[23458] in APO-L
Re: [APO-L] Toast Song: If a male called a female a man...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Philip Harvey)
Sat Jan 18 11:57:32 2003
Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 11:57:10 -0500
Reply-To: Philip Harvey <pharvey@nycap.rr.com>
From: Philip Harvey <pharvey@nycap.rr.com>
To: APO-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Irwin Chui wrote:
>
> Hello, Everyone
>
> I often here this during Toast Song discussions and debates. A female
> Brother quotes "I am proud to be called a man."
I don't think I've ever heard any of our female brothers say that
particular quote. though I assume you meant "I am proud to be called a
brother."
Someone (Chris Tracy I believe) suggested imagining if the Toast Song
had always been "women of" instead of "men of." I do see a difference
in our language between calling a group of men and women "men" and
calling a group of men and women "women." In the english language, and
other languages, the masculine form of the word is often used as the
gender neutral form also. In writings, you'll often see the word "he"
to not specifically mean male or female, though we're starting to see
"they" used singularly more often. We're also seeing "s/he" once in a
while, and a few philosophy professors I've had regularly used "she" to
denote "he or she". Those last two annoy me a bit. the first because
it looks cluttered, and the second because I always felt that it was an
incorrect use of the term. Not because I felt that I was being called a
woman, but because "she" has never been a gender neutral term before.
"She" has meant "that woman over there."
I still haven't really said what, if anything, I think should be done
with the toast song... ok, here's what I thi
