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Yes. You don't use gendered pronouns to refer to your coworkers and professional associates because you're reducing that person to their gender when it rarely m
by jkelsey 13y ago
Yes. You don't use gendered pronouns to refer to your coworkers and professional associates because you're reducing that person to their gender when it rarely matters. Also, you don't call people 'retards' because that's insulting to people with disabilities. What you call your wife and daughter is between you and your family.
- sergiotapia 13y agoI had no idea using 'retard' in conversation was offensive to disabled people. TIL. I'll try not to use it again outside of close friends.
- bchociej 13y agoIf I recall correctly, 'retard' has a very different connotation in Spanish-speaking cultures than in Anglophone ones.
- dictum 13y agoCan't speak for the person who called her "queen", but that's the problem with some words being gendered and others not. Most words in my mother tongue are gendered even if the thing they're referring to are objects with no innate gender. Cultural insensitivity or not, I fail to see how calling a woman a queen reduces her to her gender. Hell, I can't see how calling a man a queen reduces him to any gender. I'm assuming whoever called her a queen wanted to allude to a domineering personality, and indeed nobody is called a "king" for being pushy and domineering, but the sentiment is also expressed in regards to men, as in "he does X like he fucking owns the place".
- untog 13y agoAlso, being pushy and domineering is seen as a positive in men, but is almost always seen as a negative in women.
- dictum 13y agoI don't know, I've personally seen both men and women be criticized for domineering attitudes in similar situations. Some men are less likely to criticize men for their domineering attitude for fear of starting a fight (some men don't physically attack women, but will attack men), making an enemy with bully tendencies, losing their job, etc. Perhaps it's not that men being pushy and domineering is really appreciated, it's just accepted as a fact of life to prevent uncomfortable repercussions.
- jkelsey 13y ago> I fail to see how calling a woman a queen reduces her to her gender. Hell, I can't see how calling a man a queen reduces him to any gender. You may see it that way, and I won't question your integrity about it. However, it is undeniable that there has been a ton of misogyny directed towards women in the workspace in fields that have been classically dominated by men. And, the perpetrators of which, typically have used sexually-charged terms, such as "Queen", to refer negatively to women attempting to elevate their careers within in a organization in no different manner than a man would. This isn't a semantic argument. It's quite possible to work in a professional setting with members of the other gender, and critique a coworker has having as being pushy and domineering without resulting to gender pronouns. Regardless if you think that the use of them implies that you think the other gender is equal or not, the context described in my previous paragraph makes it hard to escape the perception that if you use them, you don't think the genders are equal.
- theorique 13y ago> You don't use gendered pronouns to refer to your coworkers and professional associates because you're reducing that person to their gender when it rarely matters. Huh? You mean you should not refer to your coworkers as "he" or "she" when they are a man and a woman, respectively? This doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
- jkelsey 13y agoAre you being purposely obtuse? The root of this entire thread was around the use of the word "Queen" to criticize a female coworker. Please don't take my point out of context. If you really want to have a argument over semantics, then I'll amend my original argument to say "veiled gender pronouns".
- theorique 13y agoNo, I think I'm getting thrown off by the correct definition of the word pronoun. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pronoun http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pronoun "Queen" is not a pronoun, gendered or otherwise, it's a noun that refers to a female person.