Gender personal pronouns

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Seattle, Jul 18, 2019.

  1. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    8,874
    For those with delusions of grandeur I suppose "Majesty" works for any gender.
     
    RainbowSingularity likes this.
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  3. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    What do the French do about this? Since everything in French is gendered*, there aren't any non-gendered pronouns equivalent to the English "they" or "them" or "theirs".

    ---
    * mind you, that means grammatical gender, which is different from sexual gender.
     
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  5. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    "They" is already common, accepted, and vernacular - one of those supposed grammatical "errors" that everybody makes and everybody understands. Shakespeare, everybody. It even makes sense, in a way: if the sex is unknown, the reference is sort of "plural" by implication.

    There was a need, and English is very good at filling needs.

    So "they" would not require conversion of the entire English speaking world to a new thing, or pushing an alien construction onto ordinary people. It would require only recognition and regularization by the academic elite of what already exists.
    In theory. The feminist argument that observation does not perfectly match theory in this matter - that grammatical gender is not neutral with regard to sexual gender - seems difficult to refute.
     
    Last edited: Jul 19, 2019
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  7. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    several things comes to mind
    1 authority sexism
    2 sexual orientation insecurity
    3 un developed sexuality(child in an adult body)
    4 dementia
    5 sexual insecurity
    6 narcissism

    Dogmattic gender label stereo typing exists inside cultures that are LGBTQ+ aware.
    i see it in older people of such cultures.
    i really wish to study it but it is such a tricky thing to navigate without unseating the persons self confidence & Ego.
     
  8. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    They're screwed. They have to learn another language, to escape the influence, and even then - - -.

    It's also interesting to learn how speakers of languages that do have that neutral pronoun - such as Finnish - deal with English. A friend of mine remembers being genuinely startled, set back in their chair at a company meeting, when a visiting Finnish executive glitched and used "she" to refer to the male boss of their division.

    I made similar mistakes at times when trying to speak Spanish - remembering the gender of everything was a chore. According to my professors, people raised speaking Spanish almost never make such errors, and when foreigners do it clangs, much as someone saying "here she comes now" as the male boss of the division enters the room jolts a native speaker of English.

    These things are built in deep.
     

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