I believe this would be the earliest example of the cancer at D&D and it started with TSR by February 6, 1995.
If you go to the 2nd Edition Players Handbook Revised pg 9: A Note About Pronouns
They make it a point they are using male as neuter and not to exclude women. I wonder which artard at TSR thought to include that line of horseshit.
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on May 19, 2023, 01:07:17 AM
I believe this would be the earliest example of the cancer at D&D and it started with TSR by February 6, 1995.
If you go to the 2nd Edition Players Handbook Revised pg 9: A Note About Pronouns
They make it a point they are using male as neuter and not to exclude women. I wonder which artard at TSR thought to include that line of horseshit.
Isn't AD&D 1E's constant use of "he or she" more progressive then 2E's use of generic "he"? So I'd think the cancer started with AD&D.
No, Gygax correctly identified the two genders there. Now if Gygax wrote They in place of he or she you'd have a point. In the 2E PHB they specifically had a section on pronouns describing why they went with the He as neuter. Style guides from the 90s included using he and she. The woke cancer wasn't in the high schools yet at that time and were at the carbuncle phase in the university during the 90's they had festered yet to have a societal impact then.
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on May 19, 2023, 01:07:17 AM
I believe this would be the earliest example of the cancer at D&D and it started with TSR by February 6, 1995.
If you go to the 2nd Edition Players Handbook Revised pg 9: A Note About Pronouns
They make it a point they are using male as neuter and not to exclude women. I wonder which artard at TSR thought to include that line of horseshit.
No, that's standard and correct usage, and it has been for a very long time
Quote from: Mishihari on May 19, 2023, 01:51:20 AM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on May 19, 2023, 01:07:17 AM
I believe this would be the earliest example of the cancer at D&D and it started with TSR by February 6, 1995.
If you go to the 2nd Edition Players Handbook Revised pg 9: A Note About Pronouns
They make it a point they are using male as neuter and not to exclude women. I wonder which artard at TSR thought to include that line of horseshit.
No, that's standard and correct usage, and it has been for a very long time
Yup. Use of "he" as gender neutral was the older, more traditional approach -- going back two hundred years. If you look back in 1950s writing, say, you won't see much use of "he or she". Using "he or she" largely came from a 1960s push for more gender equality.
Quote from: Mishihari on May 19, 2023, 01:51:20 AM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on May 19, 2023, 01:07:17 AM
I believe this would be the earliest example of the cancer at D&D and it started with TSR by February 6, 1995.
If you go to the 2nd Edition Players Handbook Revised pg 9: A Note About Pronouns
They make it a point they are using male as neuter and not to exclude women. I wonder which artard at TSR thought to include that line of horseshit.
No, that's standard and correct usage, and it has been for a very long time
Greetings!
Exactly right, my friend! All of this language twisting and screeching "OFFENSE" by all of these Feminists and Marxist Cucks, is, ultimately due to Marxist brainwashing. These various "Activists" had to be brainwashed and *Trained* to be offended. They were trained in books written by Feminists and Marxists, and taught all of this BS in schools.
How do we know this is true?
We know this is true because when we were kids--and for centuries before us--no one had any problems with our language. Women all *knew* that when someone gave a speech talking about "Mankind"--he wasn't excluding women. MANKIND encompasses both male and female. The same manner, as you noted, with the unknown or neutered use in general speech of "HE". Everyone new that by context, it also included WOMEN.
No one had to walk around saying "He or She" or alternating saying He and She, or His or Hers. Whatever. Everyone knew by context. If you wanted to be exclusionary, or strictly specific, you said "All of the passengers were men." or some such.
When Gygax was using He or She, that was from being influenced from pressure by fucking Feminists at the time that had infiltrated our schools, and had begun whining and crying about it. Again, how do we know? Because all of this BS started in the late 1960's with the Liberals and the Feminists being brainfucked by Marxist revolutionaries and hippies.
Just ten or twenty years prior, no one whined about this kind of BS.
That train has left the station, and now we are where we are at, with all new stupid "pronouns", our language being mangled left, right and center, and people everywhere being offended by something.
There was a time we had rules. Rules were simple, and applied to everyone, the entire language, and no one gave a fuck about someone who got their feelings hurt. Suck it up buttercup! That's the way it is!
People throughout our society no longer have the guts to stare down a screeching feminist and tell her the same thing, nor do we have the fortitude to stomp on all the other mentally ill crybabies screaming in our society today.
Our society has become full of frothing-at-the-mouth Feminists, and weak, feminized men and crybabies.
Our language gets bastardized and mangled every year now, as well. So sad and pathetic.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
The earliest would be The Dragon issue 39, I think it's the first time the feminist complaints were given any serious attention from TSR, but it wouldn't be the last.
Edited to add:
Dragon Issue 57 presents us one of those "I'll take shit that never happened for a billion Alex" stories feminists love to tell. Not forgetting the comic strip mocking the chainmail bikini.
I'm sorry to burst anyone's bubble but the rot was already there back in the 80s
'Men' as including 'Women' also goes back to the Dark Ages. If you wanted to talk about only-male Men you'd say "Wer-Man". ;D
Men - Men, can include women.
Wer-men - Men exclusive of women.
Wo-men - Women, exclusive of men.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 19, 2023, 02:18:59 AMI'm sorry to burst anyone's bubble but the rot was already there back in the 80s
This goes back even to the 1970s. Here's an article from Playing at the World about early complaints. Note that the vast majority of these complaints are coming from male feminists, not actual women.
https://medium.com/@increment/the-first-female-gamers-c784fbe3ff37
Here are some female characters (played by men) hanging various D&D luminaries in effigy for the crime of suggesting female characters having different rules in game. SJW have always been nasty people. [from Alarums & Excursions #19]
(https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:640/format:webp/1*D5PAWCot12JG5MMmY80q4g.jpeg)
All that being said, I will say that the renaming of demons and devil in 2e was really a turning point. As it showed the those writing D&D were willing to put the complaints of non-players over the needs of their own customers. Something they continue to do to this day.
First, the text there is identical to the text in the original 1989 printing of the PHB, so that pushes it back six years at least. :)
Second, any work of mortal man is going to be flawed, fallible, and prone to corruption. I think we can identify 'tipping points' where changes or corruptions took stronger hold, or potential tendencies in the material that lend themselves to corruption, but pointing to any single time or place as 'this is where it all went wrong' is harder.
Personally, I think the tipping point for D&D is three successive, interrelated points:
- The acquisition of TSR by Wizards of the Coast.
- The hiring of Jonathan Tweet as design lead for 3rd Edition.
- The decision, whether by Adkison, Dancey, Tweet, all of them, and/or others, that 3rd Edition should focus on "feeling like D&D."
If you want to really trace it to the origin, see Rousseau, circa 1754. Then it gradually builds from there, through various French and German philosophers, some events in 1917, Thomas Dewey and his ilk in the 1930s, finally bursting out like a overripe pimple on the culture in the 1960s. Some institutions resisted the rot longer than others. RPGs were way too far down the list of importance to get much attention from the viral spread until much later, but they were exposed to it from the get go. :P
Quote from: Steven Mitchell on May 19, 2023, 10:47:12 AM
If you want to really trace it to the origin, see Rousseau, circa 1754.
"Person is born free, but everywhere in chains!"
Quote from: SHARK on May 19, 2023, 02:14:20 AM
When Gygax was using He or She, that was from being influenced from pressure by fucking Feminists at the time that had infiltrated our schools, and had begun whining and crying about it. Again, how do we know? Because all of this BS started in the late 1960's with the Liberals and the Feminists being brainfucked by Marxist revolutionaries and hippies.
Just ten or twenty years prior, no one whined about this kind of BS.
That train has left the station, and now we are where we are at, with all new stupid "pronouns", our language being mangled left, right and center, and people everywhere being offended by something.
Factually, I agree that Gygax's use of "he and she" was an influence from the 1960s feminist movement. So it's been in the game since the original AD&D.
Also, in terms of actual language usage, "he" was never gender neutral. As used prior to the 1960s, it implied always or typically male. The older usage pattern was:
(1) Always male - use "he"
(2) Typically but not always male - like doctor, police, professor, politician, etc. - use "he"
(3) Typically but not always female - like secretary or nurse - use "she"
(4) Always female - use "she"
Even though there were male secretaries in the 1950s, people didn't use "he" as the gender-neutral pronoun for secretaries. They'd say "she" instead.
In terms of opinion, I don't agree about your characterization of the time. Prior to the 1960s, I don't think one can deny that society was sexist. Women frequently couldn't get their own bank account or credit card, could be legally discriminated against in job hiring or college admissions, couldn't serve on juries (i.e. 1957's "Twelve Angry Men"), and so forth. The prejudice wasn't subtle - it was outright legal and social inequality. So I don't agree that 1960s feminists were whiny crybabies over nothing, as you characterize them.
Quote from: Mishihari on May 19, 2023, 01:51:20 AM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on May 19, 2023, 01:07:17 AM
I believe this would be the earliest example of the cancer at D&D and it started with TSR by February 6, 1995.
If you go to the 2nd Edition Players Handbook Revised pg 9: A Note About Pronouns
They make it a point they are using male as neuter and not to exclude women. I wonder which artard at TSR thought to include that line of horseshit.
No, that's standard and correct usage, and it has been for a very long time
^This^
We don't need to be creating shadows when there are plenty of real ones already out there...
Quote from: hedgehobbit on May 19, 2023, 08:17:09 AM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 19, 2023, 02:18:59 AMI'm sorry to burst anyone's bubble but the rot was already there back in the 80s
This goes back even to the 1970s. Here's an article from Playing at the World about early complaints. Note that the vast majority of these complaints are coming from male feminists, not actual women.
https://medium.com/@increment/the-first-female-gamers-c784fbe3ff37
And as all male feminists it lies:
QuoteIn 1943, Pratt wrote that "today there are nearly as many players of one sex as the other."
Now, that asertion could very well be true for his small circle at wartime when millions of men were figthing the war not playing pretend war like the pratt.
But you just need to look at the complaints and conventions to know this was a lie back then and keeps on being one today.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 19, 2023, 01:12:20 PM
Quote from: hedgehobbit on May 19, 2023, 08:17:09 AM
Here's an article from Playing at the World about early complaints. Note that the vast majority of these complaints are coming from male feminists, not actual women.
https://medium.com/@increment/the-first-female-gamers-c784fbe3ff37
And as all male feminists it lies:
QuoteIn 1943, Pratt wrote that "today there are nearly as many players of one sex as the other."
Now, that asertion could very well be true for his small circle at wartime when millions of men were figthing the war not playing pretend war like the pratt.
But you just need to look at the complaints and conventions to know this was a lie back then and keeps on being one today.
That isn't a generalization for all time -- it's quoting Pratt to describe the circumstances of when and where Pratt was running. The same article also explicitly describes how there were almost no women participating in the late 1960s wargaming scene - noting only 3 distinctly female names out of 600 subscribers to Avalon Hill's "The General" magazine. It then describes a larger number of women participating in early D&D, with Gary Gygax claiming in 1979 that "at least 10% of the players are female".
All this is in line with what I read from other sources. The numbers can change back and forth. In 1999, the big demographic survey prior to 3E found that TRPG players were 19% female.
Incidentally, the slightly more extended quote from Fletcher Pratt's Naval War Game (1943) was apparently:
Quotethe sweet-hearts-and-wives influence became manifest. One of the latter appeared as a spectator of what was originally intended to be a purely stag game. In the midst of the ensuing red-hot engagement she was discovered flat on her stomach, aiming the guns of a cruiser and muttering something like "I'll get so-and-so this time." From that date on there was no checking the rising tide of feminism. Today there are nearly as many players of one sex as of the other, and one of the feminine delegation has been praised by a naval officer as the most competent tactician of the group.
Source: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1833569/vintage-quote-about-wargames-and-women
They must be mistaken!
6e D&D will have 50% female players, but 75% of those will have (or had) a penis.
Quote from: Spinachcat on May 22, 2023, 02:49:11 AM
6e D&D will have 50% female players, but 75% of those will have (or had) a penis.
You mean the writers of 6E will. :o
Based on the 5e fanbase, I have no doubt the 6e fanbase will be a shitshow of freaks, their always-online "allies" and subservient gimps desperate to play "the current edition" regardless because they only play "the current edition".
If I wasn't already a gamer for decades, I could not imagine walking into a 2023 game store or 2023 convention and saying "This looks fun! I want to join these people in their hobby!"
Fortunately, the OSR draws in the very worst dregs of society and it's full of dangerous wrong thinkers so I'll always have a full game table wherever my Mos Eisley sets up.
Quote from: Mishihari on May 19, 2023, 01:51:20 AM
No, that's standard and correct usage, and it has been for a very long time
Yea, this.
The push away from neutral he was done for political reasons and only political reasons- even moreso today than back in the 70s.
Here's an article from the late 1970s created with the goal of providing political motivation ("it hurts women to talk normal!") for pushing against normalcy and the neutral he, which was, at this point in time, totally standard.
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1979-25474-001
Quote from: jhkim on May 19, 2023, 10:57:55 AM
Quote from: SHARK on May 19, 2023, 02:14:20 AM
When Gygax was using He or She, that was from being influenced from pressure by fucking Feminists at the time that had infiltrated our schools, and had begun whining and crying about it. Again, how do we know? Because all of this BS started in the late 1960's with the Liberals and the Feminists being brainfucked by Marxist revolutionaries and hippies.
Just ten or twenty years prior, no one whined about this kind of BS.
That train has left the station, and now we are where we are at, with all new stupid "pronouns", our language being mangled left, right and center, and people everywhere being offended by something.
Factually, I agree that Gygax's use of "he and she" was an influence from the 1960s feminist movement. So it's been in the game since the original AD&D.
Also, in terms of actual language usage, "he" was never gender neutral. As used prior to the 1960s, it implied always or typically male. The older usage pattern was:
(1) Always male - use "he"
(2) Typically but not always male - like doctor, police, professor, politician, etc. - use "he"
(3) Typically but not always female - like secretary or nurse - use "she"
(4) Always female - use "she"
Even though there were male secretaries in the 1950s, people didn't use "he" as the gender-neutral pronoun for secretaries. They'd say "she" instead.
In terms of opinion, I don't agree about your characterization of the time. Prior to the 1960s, I don't think one can deny that society was sexist. Women frequently couldn't get their own bank account or credit card, could be legally discriminated against in job hiring or college admissions, couldn't serve on juries (i.e. 1957's "Twelve Angry Men"), and so forth. The prejudice wasn't subtle - it was outright legal and social inequality. So I don't agree that 1960s feminists were whiny crybabies over nothing, as you characterize them.
The reason a woman couldn't get a bank account, was because of the concept of coverture. Her provision was part of marriage. The reason you had to use the term "frequently" is because a single woman could have her own bank account, do business, etc. And even women under coverture could do/have these things. It depends on how the coverture laws were set up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverture
As usual, it's a lot more nuanced than Feminism portrayed. Feminists weren't being whiny crybabies. They misdiagnosed the issues and did a sloppy job in advocating for women's "rights". In some cases, intentionally in order to further ideologies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redstockings
Quote from: jhkim on May 19, 2023, 10:57:55 AM
Also, in terms of actual language usage, "he" was never gender neutral. As used prior to the 1960s, it implied always or typically male. The older usage pattern was:
(1) Always male - use "he"
(2) Typically but not always male - like doctor, police, professor, politician, etc. - use "he"
(3) Typically but not always female - like secretary or nurse - use "she"
(4) Always female - use "she"
Even though there were male secretaries in the 1950s, people didn't use "he" as the gender-neutral pronoun for secretaries. They'd say "she" instead.
Quote from: Venka on May 23, 2023, 12:55:36 AM
The push away from neutral he was done for political reasons and only political reasons- even moreso today than back in the 70s.
Here's an article from the late 1970s created with the goal of providing political motivation ("it hurts women to talk normal!") for pushing against normalcy and the neutral he, which was, at this point in time, totally standard.
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1979-25474-001
As I noted, "he" wasn't actually used in a neutral fashion. That might be a theoretical, but it never matched actual usage. In practice, people used "he" or "she" depending on whether they pictured typically male or female.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on May 23, 2023, 01:33:04 AM
Quote from: jhkim on May 19, 2023, 10:57:55 AM
Prior to the 1960s, I don't think one can deny that society was sexist. Women frequently couldn't get their own bank account or credit card, could be legally discriminated against in job hiring or college admissions, couldn't serve on juries (i.e. 1957's "Twelve Angry Men"), and so forth. The prejudice wasn't subtle - it was outright legal and social inequality. So I don't agree that 1960s feminists were whiny crybabies over nothing, as you characterize them.
The reason a woman couldn't get a bank account, was because of the concept of coverture. Her provision was part of marriage. The reason you had to use the term "frequently" is because a single woman could have her own bank account, do business, etc. And even women under coverture could do/have these things. It depends on how the coverture laws were set up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverture
As usual, it's a lot more nuanced than Feminism portrayed. Feminists weren't being whiny crybabies. They misdiagnosed the issues and did a sloppy job in advocating for women's "rights". In some cases, intentionally in order to further ideologies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redstockings
I didn't use the term "coverture", but I don't see how that changes what I said. Coverture is overtly sexist. A husband can get an independent bank account, but a wife cannot. Also, single women were also often discriminated against - like requiring an unmarried woman to get a cosignature for an account or credit card by her father or other male relative, while not doing the same for unmarried men. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 was a well-reasoned response to this sort of discrimination.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Credit_Opportunity_Act
Dude come back after you've seen the graphs showing the rate of credit card debt in America after women were legally allowed to have them.
And before you go off on "edumacation" bear in mind that no such public service has ever been granted to anyone prior to that change,
to this day,
kind of like it was more important to give as many people credit cards as possible and withhold the risks from them from the get go.
Especially given to women so that they could get high on the freedoms while deliberately setting them up not understnad the responsiblities
Quote from: jhkim on May 23, 2023, 11:19:47 PM
As I noted, "he" wasn't actually used in a neutral fashion. That might be a theoretical, but it never matched actual usage. In practice, people used "he" or "she" depending on whether they pictured typically male or female.
Sure, people would say "she" for like a secretary. But that was because you pretty much knew it was a woman (and your guess was well based in math!).
Quote from: jhkim on May 23, 2023, 11:19:47 PM
Quote from: jhkim on May 19, 2023, 10:57:55 AM
Also, in terms of actual language usage, "he" was never gender neutral. As used prior to the 1960s, it implied always or typically male. The older usage pattern was:
(1) Always male - use "he"
(2) Typically but not always male - like doctor, police, professor, politician, etc. - use "he"
(3) Typically but not always female - like secretary or nurse - use "she"
(4) Always female - use "she"
Even though there were male secretaries in the 1950s, people didn't use "he" as the gender-neutral pronoun for secretaries. They'd say "she" instead.
Quote from: Venka on May 23, 2023, 12:55:36 AM
The push away from neutral he was done for political reasons and only political reasons- even moreso today than back in the 70s.
Here's an article from the late 1970s created with the goal of providing political motivation ("it hurts women to talk normal!") for pushing against normalcy and the neutral he, which was, at this point in time, totally standard.
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1979-25474-001
As I noted, "he" wasn't actually used in a neutral fashion. That might be a theoretical, but it never matched actual usage. In practice, people used "he" or "she" depending on whether they pictured typically male or female.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on May 23, 2023, 01:33:04 AM
Quote from: jhkim on May 19, 2023, 10:57:55 AM
Prior to the 1960s, I don't think one can deny that society was sexist. Women frequently couldn't get their own bank account or credit card, could be legally discriminated against in job hiring or college admissions, couldn't serve on juries (i.e. 1957's "Twelve Angry Men"), and so forth. The prejudice wasn't subtle - it was outright legal and social inequality. So I don't agree that 1960s feminists were whiny crybabies over nothing, as you characterize them.
The reason a woman couldn't get a bank account, was because of the concept of coverture. Her provision was part of marriage. The reason you had to use the term "frequently" is because a single woman could have her own bank account, do business, etc. And even women under coverture could do/have these things. It depends on how the coverture laws were set up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverture
As usual, it's a lot more nuanced than Feminism portrayed. Feminists weren't being whiny crybabies. They misdiagnosed the issues and did a sloppy job in advocating for women's "rights". In some cases, intentionally in order to further ideologies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redstockings
I didn't use the term "coverture", but I don't see how that changes what I said.
You didn't give any context. You just left it there as some kind of example of how things were unfair to women, ignoring the fact that it was a convention around marriage and how households worked at the time.
QuoteCoverture is overtly sexist. A husband can get an independent bank account, but a wife cannot. Also, single women were also often discriminated against - like requiring an unmarried woman to get a cosignature for an account or credit card by her father or other male relative, while not doing the same for unmarried men. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 was a well-reasoned response to this sort of discrimination.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Credit_Opportunity_Act
Life was sexist. People are unequal. As modern life made such conventions obsolete, they were due for a revision. Not because, as a feminist might say, The Man (literally) was keepin the wimmin folk down, but because modern society and technology meant that women were freed from certain physical and social burdens. Most notably, the invention of modern birth control methods.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 19, 2023, 02:18:59 AM
The earliest would be The Dragon issue 39, I think it's the first time the feminist complaints were given any serious attention from TSR, but it wouldn't be the last.
Edited to add:
Dragon Issue 57 presents us one of those "I'll take shit that never happened for a billion Alex" stories feminists love to tell. Not forgetting the comic strip mocking the chainmail bikini.
I'm sorry to burst anyone's bubble but the rot was already there back in the 80s
That's not rot though. They posted this stuff because they thought it was nonesense. Kask mentioned stuff like this in some of his interviews.
It was not till into the Loraine era and the 90s wave of woke moral outrage that we saw more and more changes entering into 2e.
There was one game that had a rather interesting solution to the whole he or she problem -- the generic pronouns used were male on the even-numbered pages, female on the odd-numbered pages, or something like that.
I remember thinking it was a clever way to sidestep the issue.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on May 24, 2023, 08:43:38 AM
There was one game that had a rather interesting solution to the whole he or she problem -- the generic pronouns used were male on the even-numbered pages, female on the odd-numbered pages, or something like that.
I remember thinking it was a clever way to sidestep the issue.
I think the game could have fixed it by setting up a subscription for a SSRI anti-depressant subscription for those users who can handle seeing male used as the default. Maybe they could have even packaged the pills to look like miniature D20's.
Quote from: jhkim on May 23, 2023, 11:19:47 PM
I didn't use the term "coverture", but I don't see how that changes what I said. Coverture is overtly sexist. A husband can get an independent bank account, but a wife cannot. Also, single women were also often discriminated against - like requiring an unmarried woman to get a cosignature for an account or credit card by her father or other male relative, while not doing the same for unmarried men. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 was a well-reasoned response to this sort of discrimination.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Credit_Opportunity_Act
Yeah, the evidently egalitarian thing to do was to give the wahmen credit that they had NO way to pay and fuck their husbands with it.
No, dude, it's not sexist to ask for the recipient of a credit to have a way to pay for it, and many women had the way and therefore got the credit.
But you're a male feminist.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 24, 2023, 04:04:09 PM
But you're a male feminist.
WHOA!
Come on GB, you can't call him a sexual predator without proof.
I just had to purge the male feminists from my gamer group.
It's a bright new dawn. ;D
Quote from: jhkim on May 23, 2023, 11:19:47 PM
As I noted, "he" wasn't actually used in a neutral fashion. That might be a theoretical, but it never matched actual usage. In practice, people used "he" or "she" depending on whether they pictured typically male or female.
You know, actually I want to dispute this. I provided a link to people who were creating the case to destroy the neutral he stuff. You claimed this was "theoretical". Obviously it was real, or they wouldn't have made that study, right? They actually wanted to change how people talk, after all.
Note also that your take- that it wasn't
really a neutral he- seems like the sort of argument someone would make if they were trying to convince a non-sexist that their language was sexist, and to change it, or something. If the assessment were true, I'd think it was fine, but... is it true? Were there non-leftists studying this or something? It's easy to find evidence of that this shift in usage was (and is) absolutely deliberate and for political purposes, so why worry about the idea that someone might say "he" for a fireman and "she" for a nurse?
Quote from: Venka on May 24, 2023, 09:30:26 PM
Quote from: jhkim on May 23, 2023, 11:19:47 PM
As I noted, "he" wasn't actually used in a neutral fashion. That might be a theoretical, but it never matched actual usage. In practice, people used "he" or "she" depending on whether they pictured typically male or female.
You know, actually I want to dispute this. I provided a link to people who were creating the case to destroy the neutral he stuff. You claimed this was "theoretical". Obviously it was real, or they wouldn't have made that study, right? They actually wanted to change how people talk, after all.
Note also that your take- that it wasn't really a neutral he- seems like the sort of argument someone would make if they were trying to convince a non-sexist that their language was sexist, and to change it, or something. If the assessment were true, I'd think it was fine, but... is it true? Were there non-leftists studying this or something? It's easy to find evidence of that this shift in usage was (and is) absolutely deliberate and for political purposes, so why worry about the idea that someone might say "he" for a fireman and "she" for a nurse?
Classic motte-and-bailey strategy, make a vague enough claim and when challenged retreat to something specific that doesn't really disproves the cvounter argument and pretend that was your position all along.
That's what Jhkim and all leftists do.
Quote from: Venka on May 24, 2023, 12:15:50 AM
Quote from: jhkim on May 23, 2023, 11:19:47 PM
As I noted, "he" wasn't actually used in a neutral fashion. That might be a theoretical, but it never matched actual usage. In practice, people used "he" or "she" depending on whether they pictured typically male or female.
Sure, people would say "she" for like a secretary. But that was because you pretty much knew it was a woman (and your guess was well based in math!).
Is this just about the example? What if it was likely to be a woman, but not guaranteed - say 80%? That might fit for waitress or librarian. I think that it was still likely to use "she" in such a case. The point is that use of "he" vs "she" was based on expectation, rather than "he" being neutral to use in all cases.
The point is that previous posters argued that "he" was gender neutral, when it wasn't in practice. If one wants to argue that it is proper to use "he" based on expectation, that's a different argument.
Gygax thought it was better to go with "he or she" rather than just "he", and he claimed that by the 1980s that 10% of D&D players were women.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 24, 2023, 04:04:09 PM
Quote from: jhkim on May 23, 2023, 11:19:47 PM
I didn't use the term "coverture", but I don't see how that changes what I said. Coverture is overtly sexist. A husband can get an independent bank account, but a wife cannot. Also, single women were also often discriminated against - like requiring an unmarried woman to get a cosignature for an account or credit card by her father or other male relative, while not doing the same for unmarried men. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 was a well-reasoned response to this sort of discrimination.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Credit_Opportunity_Act
Yeah, the evidently egalitarian thing to do was to give the wahmen credit that they had NO way to pay and fuck their husbands with it.
No, dude, it's not sexist to ask for the recipient of a credit to have a way to pay for it, and many women had the way and therefore got the credit.
This is getting off-topic, but after the 1974 Equal Credit Opportunity Act, it was still legal to deny someone credit based on their income or credit history. What the law changed is that it was not legal to deny someone credit based on their gender.
For example, my mother and father were both medical doctors in the 1960s, but initially my mother made more money because my father had a more difficult time getting credentialed. I haven't talked to them specifically about credit applications at that time, but both of them were quite clear that they were discriminated against at that time - she because of her gender, he because of his race.
Even back in the 1960s, lots of people didn't fit the stereotype of husband provider and spendthrift wife. I can't find historical numbers, but as of 2019, American men have higher debt than American women. (ref) (https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/women-and-credit/)
Quote from: jhkim on May 25, 2023, 10:07:36 AM
Even back in the 1960s, lots of people didn't fit the stereotype of husband provider and spendthrift wife. I can't find historical numbers, but as of 2019, American men have higher debt than American women. (ref) (https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/women-and-credit/)
Now do one for how men pay for all the dates and vacations, even when dating women that have their own income, have to buy the engagement and wedding ring, pay for the wedding, then when they get married he often pays off her student loans. And he ends up in debt? SHOCKING!
The fact that women are about equal, DESPITE all of these additional financial burdens on men, is horrifying.
"But, in my experience, with my typical upbringing by a pair of Doctors..."
Quote from: Grognard GM on May 25, 2023, 12:09:55 PM
"But, in my experience, with my typical upbringing by a pair of Doctors..."
That's what makes it all so amusing. Jhkim's worldview is so incredibly narrow, and yet he asserts that his experiences somehow trump the norms.
Take, for example, his bullshit about the discrimination in credit before some
magical (read: worthless) government law in the seventies. I just happen to be sitting with my mother, mother-in-law, aunt, and several other women in their seventies and eighties. And they say he's completely ignorant. I'm sure his parents felt terribly abused and discriminated against by society (I mean, where do you think he got his stupid ideas from?), but their feelings didn't track with reality.
Just one example. In the 60s my mother-in-law wanted to buy her husband a new car for his birthday. The problem was that he was the sole earner in the household and she had
never had a job. Not since she worked as a teenager. So she rolled into the car dealership and they sold her a car, on credit, without one shred of income. She secretly left the house once the kids went to school and worked at a fast food place for almost a year without him knowing to pay off a big chunk of the car. But the day she bought it she had no job and no credit (and she bought it from a major dealership, not some fly-by-night used car lot). So somehow she managed to pull this off while being oppressed by the
man, a decade before her government saviors passed the magic law...
Quote from: Eirikrautha on May 26, 2023, 10:11:11 PM
Quote from: Grognard GM on May 25, 2023, 12:09:55 PM
"But, in my experience, with my typical upbringing by a pair of Doctors..."
That's what makes it all so amusing. Jhkim's worldview is so incredibly narrow, and yet he asserts that his experiences somehow trump the norms.
Take, for example, his bullshit about the discrimination in credit before some magical (read: worthless) government law in the seventies. I just happen to be sitting with my mother, mother-in-law, aunt, and several other women in their seventies and eighties. And they say he's completely ignorant. I'm sure his parents felt terribly abused and discriminated against by society (I mean, where do you think he got his stupid ideas from?), but their feelings didn't track with reality.
Just one example. In the 60s my mother-in-law wanted to buy her husband a new car for his birthday. The problem was that he was the sole earner in the household and she had never had a job. Not since she worked as a teenager. So she rolled into the car dealership and they sold her a car, on credit, without one shred of income. She secretly left the house once the kids went to school and worked at a fast food place for almost a year without him knowing to pay off a big chunk of the car. But the day she bought it she had no job and no credit (and she bought it from a major dealership, not some fly-by-night used car lot). So somehow she managed to pull this off while being oppressed by the man, a decade before her government saviors passed the magic law...
I don't claim that my experiences are universal or trump the norms. But equally, your experiences aren't universal either. There are millions of people who fit the norms, but also millions who didn't fit the norms. For what it's worth, my parents were both medical doctors, but they were both the first in their families to go to college. My father was the son of a dairy farmer who grew up in what is now North Korea. My mother is the daughter of a factory worker outside Boston.
I'm glad that your mother-in-law could buy a car herself so easily, but there were other people who didn't have that experience.
I also made no claims that the law magically changed everything. The federal law was part of a general shift away from coverture and towards equal treatment of men and women. I think the law helped pressure some holdouts, but for the law to be enacted meant that the majority had already moved towards that. Like other federal civil rights laws, it helped enforce the changes that were already present in large sections of the country.
Waste of time bickering with idiots like this