Down the Manhole: State Officials Grapple with Gender-Neutral Language
This article is one that I found sort of interesting. There are some states that are completely overhauling entire portions of the constitutions and existing legislation to make it more politically correct and gender neutral. This turned out to be a much more difficult proposition than one would think because of terms like freshman that we don't even consider to be gender biased. I am essentially a feminist when it comes right down to it, but even I thought that this was ridiculous and somewhat overboard. As a nation we are obsessed with political correctness to the point that we cannot even say what we want to sometimes for fear that it will offend someone.
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Okay, this is ridiculous. One of the most ridiculous things I think our government has ever done. There are legitimate problems and debates going on in this country, and they want to spend time changing all the 'manholes' to 'sewer-access systems?' This is a waste of time, no matter how important people think words are. Those constitutions were written by men, for men. It is a testament to our history that they use only masculine pronouns. That and I think this is ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteI think that this is unnecessary I don't really know any people around who are getting offended because of the word manhole. I can understand wanting to be sensitive but when we've reached the point where we cannot call a man who delivers the mail a mailman I think we have gone too far
ReplyDeleteI agree. Yes, we should not try to offend someone but one word may offend one person and not the other. There is no guidelines for what is considered offensive of not.
DeleteIt honestly makes me angry that there are women who genuinely get upset over where a pronoun is he or she. Who cares if every pronoun in every state constitution was he? What difference would it make? Nowadays, you are still afforded the same rights as a citizen, regardless of the gender of the language in which the rights are given. I actually intentionally use he because stuff like this irks me.
ReplyDeleteI have to say, although I am quite the feminist, this seems a little extreme. When gender-biased language implies that one gender is superior or somehow impedes a gender, the language should be changed, but it seems that many of these changes are of a different nature and therefore unnecessary...
ReplyDeleteThis is way to extreme. These words have nothing to do with gender. I agree with Aaron that people need to remember that our constitution was written at a time period where men and women weren't considered equal. That is why they use he over she.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone above. I also find it interesting that the government upholds items in the Constitution that many would consider dated, yet will take the time to change manhole to something more gender neutral. This is ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteThis does seem like its way too extreme. I agree with the point that when the constitution was written, men and women were not equal and that factors into it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone- this is a little overboard. I take a bit of an extreme view on this, but I honestly hate it when people get offended over word choice. You're not being oppressed because someone refers to you as a "he." It's the way it's been for years. It's not going to kill you. I agree with Jeff. When we get to a point where people get offended and feel the need to have "mailman" and "mailwoman", we've gone a little too far.
ReplyDeleteThis is just a little ridiculous. Something so minute that has been going on for so long as pronouns he and she to be offensive, should not even be brought up as an issue. Creating gender neutral language for these documents is a massive waste of time. Most people know that these words are not meant in a discriminatory way, the world is just becoming too politically correct. As Sam said, these words won't kill anyone.
ReplyDeleteWhile I can appreciate that the principle of the matter is of utmost importance to those who are pushing for the changes to the language, I believe other matters are more important. Because there is a limited number of issues that can be focused on at one time, I think this issue should be put on the back burner for now.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ellie that this seems a little overboard. Although I support gender equality, I do not feel that it is necessary to change the wording of the Constitution, especially due to its difficulty. This would most-likely only effect the extreme feminists.
ReplyDeleteAs Kate said this will only effect extreme feminists and I don't think that the majority should be affected by the minority group. The wording of the Constitution should not be changed.
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