PC preschool bans words 'him' and 'her'

reply to post by Aeons


i think it is very relevant and speaks loads. if women aren't thought of as inferior based on sex, is there a need for a gender-neutral pronoun?

i honestly don't have a problem with adding it in, but i don't see the point. i really don't think less of you as a person for being a woman, neither do i think more of someone for being a man.

i enjoy psychology, its fascinating. whether or not you like being a woman is very relevant in this discussion. its personal, but relevant.

if i had to guess, i'd say you hate being a woman because you yourself perceive them to be "less privileged", or lower down. its truly sad. neither of which is true. this is where your anger stems from, and the desire to get rid of any word that puts you in that *despised* category.

I was just thinking. Calling all the children "friend" regardless of gender is kinda reminiscent of calling everyone "comrade".

Not saying this is a step toward that kind of society, but it is something interesting to think about.

delete

Originally posted by Bob Sholtz
reply to post by Aeons

 

i think it is very relevant and speaks loads. if women aren't thought of as inferior based on sex, is there a need for a gender-neutral pronoun?

i honestly don't have a problem with adding it in, but i don't see the point. i really don't think less of you as a person for being a woman, neither do i think more of someone for being a man.

i enjoy psychology, its fascinating. whether or not you like being a woman is very relevant in this discussion. its personal, but relevant.

if i had to guess, i'd say you hate being a woman because you yourself perceive them to be "less privileged", or lower down. its truly sad. neither of which is true. this is where your anger stems from, and the desire to get rid of any word that puts you in that *despised* category.

I make good money. I'm educated. I'm married. I have three children. And I'm quite attractive.

I'm enjoying my life as a woman, and in every way I qualify for every definition of being a female and hitting all the "roles" as defined by pretty much every society.

I also speak more than one language, so I know first hand how satisfying having a pronoun for "s/he" is and I can see first hand the mental language gymnastics everyone is doing because they want one and don't know it.

Using "you" (also a transplanted pronoun) incorrectly, bastardizing the word "they" to be a singular, swapping back and forth between he and she when trying to discuss/write about a third person without a name, are all symptoms of a pronoun missing from the language.

I can notice the problem, and it have nothing to do with my experience of my own gender. Are all your decisions and opinions evaluated on your satisfaction of your place as an owner of a penis? Because if you are having problems or are overly enjoying it, maybe that should make for a good reason to discount your opinions on the subject.

I'll say this again. There is definitely clearly a distinct physiological difference between male and female. We should not be changing our language to filter that out. What I'm saying is we should not push gender stereo types of our children. This has NOTHING to do with breeding androgynous children. If my son wants to wear pink or put on nail polish let him. Despite how other kids might tease him it doesn't make him gay. If my daughter wants learn how to work on cars, wear t-shirt and jeans, and has more fun playing with Transformers and monsters than Barbies and tea parties that's fine. Doesn't make her butch or a lesbian. I say there's no harm in letting kids discover who they are without limits instead of adults shoving stereotypes on them because thats how society expects them to be.

But this language thing is definitely a bit overboard.

Disallowing people to use a third person pronoun is ridiculous.

But the thought experiments in writing, speach and actions are going to continue until a non-gender pronoun is put into use.

reply to post by Aeons


on the contrary, having a penis isn't that impressive. i don't get inherent satisfaction by being male. i suppose the grass is always greener on the other side, eh?

reply to post by Terrormaster


i think society as a whole is more accepting of a woman wearing jeans and a tee shirt, and working in construction, or the auto industry, than say, a man wearing pink and being interested in ballet.

i know personally i find it more odd.

reply to post by Aeons


You make a very sound argument, but my concern here is the motivation and the goal behind the desire to use gender-neutral terminology.

I, too, am fascinated by how different languages incorporate the idea of gender. For instance, how some languages infer the gender of the subject (or even the "gender" of an object or concept) by simply changing the suffix (hijo vs hija, etc.) I won't claim that my grammar is perfect but my love for it is. I've actually chewed over this idea in my head before, so it was fascinating to see it so simply and eloquently put.

Language evolves, and much more quickly than most people realize. For instance, many people assume that Shakespearean English is somehow 'medieval'. (It was a common misconception in my own high school, and as cringe-worthy as some of you find that, trust me, that's nothing. You have no idea how deep that rabbit hole of ahhhduurrrr goes.)

Just look at this side-by-side comparison of medieval English (only around 6 centuries ago) and our own brand of English:

Wildu machen gehalbirte ayer, so sewd die ayer hert, vind schel sy, vnd sneid sy von ein ander, vnd nim den totern heraus, vnd hack In, vnd petersily dar vnder, vnd wurez ez, vnd salcz, vnd mach ez ab mit eim ander ay, vnd full es In daz weis, vnd pack sy dann In ein smalcz... oder gib sy pachnew aus strawben taig.

Even Hooked on Phonics couldn't prepare someone for this. Reading it alone I felt a vague air of menace. " vnd hack In" to whom there, good sir? What was that bit about my "petersily dar vnder"?



But my own unforgivable bastardization of the Mother Language was to blame:

If you wish to make half eggs, hard-boil them, peel them, and cut them in two. Remove the yolk, and chop it and add parsley, spices, salt, and one uncooked egg. Fill this mixture into the egg halves, and fry them in lard*... or serve them fried in batter.

- Birkhan, Helmut. "Some Remarks on Medieval Cooking: The Ambras Recipe-Collection of Cod. Vind. 5486." Food in the Middle Ages. A Book of Essays. New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1995.
online source

* fun baseless conspiracy idea: Is Paula Deen immortal like Keanu Reeves?

Our language evolves to broaden communication. It influences and is influenced by our spoken language. It's still a very fractured language today. I always hope that they warn British exchange students in some little pamphlet that they must never ask for a rubber when they need an eraser.

But my nerdy passion runs cold when people purposefully manipulate, fabricate, or attempt to hide the history/existence of words.

No. I will not call myself a "womyn" to symbolically overthrow my oppressive patriarchal overlords. I do not agree in whitewashing literature from the past under the guise of shielding children. They're not stupid, they know racism exists. Literature is a beautiful opportunity to empathize with someone of a different race and to see how vulgar and harmful racism is. Atticus. Finch. That is all.

I actually agree that our language would only benefit from a gender neutral pronoun. I do not agree in the concept of forcibly using it to the exclusion of he and she. Think of the psychological implications of that. Children are already discouraged from even pointing out that another child is a different color or race. They pick up on all that tension and pussyfooting. Many of them are simply curious. Telling a group of 6-year-olds about having more melanin making your skin darker, like curly hair or blue eyes, was hilarious. They all seemed relieved.

They're also heavily scolded for even bringing up weight, even in a non-malicious way. When my cousin's 5-year-old brother loudly asked her "does that lady smell bad because she's fat?", you can bet her answer wasn't calm and explanatory in nature. She didn't react much better at his questions on males and chapstick. "Is that man gay because he's wearing lipstick?"

What affects a child's view more? Dad paying lip service to women's rights or Dad treating Mom like a capable person and letting her drive the car once in a while?

Necessity is the mother of invention. These kinds of things should become necessary due to a shift in our attitudes and beliefs. Beating it into our skulls will not inspire us to it. And neither will forcing us to endure tedious sports films about ~*Teens Uniting Against Racism*~ when you know full well that come lunch time, in overwhelming numbers these kids will segregate themselves.

We need to be having some REAL talk about issues like racism and sexual identity, not artificially scrubbing it out of existence. People will always notice differences between themselves and others. We are individuals, it's what we do. Even if you turned the whole world blind we'd still find a way to have an Us and a Them. The point is finding a way to show people the reality that Us and Them are both, for the most part, decent people trying to get by.

The fact that this is even being discussed just goes to show how far off the deep end we have gone. This is simply Marxist propaganda, plain and simple. People are not going to stop using these terms anytime soon and the faster we get these commies out of our schools, government, Etc. the better.

Whats with beating into the kids acceptance of homosexuality? I pretty sure they are already accepting of it. I believe it's the hatred that gets beat into them. Well, there are those men who think male homosexuality should be illegal while simulated female homosexuality should be on display .

Anyway, I grew up in a little town. We ALL hung out together and did the same things. The only time gender came into play was when we played doctor. However, I think we were referred to as "class", so they may be on to something.

reply to post by guessing


I have only read a couple of the posts here.
I would home-school my children even if I
had to go to college for 4 years to do so.
This is sad,pathetic and I am sick to death
of all this PC crud!

reply to post by guessing


Well, i don't have children, but when i was in preschool we would have at first when we come in and get our stuff off and put our bags on the hook, then we would go sit down and learn some language, then we would have playtime which different groups of people would have been randomly been picked into, i remember this one time when we built this big fort with a different group i was in and we tried to make a roof, but it didnt work out well and fell when we tried (stupid physics :lol, then we would go do art, then we would wash our hands and eat lunch, then after that we would go outside, then when we came inside we did more stuff, i forget cause it was a while back, but i do remember one time i was outside and we were playing this game called "grounders" where you stay on equipment and if your caught on the ground the person that was "it" would say Grounders! and if you were on the ground you were out, but of course the person that was "it" would have to have their eyes closed the whole time, i cheated on it all the time even when i was in grade 6, and this kid was "it" and he was walking towards this low bridge thing and he smoked his head on the metal edge of it and cracked his head open, there was blood everywhere. i'm starting to get off topic so i'm off to the general forums area. but before that i would like to add why can't they just be called Him. Her, it's just gonna go to that in grade one anyways, like everything else, I started swearing when i was in preschool, it's not cause of the teachers, and anyways no matter what, they will turn out to be the same, you can't stop it, teachers are all different, like everyone else.


forgot that pre-school and kindergarten are too different things, D'oh, i didn't go to preschool, only kindergarten sorry

reply to post by misterbananas



Actually sounds pretty normal to me...

Glad you were one of the fortunate ones

Thanks for sharing

Originally posted by Bob Sholtz
reply to post by Aeons

 

on the contrary, having a penis isn't that impressive. i don't get inherent satisfaction by being male. i suppose the grass is always greener on the other side, eh?

My grass is never green. Maybe slightly red.

Anyways, My main point here stands. These sorts of thought experiments, and the torture of reading pieces which swap between gender pronouns, and the beating of plural pronouns to attempt to make them non-gendered single pronouns is going to continue until a word for "that person there" comes into use.

Getting rid of "he" and "she" isn't necessary and would just create more problems in language.

Friend, comrade, etc are not pronouns. They are honourifics or titles, and do not serve for the purpose.

Broadening the possibilities about how to related to another singular unnamed person doesn't harm anyone.

Testicles remain in place even if your humanity is no longer required to be tied to them. An extra word to speak about you won't actually hurt.

I'm sure all of us will have been called worse in our lifetimes than "that human there."

Seeing a difference between men and women, even if its only biological, is seen by liberals as "Discrimination" and "Inequality". Since most of our academic institutions are now liberal/communist its only a matter of time before you will be fined or jailed for proposing any sort of difference.

They already consider seeing age difference as "ageism", ability difference as "ableism" and hundreds of other invented "isms" that in their opinion should be punished and fined. 80% of our youth being liberals this is the bleak socialist/communist/collectivist future that awaits America.

Actually this stuff was planned by Soviet Russia before it fell. It looks as if the plans are still being implemented even though the Soviet Union fell two decades ago. Or maybe the marxists have just changed their approach. The KGBs plan was under to implement their flat no-hierarchy, no-merit society under the guise of nice sounding words like "equality" and "anti-discrimination" and "anti-oppression". And they're actually succeeding.