Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

WCDT: 27th June - 1st July (1956-1960)

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NotAwesomeAnymore:
Uh, I don't know what last sentence means, either because of the way I'm reading it or because I'm not familiar with the Douglas-Hofstadter-referencing community. When I first read that essay-thing I thought it was kind of weird or condescending or whatever, but like, it was the '80s. I don't know if things were different then.

Also, even though the race thing is manipulative, it makes the idea of doing away with gender binary palatable. Like, we should be aware of the dangers of "separate but equal" (oh hot damn, more racial references). I just don't think that a singular gender-neutral pronoun is absurd. People who want the singular 'they' are only ok with doing away with plurals because they think it's never really going to happen.

And is it distasteful to compare sexism to racism? I would say no, because there's not an objective measure for how much oppression one group experiences. I think the idea is not to trivialise racism or say "look, people care about their rights but not ours!", it just makes people aware of what kind injustice they may be ignoring.
I'm sorry if I pointed out the obvious there and you still disagree. Is this the kind of thing that gets threads locked?

pwhodges:
There is no objection to thoughtful debate, in passing (indeed, I have contributed in this one).  Serious debates go in the Discuss! forum - but you can't see that until you have 100 posts.

Is it cold in here?:
It has not gotten personal, which is something that would have made it a problem if it had happened.

gangler:
I hope I'm not breaking the rules by chipping in for this. Just thought I'd say that I got referred to as "They" pretty recently and there wasn't any confusion about who the guy was talking about. Seemed to flow pretty naturally and since I'm not a linguist and don't really get the science of it that's all I can really think of that seems important. Can't see anyone I know using a term that they knew would require an explanation or sound dorkish when there's a more casual way of expressing their thoughts.

I mean, I'm not studied on the subject. Most of that article went right over my head. Didn't even recognize most of the terms he was talking about, so I'm not sure how much my thoughts are worth here but I just thought I'd share the story. I think I would have had to run a google search if the guy had called me xe or something.

pwhodges:

--- Quote from: gangler on 03 Jul 2011, 12:45 ---Seemed to flow pretty naturally
--- End quote ---

That's actually quite crucial.  It is very hard to change language in any planned way, even in specialist areas, and to do it for something as ubiquitous as pronouns is simply not going to happen easily at all.  So there is a considerable argument for accepting and encouraging the de facto  solution which is a first step along the road, rather than rejecting it in favour of a radical change that is quite likely never to happen at all (but which might have more chance after a first step has been taken).

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