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From: simon@psuvax.UUCP (Janos Simon)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.nlang
Subject: Re: The power of words -- German generic pronouns
Message-ID: <781@psuvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 29-Feb-84 13:22:08 EST
Article-I.D.: psuvax.781
Posted: Wed Feb 29 13:22:08 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Mar-84 06:21:36 EST
References: <5766@decwrl.UUCP> <1003@ut-sally.UUCP>
Organization: Pennsylvania State Univ.
Lines: 13

There seems to be a recurrent confusion between gender and sex in these 
discussions. There is nothing sexist in gender concordance in languages
with gender (as Spanish, German, etc.). If you have to use a pronoun, it
has to agree with the noun: if the noun is not explicit, the gender is
masculine (in these languages). This does not make the object MALE, only
makes it of the masculine gender (any more than the reference >she< to a
ship makes her of the female sex). In English, since gender has mostly
disappeared, gender and sex get often confused, but in other languages
this is not the case. In particular, in Portuguese (a language with gender I am 
confortable pontificating about), saying "O medico" (masc. the doctor) does
not mean or evoke  the image of a male doctor - it is the generic doctor,
as "doctor" is in English. One would have to say later whether
the doctor was male or not.