my glass to that.

Don't take this the wrong way, but flirting with female feminists is some of the most enjoyable flirting I've ever had.

You should try it sometime.


Khalsa