it occurs on ships and planes and all sorts of things. women and children first is a mentality that survives to this day. a fire is a different situation I guess because everyone is panicking whereas with general evacuation people tend to put women with children.

Women and children first is a survival instinct. Yes, it's sexist in the sense that people get discriminated by sex, but it's logical, isn't it?

how so? children first is survival. women have nothing to do with that.

Women and children first is a survival instinct. Yes, it's sexist in the sense that people get discriminated by sex, but it's logical, isn't it?

Not really, because it implies that humanity should survive and that we should continue to spread our genes around and continue our families, which isn't logical at all--that is an entirely EMOTIONAL response. I could budge if you had said it was rational in that we understand this is an emotional response and cater to that 'instinct' knowing there isn't really a logical basis for such beliefs, but yeah

a problem i have with women first is that while i realise the sexism that traditional morality holds, i also don't feel real good about getting all OUTTA THE WAY BITCH!!! so my options are either that for every woman i hold the door open for i hold it open for a man, or i hold it open for no-one. or i stop thinking about this because i know i'm a stalwart feminist and if somebody's gonna intrepret me holding the door open for them as sexist/being pc, then i guess i'm just gonna have to live with that...it...it's a hard life for us men.

I hope that being an honors student in college is worth it

anyone who has made this decision... thoughts?

Not sure if you're joking here or not, but if you're just going for a bachelor's degree, then no, it's not worth it. I took honors courses all through K-12 school, and when I got to college, I asked my counselors what the benefit of taking honors courses was.  Here's the response I got:

"Well, they would be more challenging for you."

The response in my head: "fuck that."

I've not taken a single honors course so far in my three years of college, and I've yet to hear of a single good reason to take one (not counting if you're going past a bachelor's degree though.  If you're going for a master's or doctorate, then yeah, I guess honors courses would be good.  Otherwise, fuck them.)

I had a theology teacher in grade 12 who was an atheist.

Well, the instinctive reason is that few men can impregnate many women. Not very relevant today, seen as how there's no such thing as polygamy anymore, but there's still the issue of the woman being seen as the superior parent for the child.

actually usually whatever guardian went with the child was the one who left on the LIFEBOAT or whatever.

it's archaic use and kind of sexist because it implies women are somehow going to be confused and run around a boat saying "MY PERIOD, MY PERIOD! WHERE ARE MY TAMPONS" while the men all click their tongues and shake their heads sadly but it's not a firm sexist analogy, just kind of a "get the weaklings out of the way!"

i think new left identity politics are retarded, including all that silly shit about womyn, or whatever

hey dawgs, turkish language is pretty gender neutral and turkey is not less sexist than america

hey dawg gender neutral language (no one seriously cares about womyn and anyone that thinks it's a major point of feminism is deluded) is about not being a dick and calling every job, position, and ranking a male noun when a gender neutral one exists.

what first year college students FUCK YOU.

why is it being a dick though? Am i being a dick for being careless and referring humanity as "men"?

its so goddamn silly. i mean, i guess its ok if people want to use it but anyone who thinks that language is INHERENTLY SEXIST is a dumbass. words are given meaning by ther context, not their other way around.

why is it being a dick though? Am i being a dick for being careless and referring humanity as "men"?

its so goddamn silly. i mean, i guess its ok if people want to use it but anyone who thinks that language is INHERENTLY SEXIST is a dumbass. words are given meaning by ther context, not their other way around.

I'm a Communication Studies major, and one of the major emphases on feminism is that language is created by those in power (men), and so women, who apparently think differently, struggle with the language.  It's like there aren't certain words for things they think, so they don't know how to say what they feel. 

Since I'm a dude, I can't really say whether this is true or not.  But if it's true, then language is indeed INHERENTLY SEXIST.

Feminist theories are really fascinating.  They've got some really good ideas, but the only way they could ever be implemented is if the dominantly male structure is broken down, which doesn't seem to be happening any time soon.

Anyway, I'd like to go back and tell all of my teachers that I haven't amounted to anything.  Many of them said I had a bright future ahead of me.

why is it being a dick though? Am i being a dick for being careless and referring humanity as "men"?

its so goddamn silly. i mean, i guess its ok if people want to use it but anyone who thinks that language is INHERENTLY SEXIST is a dumbass. words are given meaning by ther context, not their other way around.

I'd say you're being a dick when you know the genderneutral noun PEOPLE exists and you purposefully refer to a group that includes a very significant amount of women as men.

I mean, this is why Elizabeth Cady Stanton and all of Seneca Falls got together, it was clear that "all men are created equal" only applied in very vague legality since women had none of the political powers to see those rights come to fruition. the context was clear, it almost certainly included women (and did not include blacks), but the fact that it was still MEN affected social policy for years; after all MEN are given powers, ignore context heh dont give them right to vote.

that and we're talking an entire patriarchal system of oppression here, it's not too much to just say "police officer" instead of policeman or "flight attendant" instead of stewardess (although this term actually came into use from a lawsuit from a man who wanted the position of stewardess but not the name). it's a small thing, nothing to lose sleep about, but I see no reason not to adopt gender neutral language considering how horrifically gendered all of society is. of course language is just one small part of the gendering of society and you won't see any direct sexist effects (although men was actually one of the worst examples you could have chosen considering the history behind it that I just elaborated on). if we saw a black guy walking with white guys we would not say "SUP WHITEYS" even if it was a socially acceptable thing because it's just kind of dicky.

I'm a Communication Studies major, and one of the major emphases on feminism is that language is created by those in power (men), and so women, who apparently think differently, struggle with the language.  It's like there aren't certain words for things they think, so they don't know how to say what they feel. 

Since I'm a dude, I can't really say whether this is true or not.  But if it's true, then language is indeed INHERENTLY SEXIST.

Feminist theories are really fascinating.  They've got some really good ideas, but the only way they could ever be implemented is if the dominantly male structure is broken down, which doesn't seem to be happening any time soon.

Anyway, I'd like to go back and tell all of my teachers that I haven't amounted to anything.  Many of them said I had a bright future ahead of me.

I haven't heard this although it sounds in line with what I was asking for earlier.

but yeah basically gender neutral language is far from important, I just think its an easy thing to do and kind of being decent to people.

heh...marmot arguing for assholes again....

Well really depends. I sometimes use "men" in more poetic contexts because I think it sounds great, and has a ring to it. I don't think I am being a dick about it, nor sexist.

I don't think all females are "opressed" (In the same way I dont think all blacks, or gays in America are opressed). Certainly, there is very little to worry about someone like Hillary Clinton. However, someone like a housewife from a working class family, who doesn't works and therefore has no financial independence, is probably "opressed" because her survival mostly depends on his husband. However, I  pretty much doubt that a female CEO is opressed.

I think it as mostly a question of class. I.E. there is little in common with Hilary Clinton and the immigrant maid that cleans hotels (except both have vaginas).

So yeah, I think all that gimmicky hot air about language games is a pretty silly game, and although it might help with netiquettes. at the end of there isn't much importance about it. After all, as I said, Turkish uses only gender neutral nouns and pronouns, and it isnt less sexist (or less dickish) than England or America at all.

well hey at least this isnt europe where half the languages have grammatical gender

for instance in german there are 3, masculine, feminine and neuter... and aside from the obvious shit (the man = masculine noun, the woman = feminine now) its pretty much completely random with very few rules to guide what gender a word is (there are some rules, like all words ending in -ung are feminine and all nouns ending in -chen are neuter etc) but yeah so all of a sudden you're dealing with a feminine table why is it feminine who knows

someone decided a long time ago that it would be a feminine word

at least we dont have to deal with that in english

Hey guys let's change a language because it's sexist. Man these languages have been around for longer than long and it's more TRADITION than anything else really that they should be kept as such. Of course languages evolve and such but, come on, no one's going to decide to remove all gender-related pronouns and nouns and stuff in Spanish (i.e. everything!) because of some claims that they're sexist.

language is witchcraft imo