"scarce" resources, college and sexism

[rm]

And then there's this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/opinion/23britz.html

It's the sort of thing that makes it hard for me to imagine any world in which women, at least as a group, don't always lose.

via rackmount

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

It's impossible. People experience themselves and the world with gender and race. It would be evident in the essays, and assumed via everything from activities to zip codes.

[redwitch.livejournal.com]

true enough. Seems like it would flatten the field a little though.

On a side note, wonder if 'gender fluid' or any of the other new pronouns will ever show up.

[rm.livejournal.com]

You know, it's funny, I'm so conservative about the oddest things. Well, it's probably not surprising considering my education and upbringing, but I cannot get it together with the gender neutral pronouns. I'm like just "really? that sounds awful."

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

The present set of gender-neutral pronouns in English are rather clunky, but I consider it a defect in the language.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Agreed. My preferred option is the singular they, since it has a long history in English and has the great virtue of not being either confusing (like sie & hir) or starting with a z.

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

The first time I read "Leaves of Grass," it was from a humanist copy in which all of the pronouns had been changed to "hus" and "hum," and, having no experience with Whitman at all, an this being the content of Leaves of Grass, I didn't give it more than a second thought. In fact, I'll admit that I didn't even know such pronoun variants existed. It turns out I was the only one in the class with that copy (I can never manage to understand the college bookstore), and everyone else had the copies with standard pronouns. I just remember being very confused at the idea, and rather the sound of it. The idea was interesting, and it actually worked in BoG, but still. My pre-programmed brain.