Subject: disc . sex / lang

i have been proceeding with a " disc he / she " theme . it has been somewhat expanded , and i would like to have it posted under the " disc : sex / lang " subject head . thanks , jw ] in the continuing discussion of pronouns , i ' m making a summary and a shift . the shift is spurred by the necessity to widen the orbit from pronouns to " sex and language " , perhaps an inevitable transition . alexis manaster ramer ( see below ) has suggested that a discussion of universal male dominace in society / language should take place prior to one of pronouns . i willingly go along , but reject the misandrist characterization . first the pronoun summary . " he " summary in my " he " work , i have suggested that to understand the generic and proverbial uses of modern english " he " , one would have to integrate into their data the facts that 1 ) " he " as a feminine pronoun survived much later in historical english than is generally acknowledged , and that 2 ) the late-archaic english " he " , on the one hand , as feminine , had an association with the all-genders plural , and on the other , as a masculine , had an association with the singular and neuter . " him " and " his " were during middle english , and later , also neuter ( " not one or the other " ) pronouns , and the ontogeny of the modern paradigm must account for these facts . there are more than a few examples of " he " in a generic / proverbial context in which , if there is any sex distinction at all , it must be considered feminine , not masculine , as in the following ( _ piers plowman _ , walter kane - - passus vii , manuscript h3 , lines 235-36 ) : he that etyn here fode throw trauail god 3eueth they / she that eat / eats their / her food through work god gives hem his blissing that here liflode so wynneth them his blessing that their / her livelihood so earns . _ _ _ when the 18th century grammarians put the " he " rule on paper , the feminine morphology was not unknown , not yet forgotten . if gender feminists today put a gendrist interpretation on the grammarians ' motives and on the evolution of the " he " rule , it is through historical oversight , to put it kindly , and not for , as some maintain , misogynist motives , conscious or unconscious . finally , i have challenged the interpretation of the " worthiness " doctrine . according to it , the grammarians of yore said " he " was more " worthy " . the word " worthy " has , i believe , been too quickly accepted in its old english root-meaning of " deserving " , whereas i have yet to see any contexts that contradict its other meaning , based on its other old english root , " appropriate " . are there any clarifying contexts ? please show i ' m wrong . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - sex and language alexis manaster ramer sent me a personal response to my ideas ; when i asked , he said i could post for general reading . ( btw , what are some of the etymologies given for " girl " , " boy " , " marry " ? ) alexis says : thank you for responding . since we obviously agree about the final resolution of this issue , i guess i would say that there are simply two aspects to the way one must respond to the people who are claiming that the generic he was invented by male chauvinist grammarians . one is yours ( that it has a continuous history within english ) [ did i say that ? - jw ] . the other is mine ( that if we knew nothing about the history of english , the universal picture would authorize us to suppose that this was indeed a natural phenomenon , not an invention of the grammarians ) . but i would then say that the presumed reason why this phenomenon is universal is presumably that all known cultures ( or maybe there is one exception , according to what i read somewhere ) have been male-dominated at all known time periods , and the fact that masculine / male is ' unmarked ' must surely be a reflection of this . so , the locus of the blame [ ! ] shifts from the conscious work of english grammarians to the subconscious workings of the language faculties of countless generations of human beings all over the planet who have lived in societies where there was no concept of sex equality . what do you think ? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - jeff responds thanks for the elaboration . what do i think ? first , to get it straight . . . you are saying that comparable structures to " generic he " are found in all languages ( with perhaps a few exceptions ) , and on that basis a person might be led to conclude it is a natural phenomenon , but they would be wrong . rather , universal male domination is the explanation , as seen in the unmarked pronoun " he " , and we must " blame " the subconscious workings of the language faculties of all people in history , who have had no concept of sex equality . i have three questions , each of which i provide some of my own views about . 1 ) what are some of the parameters of and who ( authors ) do you look to for your idea that all history has been male dominated ? ( i personally resent this characterization . ) " dominated " hinges on what you mean - - the crimson sunset dominated the horizon and the pimples dominated the young girl 's face . on a group level , men , qua males , have been sufficiently dutiful to " women and children first " that they can be said to have historically regarded their own lot as the more expendable , i . e . , at least as might say the contour of a bell-curve measuring such a thing . men subdue the metaphorical colin fergusons of the world , not women . on an individual level , camille paglia nails it when she talks about the substantial power of women over men , qua males , based on women 's power to close their legs . 2 ) where does your concept of linguistic markedness come from , and on what basis do you establish a cause-effect relationship between patriarchy and markedness in pronouns ? my own idea of markedness is based on the original exposition as seen formulated by jakobson and trubetzkoy about 1930 ( see _ on language _ , roman jakobson , ed . linda r . waugh , 1990 . chapter 8 ) . a conclusion opposite to yours ( and gender feminists ) seems evident from the original formulation . their concept of " the mark " grew out of interest in binary aspects of language , like past / present , long / short . trubetzkoy wrote , " only one of the terms of a correlation is perceived as actively modified and as positively possessing some mark , while the other term is perceived as lacking the mark and as passively unmodified " ( p136 ) . this suggests to me that " woman " and " she " are " species " terms which females " have " as an exclusive and special privilege , whereas males do not have a " species " name exclusively their own , but instead must suffer to share a " genus " designation . it is for this reason i prefer sometimes to call the masculine unmarked words " tautonyms " ( i . e . , in biology , one name for both species and genus ) . the editor of the book goes on to comment on the concept : " thus , the general meaning of _ lion _ , in contradistinction to that of _ lioness _ , implies no sexual specification - - and only the * basic meaning * of _ lion _ prompted by informative contexts suggests a sexual specification : e . g . , _ lions and lionesses _ " . is n't this saying that man qua male emerges only in contexts that contrast him with the female ? otherwise , he is a generic ( genus , genre ) person and accordingly unmarked - - i . e . , " just " a person . the jakobson book continues , " the constraining , focusing character of the marked term of any grammatical opposition is directed toward a more narrowly specified and delimited conceptual item " . if men wanted to throw a testy beef about it , they could say , " how come the gals have exclusive words , but the guys have to share theirs with everybody else ? " 3 ) finally , you propose that in all past history they ' ve had " no concept of sex equality " . there is an inherent chronocentrism ( my term ) in your indictment , but , notwithstanding , i ' m somewhat sure you ' re talking about " rights " . " rights " , equal or otherwise , is a modern concept that is often muddled and sometimes useless if one considers , as i do , that the more important ends of life are happiness , inner peace , and freedom from fear - - what good are abstract rights if one is miserable all the time ? . the extremely important distinction is too often lost sight of between concepts of inherent rights and entitlement rights . if we discuss " women 's equality " and " men 's equality " without talking about documents like the universal declaration of human rights , the united states constitution , the code of hammurabi , etc . , or sources of rights , like god or the barrel of a gun , we are not going to get anywhere . if we take into account considerations of class , age , history , geography , etc . , i would argue that on a de facto level , women have had , and continue to have , collectively , an advantage over men . i know that saying so will upset a few of us , even give some of us a little gas and heartburn , my being the direct precipitation of which i apologize for in advance . best regards , jeffrey
