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Banning words won’t make the world more just

theatlantic.com

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Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#331

Post by jimbokun »

8note wrote: post #227
HyperSane wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A pregnant person is a woman.

At least, the person that birthed you is your mother. I'd question the association between mother and woman, rather than mother and birth

Part of the reason rule based language processing failed, is because language does not fall into hard and fast categories with no exceptions.

Normal people instinctively understand this, and “woman” and “mother” are completely understandable and useful terms, even if there are a handful of exceptions out of millions are exceptions to the strict definition.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#332

Post by JumpCrisscross »

shrimp_emoji wrote: post #251
HyperSane wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A pregnant person is a woman.

[flagged]

> your statement is incorrect because trans men exist and they can get pregnant

So that’s an edge case. They can call themselves a mother or father or birthing person or pink elephant. That shouldn’t mean someone else can’t identify as a mother or father or whatnot.

This isn’t even a novel delineation; adoption and surrogacy have long dealt with the separation of parenting and reproductive roles. Besides, history’s foremost feminists would cringe at womanhood and motherhood being reduced to a biological function.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#333

Post by JenrHywy »

theossuary wrote: post #326
JenrHywy wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There seems to be this weird erasure of women taking place at the moment. This is the crazy thing. After a century of legitimate struggle for equality, women are having the language of feminism turned on them to deny the existence of femininity. Honestly, I thought the lines would have been drawn with sport, but that fact that it's leaking into medicine is pure insanity. I've been somewhat worried about there not b…

You do realize that the terminology is meant for transmen right? It's weird you're complaining about terminology used for transmen, and then linking it to transwomen in sports.

Why it is weird? In both cases, as the GP said, the concept of womanhood is being erased.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#334

Post by goatlover »

sirmarksalot wrote: post #304
jurassic wrote: post #54

The pendulum is swinging back because equity language censors took this way way too far. People-first language ("enslaved people" not "slaves") makes complete sense to me, but making a big fuss about how common English idioms like being "blind to a problem" is somehow offensive is going to earn you nothing but eyerolls from nearly everyone. Some of these, like "grandfathering", cannot even be understood without deep…

I take any equity language guides with a grain of salt, but how people respond to them speaks volumes about who they are. Obviously there are problems with it. It's largely performative, it can distract from bigger advocacy work, and it's often a lazy attempt by a large organization or corporation to avoid having to make meaningful changes. The thing is, when you add terms like "victimhood culture" to your response,…

> but how people respond to them speaks volumes about who they are

Does that mean they are bad, immoral people? I think equity is faulty concept. Seems like an attempt to create equality of outcome by policing language. But I'll defer to arguments made by the likes of Sam Harris, Julia Galef and Coleman Hughes. Or the Atlantic author of this article.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#335

Post by cauthon »

jurassic wrote: post #54

The pendulum is swinging back because equity language censors took this way way too far. People-first language ("enslaved people" not "slaves") makes complete sense to me, but making a big fuss about how common English idioms like being "blind to a problem" is somehow offensive is going to earn you nothing but eyerolls from nearly everyone. Some of these, like "grandfathering", cannot even be understood without deep…

I largely agree with your first paragraph, but I do think the term “birthing parent” is important in contexts such as parental leave policies.

“Mother” could be inadequately specific in situations involving same-sex relationships, surrogacies, and/or adoption. For example, Washington state offers up to 6 weeks of medical leave to the birthing parent, in addition to the 12 weeks of bonding leave that are offered to both parents.

Policy language needs to be specific and able to accommodate minority or edge cases.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#336

Post by StanislavPetrov »

undersuit wrote: post #314
jimbokun wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s perfectly simple, until you lose track of the distinction between sex and gender.

[flagged]

XX instead of XY. The fact that 1 in a million people is neither a man or a women has no bearing on this fact.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#337

Post by randomdata »

imgabe wrote: post #311

Wait, brown bag is subtle racism? Somebody needs to explain this to me because I know for a fact I’ve taken lunch to school in paper bags that were literally brown and I have no idea what else this could possibly refer to. Edit: Looked it up: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/theres-more-seattle-bro... > "the phrase 'brown bag' does bring up associations with the past when a brown bag was actually used, I understa…

> I’ve taken lunch to school in paper bags that were literally brown

Are you sure they weren't a certain shade of orange?

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#339

Post by jamesfinlayson »

Animats wrote: post #23

Is this going anywhere outside the US? The "pronouns" thing went nowhere in France. It was considered damaging to the French language. > The euphemism treadmill is a running joke, from negro, to black, to African American, to Black, to person of color. Also, the shift from moron to mentally defective to retarded to whatever. This is such a sideshow. First, conservatism lost its way. Then liberalism lost its way. If o…

In Australia yes - many big companies now ask you to put your preferred pronoun in your email footer.

Re: Banning words won’t make the world more just

#340

Post by cassonmars »

throwbadubadu wrote: post #309
cassonmars wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trans myself and this language policing game is insane. The most surreal part about it is it's rarely anyone allegedly impacted by it who is actually asking for these things.

Yep, same with disabilities, or children playing/costuming as cowboy and indian, or cultural appropriation where certain people are now not allowed wear a rasta haircut, or, or, or... Most ""affected"" people actually don't give a shit AND don't want this shit. But sjws can scapegoat any doubt to this holy mission and make one look like a Nazi. Usually never is also the intention or context taken into account.. You w…

Realistically I think what has happened is the puritanical culture has donned new clothes. Blind subservience and self-flagellations to ever increasing standards of a sacrificial victim sky man who never asked for these things in the words they twisted, replaced with blind subservience to sacrificial victims in the present who one again, never asked for these things in the words they twisted.

It makes me feel like a pawn in their own self-actualization, not someone they remotely ever gave a thought or care about.

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