Princeton banned the word "man" on their campus.

[ultimamax]

to be honest, even then, this is kind of silly

i can understand stuff like going: "every man/woman may apply" being changed, as people identify as more than just male and female, but changing stuff like "layman," "layman's terms," "anchorman" or "mankind" to "layperson," "layperson's terms," "anchor" and "all of humanity," respectively, is ridiculous

tbh layperson is kind of a mouthful but anchor is less syllables, and mankind can simply be replaced with "humanity" or "humankind" both of which are not significantly harder to say than mankind

there are very few of the words in their list that i actually find objectionable at all, and tbh it's fine for things to be phrased a bit weirdly because it's just for announcements and things

now, i don't say this on a political, gendered, level, i'm talking about this on and advertisement or shortened speach level. there is a huge problem with the way the english language is formed, and that would be the fact that gender neutral words and phrases tend to take up a lot more words, syllables and generally time to read and express.

for example, if you're making an advertisement, it sounds more catchy to say: "the best product of all mankind" opposed to: "the best product of all of humanity." conciseness is valued in both literature and advertising, and using "of" twice in a phrase sounds awkward and excessive. moreover, with "no man's sky," the word "man" carries a certain weight with itself, but "person" makes the game sound generic. "no person's sky." yeah. it's no person. generic and nobody cares. but "no man's sky" has a social context to it, which sounds more powerful in comparison.

i doubt that most people even think about the "man" part in that title, but it adds power to it, regardless of gender.
the difference being no man's sky is art, and the creator can call it whatever he wants, even if it's not gender neutral. same thing with "prince"ton, princeton is a proper noun so there's no reason for us to expect it to be gender neutral.

princeton's HR department is not a marketing department, they don't need their words to "carry weight" so much as they just need to convey information.

what i'm trying to say is by a language standpoint, removing gendered words is not a viable option in any way unless we change existing words like man, for example, to be gender neutral. if we considered "man" a gender neutral word, in fact, i feel that several issues would be solved.
yeah but how do you "ungender" man? we can't just strip it of its context by choice. the problem is that most of our language developed before anyone was actually concerned with gender neutrality. in official things like job postings, basically anything publicly funded, (unless it's, like, publicly funded art/radio/television of some kind) we should strive to make the language gender neutral. but i don't think anyone in their right mind is seriously advocating for people's everyday speech to be unequivocally "gender-neutralized" without providing wieldy replacements for "old" terms

It is silly. And I want the decision reversed. But tony was stupid about how he presented it and he directly lied about what it was right after claiming "I never lie about the news!"

That's the problem my post was pointing out.

why is it of such importance to you that this internal decision made by a private university HR department be reversed?

[Ad Bot]

[Tayasaurus]

People who think "man" contained in any word carry's weight are pretty dumb. It's a term that's become so general these days that the gender of it hardly stands out. Helmsman for example makes me think of a job position and not the gender.

[Lord Tony®]

It's like when Feminists claim (his)tory should be changed to (her)tory.

Also feminists hate that there is a word for (her)pes but not (his)pes.

It has nothing to do with gender.

[Ipquarx]

why is it of such importance to you that this internal decision made by a private university HR department be reversed?

Can I not say "I want X reversed" even if it has no effect on me? It's a stupid decision. There's absolutely no reason to arbitrarily restrict what words can and cannot be used, especially when in many cases it is directly necessary to use them. For example, an announcement could be "The women's health center has just gotten upgraded." Or "The mens room in the main wing are currently closed for cleaning." Those announcements just wouldn't be allowed, period, even though there is absolutely nothing wrong, "problematic," etc with it.

[Clownfish]

i've called women "man" before in casual conversation so i guess im a loving lgbt hating roostersleeve forgetnugger

[ultimamax]

It's like when Feminists claim (his)tory should be changed to (her)tory.

Also feminists hate that there is a word for (her)pes but not (his)pes.

It has nothing to do with gender.

I am a feminist and this is completely true

Can I not say "I want X reversed" even if it has no effect on me? It's a stupid decision. There's absolutely no reason to arbitrarily restrict what words can and cannot be used, especially when in many cases it is directly necessary to use them. For example, an announcement could be "The women's health center has just gotten upgraded." Or "The mens room in the main wing are currently closed for cleaning." Those announcements just wouldn't be allowed, period, even though there is absolutely nothing wrong, "problematic," etc with it.

The whole point of this change is NOT to remove references to men or women completely, but to remove these references where they're not necessary. Obviously if you were talking about the men's room or the women's health center those announcements would be allowed, because you can't talk about the men's room without saying the word "men". It would make absolutely no sense to ban explicit references to gender/love where they're actually relevant, and they're very clearly not going to do that. That's such a dumb assumption to make.

In fact, the whole point of this document seems to be to avoid taking a stance on things like gender. That's why they even avoid using things like s/he, because that implies that there are only two options. (and is thus taking a stance on whether gender is binary)

[Clownfish]

(and is thus taking a stance on whether gender is binary)

you can source whatever the forget you want
you can ram a spiked carrot up my ass in protest
you can hold me at gunpoint
you can do loving anything
but you can not loving convince me that there are more than two genders
it biologically makes no loving sense, and anybody who legitimately believes that there are more than two genders is a loving headcase
this is directed at anybody who involves themselves with lgbt stuff

[ultimamax]

you can source whatever the forget you want
you can ram a spiked carrot up my ass in protest
you can hold me at gunpoint
you can do loving anything
but you can not loving convince me that there are more than two genders
it biologically makes no loving sense, and anybody who legitimately believes that there are more than two genders is a loving headcase

This is sort of an aside because my argument doesn't really hinge on whether the gender binary is real, but third genders were and are a thing in lots of cultures around the world. Most of these examples seem to have developed independently of eachother. (e.g two-spirit in certain native american communities developed independently of europe/africa/asia)

[Lord Tony®]

Third gender is a myth.

Two spirit isn't a thing. A soul/spirit does not exist and has no grounds of existence.

[TristanLuigi]

It's like when Feminists claim (his)tory should be changed to (her)tory.

Also feminists hate that there is a word for (her)pes but not (his)pes.

It has nothing to do with gender.

yes sure

Third gender is a myth.

there are people who are physically and genetically interlove *shrug*
although i still find gender identity bizarre, i see no reason to harass such people

[McZealot]

i dont believe you lol. i havent done any research on this but i'm 95% sure if i did it would be BS

[McZealot]

Well, I went ahead and looked into it, and surprise, Tony was wrong.

The policy, which has been endorsed by something called the “Institutional Equity Planning Group” at the Ivy League school, applies to “all HR staff members in HR communications, policies, job descriptions and job postings.”

Princeton’s director of media relations told The College Fix the guidelines “reflect the university’s initiative of fostering an inclusive environment,” but added that students are not “mandated” to follow them.

They told their PR team to stop using gendered terms. I don't have a problem with this. You know why? It's a lot easier for them. There are 25000 angry feminists on campus begging to start a riot over a 'misogynist' administrator.

[sir dooble]

you can source whatever the forget you want
you can ram a spiked carrot up my ass in protest
you can hold me at gunpoint
you can do loving anything
but you can not loving convince me that there are more than two genders
it biologically makes no loving sense, and anybody who legitimately believes that there are more than two genders is a loving headcase
this is directed at anybody who involves themselves with lgbt stuff

Regardless of your opinion on the matter there are those who do identify as non-binary, or believe that non-binary genders exist.
It's no trouble whatsoever to minorly tailor your language to be non gender-specific, and thereby avoid offending anyone of any gender.

If they offer jobs for postpersons instead of postmen, it doesn't negatively impact anyone, and it doesn't exclude anyone.

[TristanLuigi]

Regardless of your opinion on the matter there are those who do identify as non-binary, or believe that non-binary genders exist.
It's no trouble whatsoever to minorly tailor your language to be non gender-specific, and thereby avoid offending anyone of any gender.

If they offer jobs for postpersons instead of postmen, it doesn't negatively impact anyone, and it doesn't exclude anyone.

this
it's not being PC, it's being polite
if it's not harming you or anyone else, stop complaining

[Lord Tony®]

The fact is though that there is only 2 real genders. You can't be non-binary. It's not biologically or scientifically plausible for a human.

It's not opinion, it's fact.