Gender descriptions in my MSN text

[nursesail]

I noticed that one of the texts I am reading tends to discriminate in gender. I was reading an article and everyone in there was a "she". In the past, most articles I have read trade off with a "he" here and a "she" there. Has anyone else had this problem?

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

Frankly, most carpenters, roofers, etc are men. So, why not use a male pronoun? It makes the writing more realistic. I hate it when writers of textbooks purposely try to go against demographic realities, as if they are noble crusaders for equality and deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

I'm thankful, in these troubled times, that the OP has such a trouble-free life as to consider this a problem!

[truern]

I think it is. I found it distracting and prejudicial. It was comments like "the farmer can't help her family", followed by "the carpenter doesn't know what she will do." Very strange. I would have said "the farmer can't help his family and the carpenter does not know what she will do."

Why, I think I'm offended that in your scenario the farmer is male and the carpenter is female

Why should be clueless carpenter be female...huh? huh? huh?

Sincerely, I would be soooo thankful if gender issues in a text were all I had to be worried about.

[Multicollinearity, BSN, RN]

I'm surprised so many think this is silly and casually discount others thoughts and discomfort with gender and language. Language is very powerful.

Let's put a different perspective on this. Let's imagine you are a female medical student and for four years of med school, all you see in your textbooks is "he" referring to the physician. Maybe your professors only refer to the physician's role as "he." How would that feel? What ripple effect would that have in the larger culture regarding perception of gender and career?

(And nobody asked for a special session at the United Nations about this - just sharing our thoughts. )

[birdgardner]

My BSN texts avoided the issue by NEVER using pronouns. "The nurse will"..."the nurse recognizes"..."the nurse acts as..." ..."the patient may"...."the patient performs return demonstration"...

I THINK that women in labor were allowed a pronoun, but won't swear to it. :typing

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

It doesn't make for literary greatness, but that's one solution.

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

We do have gender neutral pronouns. 'It' is a gender neutral one. That would be charming writing, refering to patients as 'it'!

[Multicollinearity, BSN, RN]

We do have gender neutral pronouns. 'It' is a gender neutral one. That would be charming writing, refering to patients as 'it'!

"It" is not a gender neutral personal pronoun.

it (subjective and objective it, reflexive and intensive itself, possessive adjective and noun its)

1. The third-person singular personal pronoun used to refer to a non-human entity, to an inanimate thing with no or unknown sex or gender. Put it over there.Take each day as it comes.
   
2. The third-person singular personal pronoun used to refer to a human entity of unknown sex or gender. She took the baby and held it in her arms.
   
3. Used to refer to oneself when identifying oneself, often on the phone, but not limited to this situation. It's me. John.
   

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/it

This lack of a gender neutral personal pronoun has been a little pet-peeve of mine since high school English class.

[FireStarterRN, BSN, RN]

What language does have a gender neutral pronoun that can be used to replace he or she? I don't remember that from Spanish or Polish.

[Multicollinearity, BSN, RN]

Many Asian languages and some African languages have gender neutral personal pronouns. Also Finnish, and Georgian (South Caucasian languages).

On another note, here's the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis on language shaping culture:

In linguistics, the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis (SWH) (also known as the "linguistic relativity hypothesis") postulates a systematic relationship between the grammatical categories of the language a person speaks and how that person both understands the world and behaves in it. Known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, it was an underlying axiom of linguist and anthropologist Edward Sapir and his colleague and student Benjamin Whorf, which can be traced back to the German thought of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The hypothesis postulates that a particular language's nature influences the habitual thought of its speakers: That is, different language patterns yield different patterns of thought. This idea challenges the possibility of perfectly representing the world with language, because it implies that the mechanisms of any language condition the thoughts of its speaker community. The hypothesis emerges in strong and weak formulations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis

[heron, ASN, RN]

Many Asian languages and some African languages have gender neutral personal pronouns.

On another note, here's the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis on language shaping culture:

Sniped by multi!

In other words, language determines how we think and what we think about and, ultimately, what we perceive.

You can't think about something for which you have no word.

As a for instance ... I read once that there is a language that has no personal possessive pronoun. You can't say, or think, "my" or "mine". Direct translation of a possessive statement reads, "This ---- is with me"

Try thinking or speaking that way for a minute ... this money is with me ... this cancer is with me ... this child is with me ... doesn't it jolt your worldview a bit?

This is the core concept of the pronoun wars. Although many neologisms seem awkward and silly ... herstory for history, for instance ... it's the shift in the thinking that many of us are struggling for.

[leslie :-D]

whether i read he or she, i perceive its context as generic.

some are going to get offended whatever pronoun is used.

moreover, i think some may be missing what the writer is trying to express, if we get caught up with its pc elements.

that's me, though.

i don't understand how some may take it personally.

leslie

[heron, ASN, RN]

whether i read he or she, i perceive its context as generic.

some are going to get offended whatever pronoun is used.

moreover, i think some may be missing what the writer is trying to express, if we get caught up with its pc elements.

that's me, though.

i don't understand how some may take it personally.

leslie

I think I see what you're saying, leslie ... and I agree to a point. The nitpicking over language is often beside the point of a particular piece of writing. A nursing text exists to transmit nursing knowledge, not to reform the language or "raise the reader's consciousness".

Did I understand you correctly?

Personally, I think a little cognitive dissonance is good for the character, if not the soul ... but that's just me.

Besides, forcing a language change down someone's throat is little better than thought control, and I don't hold with that ... the goal is the expansion of one's worldview, not to make you take on mine.

The pronoun wars and other discussions of language can certainly become quite arcane and ridiculous. I belong to another site that acts as a forum for many trans- or other-gendered people. The threads on the gender theory forum mostly make my head hurt and my eyes bleed. I really can't follow most of it.

However, the discussion is important in its own right.

It can't be dismissed as "PC" by those who are condemned to "telling it slant" because the language has no words for one's reality. For us, it's often about emotional and spiritual survival.

It's no accident that colonial empires often try to eradicate the languages of indigenous people ... European Americans tried to do it to Indians ... the British Empire tried to do it to native Gaelic-speakers, particularly in Ireland.

Control the language and, in large part, you control the culture. And that's why some of us take it personally.

But ... as you so often and so wisely point out ... balance and moderation are everything. Peace out:twocents: Heron