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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!watmath!idallen
From: idallen@watmath.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: girl vs. woman -- causality; changing attitude via language
Message-ID: <9246@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 1-Oct-84 23:05:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.9246
Posted: Mon Oct  1 23:05:28 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 3-Oct-84 07:00:06 EDT
References: <366@ism780.UUCP>, <844@opus.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 13

> From rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) Thu Sep 27 15:36:43 1984
> It's a serious mistake to try to change people's attitudes by changing
> language.  That's getting the causality backwards...

But you can *alert* some people to the existence of differing mental
attitudes by using words that support those new and different attitudes.
A person who habitually thinks of and refers to women as "girls" doesn't
think twice about his/her attitude, until he/she runs up against someone
who objects to the word.  I agree that it would be better to broaden
the attitude directly instead of attacking it through the language, but I
don't think the lingual attack is a mistake.  It raises consciousness.
-- 
        -IAN!  (Ian! D. Allen)      University of Waterloo