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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!seismo!rlgvax!cvl!andie
From: andie@cvl.UUCP (Diane L. Donaldson)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Net Language Use
Message-ID: <542@cvl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 5-Aug-83 09:56:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: cvl.542
Posted: Fri Aug  5 09:56:22 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 6-Aug-83 08:00:16 EDT
Organization: U. of Md. Computer Vision Lab
Lines: 24

No, Rosemarie, you are not alone.  I too am often
disturbed by the dominance (excuse the pun) of
masculine terms in writing and speaking.  
Unfortunately, whenever I complain, some well-meaning
soul invariably tells me that I'm being "too sensitive"
to the problem; that somehow, because I am a woman
and notice the problem, that is bad.  People such as
these say that I would probably want to adopt such
terms as "personperson"  for "mailman", etc.  

It's really not that hard to use neutral terms when
dealing with both sexes;  I always use "they" for he
or she, and so does 70% of the population when
speaking informally.  The standard seems to be changing,
but until it does, I will probably always flinch
when confronted with sentences such as "Will everyone
please pick up his book".

				Diane
				seismo!rlgvax!cvl!andie