A Person Paper on Purity in Language, by William Satire (alias Douglas R. Hofstadter)

[gusl]

patrissimo writes:

Hofstadter's classic essay on gender bias in language

I know many of you have seen this before, but for those that haven't, just because its so striking:

A Person Paper on Purity in Language, by William Satire (alias Douglas R. Hofstadter)

Many years ago, this single-handedly convinced me that our language is biased towards male supremacy in an unpleasant way which subtly affects our thoughts. While I'm generally pretty skeptical that culture, rather than genes, is the source of gender discrimination, this sort of thing demonstrates how the two can reinforce each other. A genuine genetic power imbalance (ie women are wired to defer to men more than vice versa) leads to a set of assumptions embodied in language which strengthens and reinforces that power imbalance. Which is bad.

At least, that's how I see it.

Yeah, what he said. Saves me from writing it.


behind the cut is my translation key

man, male <-> white
boy <-> whitey
girl <-> blackey

he <-> whe
she <-> ble
his <-> whis
her <-> bler

female <-> black
feminist <-> negrist

Comments

[jcreed.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that essay is pretty fantastic.

[rainbrot.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing that. I hadn't seen it before.