Expose the lie

[Jens]

I'm also not understanding the entire issue with the word "man" in secondary meaning being used as a term for the human male. If anyone should be offended by that it should be males, not females. It is after all they that are not getting a term specifically meaning the human male, but have to do with the term for the human species in general.

My experience is that it has almost always been women objecting to this. I think Gillianren has said she objects, and AFAIK she is one of the few women in this discussion. I suppose we could try to change things around and use "woman" to mean the whole, since that would be more acceptable to you anyway. "The rise of woman," and we could all get used to it.

[Jens]

Of the languages I know, English is the only one without an exclusive term for the human male, and it is also the only one where purportedly male dominance is reflected in the language.

I know four languages, and I think that male dominance is reflected in all four. Henrik mentioned French, and I very much agree. "Ils" would be used for a group of people that might include a man, because it would be insulting for a man to be treated with a feminine word. In Japanese, the word for man is otoko, women is onna, and human being is a different word, ningen. So the specifically English problem doesn't exist. But there is a term "karera" that means "they," and it's a plural of "he." There is a word "she," but like in French, the plural of she (the feminine "they") would only be used in a context where it is certain that there are only females. If there is a chance that there might be a man, you would use the plural of "he."

[Jens]

I'm saying that people are inventing too many trivial distinctions that keep our differences in the foreground in an attempt to put our differences behind us and it is counterproductive.

I hope this might help a bit, but I have brought up the use of the N word, and similar slurs. They were once commonly used, but were felt to be offensive and have gone out of use. I assume that you agree, so my hope is that perhaps you are not against PC per se, but feel that we have gone too far? If so, I would agree to some extent. I don't really see that "physically challenged" is really any better than "disabled," and I think a lot of disabled groups themselves don't really feel it is so necessary to make that change. There are times when a term is definitely felt to be offensive, and in my mind, we should change in that case. If it's not seen to be so important, like the case of black versus African-American, I don't think it's something to worry about so much.

[HenrikOlsen]

Because it's not important and it is divisive I've pointed this out before. It is absurd in the extreme to refer to myself as refer to myself as an Irish-German-maybe a little bit of Swedish four generations back on my father's side-American. I'm just an American. Period. If someone cares to ask further I will tell them but I'm certainly not going to be presumptuous enough to think it is of importance to anyone else
Similarly, I don't know the difference between an Ethiopian-American and a Kenyan-American. I don't know if someone is a woman, a transwoman, or a cross dresser, and it is none of my business. Maybe you have the time to find out all these little details before you can speak to someone or about someone but most people don't. It is precisely the highlighting of our differences like thos that makes this such a divisive word. No one ever looks for common ground. We just walk around looking for ways we have been wronged.

You said it specifically in the context of gender, which to me read as if anyone you can't readily identify as cis-male or cis-female will be referred to as person, without you bothering to ask if they prefer "him" or "her", "he" or "she" or whatever else.

[Paul Beardsley]

You said it specifically in the context of gender, which to me read as if anyone you can't readily identify as cis-male or cis-female will be referred to as person, without you bothering to ask if they prefer "him" or "her", "he" or "she" or whatever else.

That's not how I read it. I think primummobile has expressed himself extremely clearly throughout this thread.

[grapes]

To me there's a subtle difference in meaning between "mankind" and "humans", the latter refers to a set of individuals, whereas the former refers more to the group as a group. Somewhat akin to the difference between "Romans" and "the Roman civilization", but slightly less pronounced. Though perhaps that's simply because one term is singular and the other plural.

We also have "humanity" at our disposal.

My experience is that it has almost always been women objecting to this. I think Gillianren has said she objects, and AFAIK she is one of the few women in this discussion. I suppose we could try to change things around and use "woman" to mean the whole, since that would be more acceptable to you anyway. "The rise of woman," and we could all get used to it.

How about it, caveman? :)

We could ask ToSeek to change your username to cavewoman1917 :)

Somehow "The Ascent of Human" just doesn't have the same ring as Bronowski's original title.

Or Darwin's

[primummobile]

I hope this might help a bit, but I have brought up the use of the N word, and similar slurs. They were once commonly used, but were felt to be offensive and have gone out of use. I assume that you agree, so my hope is that perhaps you are not against PC per se, but feel that we have gone too far? If so, I would agree to some extent. I don't really see that "physically challenged" is really any better than "disabled," and I think a lot of disabled groups themselves don't really feel it is so necessary to make that change. There are times when a term is definitely felt to be offensive, and in my mind, we should change in that case. If it's not seen to be so important, like the case of black versus African-American, I don't think it's something to worry about so much.

We do agree. You're right, I just think it's taken too far. I don't want to offend people by what I say. At the same time, I think we need some kind of a line where we say that if you're going to be offended by something it's your problem because you're being overly sensitive. It wouldn't be legal, of course. But just some point as a culture where we tell people that life isn't always fair. That's all.

[primummobile]

I do believe a cow is a female bovine, as well as for other animals. It could possibly be insulting to bulls and steers when humans say, "Oh look, there's a bunch of cows.", when its more proper to say, "Oh look, there's a herd of cattle"

A cow is a female bovine. I was saying that the words "buffalo" and "cow" are not the same.

[primummobile]

Exactly, you haven't been discriminated against in that way, so you don't know how it feels. It's trivial to you. It may seem annoying or even predjudicial to someone with a different experience.

Evidently you missed the post above where I talked about my own disability. I've been denied jobs because of it, denied promotions, I've been laughed at, mocked, insulted, and even (in junior high) beat up. And do you know what? It's still NOT WHO I AM. I am a human first, an American second, a man third, and what "that disability" is is about ten more steps down the line.

You are not understanding what I am saying, and I truly believe that I am saying it very clearly. I don't think that it should matter to people what nationality someone else is. We are all people. If I hate everything Swedish, and you go around calling yourself a Swedish-American, what do you think I am going to do? If you just called yourself an American or a person, what do you think I would do? That's the point I am trying to make. That we should look for common ground. Not differences. When we attach labels to every little niggling thing on the entire planet all we are accomplishing is to bring it to the forefront so we see the label instead of the person. If my attitude comes across differently then so be it. I can't explain it any more clearly.

Go to Wikipedia sometime and just type in the name of any popular band. Then go to that talk page and read what people are saying. You'll see all this arguing back and forth. "They aren't grunge. They are post-punk new wave blues grunge" followed by "That's just wrong. They are neo-punk nu metal post-grunge pop." You'll see it going on and on, back and forth. But no one gets that a band is just a band. It's the music they play that could fall into different categories. But people just apply labels anyway. It doesn't matter that there are human beings under those labels. It turns into the person being "grunge", instead of the music.

We do that same thing in every day life. Some labels are ok. English-speaking. Chinese. Female. Child. But seriously, does it really matter that someone is an Italian-American, and should we report it that way? Do you really want to give people who hate Jersey Shore a whole new target? Like I said before, we are trying to put our differences behind us, but we keep applying labels to keep those differences right in front of our face. It doesn't make sense.

If you have time, please watch this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeixtYS-P3s It's only a minute long and it's what I've been saying for years.

[primummobile]

You said it specifically in the context of gender, which to me read as if anyone you can't readily identify as cis-male or cis-female will be referred to as person, without you bothering to ask if they prefer "him" or "her", "he" or "she" or whatever else.

In that post, I was speaking to Gillian specifically about her concerns and also discussing the entire PC issue as a whole.

[primummobile]

That's not how I read it. I think primummobile has expressed himself extremely clearly throughout this thread.

I really appreciate that. To be honest, any time I try to have an honest discussion about these things everyone just assumes I am being racist, sexist, or whatever -ist you can think of. So it's nice to have someone who is understanding me that I can understand at the same time.

I was thinking in the shower this morning (I do my best thinking there) about this topic. The OP in this thread compared PC to scientific dishonesty. While I don't necessarily agree with that, it did get me to thinking about something that happened about twenty years ago.

Sometime in the early 90s, Runner's World had a very extensive article about why black people are faster than white people. I remember the article generating controversy because it was a mortal sin at that time to suggest that blacks and whites were somehow different. But it's a fact that we are different from one another. There's no way to get around that. The point I have been trying to make in this thread is that differences are something to be respected, but those differences shouldn't be the primary labels we use for one another. Nor should we be so nitpicky in the details of how we apply these labels that people are going to take offense at every slight. We all have much more in common than what we have in differences. That's the fact. We should celebrate that instead of trying to find new labels for people and objects.

ETA: I don't know about the rest of the world, but in the United States there has recently been much debate over what the schools teach in history classes. To be reasonable, it's not possible to cover the history of every nationality and ethnicity in twelve years of school. When I was in school, we focused very heavily on American history and to a lesser extent on world history. We didn't focus less on world history because it mattered less. We focused less on that because there was no way to cover all of it. Somewhere, a choice has to be made. It's important to know the history of your own country. It's also important to know the history of other countries, but a German should not be offended because I don't know German history the way I do American history. It doesn't mean that I think Germans are less important. But if I my school had put the same emphasis on German history as they did American history, I would have had less of Japanese history. I may have never learned about Norse Mythology. It seems to me that some in the PC crowd think that people are insensitive for not being omniscient about the history and struggles of every group in the world. I can point to any country on the map, but if you accuse me of not caring about Burmese history for merely knowing very little about it- I'm not going to be very receptive to what you want to teach me. Ignorance isn't prejudice. We need to stop being so offended by ignorance.

[Perikles]

Sometime in the early 90s, Runner's World had a very extensive article about why black people are faster than white people. I remember the article generating controversy because it was a mortal sin at that time to suggest that blacks and whites were somehow different. But it's a fact that we are different from one another. There's no way to get around that. The point I have been trying to make in this thread is that differences are something to be respected, but those differences shouldn't be the primary labels we use for one another.

I agree that differences should be recognized and not denied, because recognizing a difference does not necessarily equate to making a moral judgement about such a difference.

What do you think of this little anecdote also from twenty years ago? I was watching a boxing match on TV, and I missed the beginning. The boxers had names which were really not unusual, let's say Smith and Jones (with apologies to any Smiths and Joneses here). At one point, the commentator reminded viewers that Smith was the one in the dark blue shorts, and Jones in the light blue shorts. I had to look very carefully at the screen and could just about determine that the shorts were not identical, but very very slightly different shades of blue. The striking aspect of the commentators comment was that he avoided mentioning that one boxer was black and the other white, which was undeniably a much easier way to distinguish between them. I thought at the time that this ludicrous PC comment about the shorts was in fact far more racist than a simple statement about skin colour, because to deny the acceptablility of such an identification is to recognize that there is something wrong in the difference. In this kind of situation, being PC is actually very counter-productive. Or am I being naive?

[grant hutchison]

The striking aspect of the commentators comment was that he avoided mentioning that one boxer was black and the other white, which was undeniably a much easier way to distinguish between them. I thought at the time that this ludicrous PC comment about the shorts was in fact far more racist than a simple statement about skin colour, because to deny the acceptablility of such an identification is to recognize that there is something wrong in the difference.

A Nigerian colleague of mine would certainly agree with you. As the only black member of a department otherwise populated by fair-skinned Europeans and Indians, she used to torture woolly liberal colleagues by suddenly demanding: "Suppose you had to describe me on the phone, how would you do it?" Then she'd sit back with an air of exasperated incredulity while they tried to avoid mentioning the one thing that immediately and uniquely distinguished her from every one of her colleagues. She said she found it intensely patronizing.
And she clearly enjoyed watching patronizing people squirm.

Grant Hutchison

[primummobile]

I agree that differences should be recognized and not denied, because recognizing a difference does not necessarily equate to making a moral judgement about such a difference.

What do you think of this little anecdote also from twenty years ago? I was watching a boxing match on TV, and I missed the beginning. The boxers had names which were really not unusual, let's say Smith and Jones (with apologies to any Smiths and Joneses here). At one point, the commentator reminded viewers that Smith was the one in the dark blue shorts, and Jones in the light blue shorts. I had to look very carefully at the screen and could just about determine that the shorts were not identical, but very very slightly different shades of blue. The striking aspect of the commentators comment was that he avoided mentioning that one boxer was black and the other white, which was undeniably a much easier way to distinguish between them. I thought at the time that this ludicrous PC comment about the shorts was in fact far more racist than a simple statement about skin colour, because to deny the acceptablility of such an identification is to recognize that there is something wrong in the difference. In this kind of situation, being PC is actually very counter-productive. Or am I being naive?

I agree completely. By refusing to acknowledge the most obvious difference, they are implying that one is inferior to the other. We can't be afraid of our differences.

[geonuc]

Interesting thread, which I've been following without comment. But now I'll comment on two things. One, I agree with primummobile's essential points, if not his entire argument on labels and such. I've held that view myself for a long time. And second, where is the OP? Seems like a few people wanted to know some specifics about the impetus for this thread. This is not ATM so there's no compulsion, but perhaps he can enlighten us. Unless I missed it, which happens a lot.

[Gillianren]

The OP has not returned.

It always surprises me when people I generally respect don't see the problem with certain things that are strikingly obvious to me. I suppose it surprises them that I feel the opposite way. But I don't think "it shouldn't matter to you" is a defense when it does. I'm not sure I have ever known a black person who preferred "African-American," and I have known several who specifically objected to it. (No one in their family had been to Africa in two hundred years, after all!) Living in Washington has made me much more aware of the conflict in terminology between "Indian," "Native American," and so forth. My part of California did not have the debate, because it seldom came up outside movies. However, in both cases, I try to defer to what the people of that group prefer to be called. (Which is the problem I've seen with "Indian" versus "Native American"; there doesn't seem to be a consensus.) If a woman tells you that she is bothered by being included in "man," why do you keep telling her it's not a problem? "Mankind" is better in that it has an archaic feel, and the poetry of the phrase "one small step for [a] man; one giant leap for mankind" does appeal to me. I'm certainly not arguing that we should go back and change everything, but I am saying I would like us to move forward.

A thousand years ago, "man" meant person. Then, the Old English word for "man" was dropped, for reasons I don't know if we'll ever know, and "man" took its place. (According to my reading, it happened in Latin, too, and "homo" didn't always imply "male.") And then, for centuries, "man" meant both "person" and "male person." We are not going to get rid of the "male" connotation, so I'd like us to stop using the same word for "male" and "person" and pretending that it's universal. The connotation is always there, and it always leaves out women. If men don't see that, well, why don't they try looking at the language from a female perspective for a while?

[Drunk Vegan]

I have to agree with everyone else in stating that Gillianren is wrong in stating that "man" and "men" are a means of labeling a single woman or group of women as a subset of "men."

It just doesn't happen.

"Man" as it is commonly used is either a reference to a single male individual, *or* the group of humanity as a whole, as in The Rise of Man.

"Men" as it is commonly used refers exclusively to a group of only males. It is not used to reference a group of males and females. For a group of females only, "women" is correctly used, for a mixed group "people" or "humans" is most commonly used.

She would have a point, however, if she were centering her argument around the word "guys." In common vernacular today this phrase *is* often used to refer to a mixed group of both men and women, although the word "guy" is a reference to a male individual of the human species.

Do I think this highlights some underlying sexism in the common vernacular of the English language, or some evidence of male privilege? No. But, it is an actual example of when "woman" is a subset of "a group of males."

[PetersCreek]

Living in Washington has made me much more aware of the conflict in terminology between "Indian," "Native American," and so forth. My part of California did not have the debate, because it seldom came up outside movies. However, in both cases, I try to defer to what the people of that group prefer to be called. (Which is the problem I've seen with "Indian" versus "Native American"; there doesn't seem to be a consensus.)

These terms came immediately came to mind when I first read this thread. The preference seems to shift back and forth between "Native American" and "American Indian". We don't have that problem so much here with the general term being "Alaska Native". There can be some confusion among newcomers and Lower 48ers, though, because we refer to life-long Alaskans of any ethnicity as "Native Alaskans".

[primummobile]

The OP has not returned.

It always surprises me when people I generally respect don't see the problem with certain things that are strikingly obvious to me. I suppose it surprises them that I feel the opposite way. But I don't think "it shouldn't matter to you" is a defense when it does. I'm not sure I have ever known a black person who preferred "African-American," and I have known several who specifically objected to it. (No one in their family had been to Africa in two hundred years, after all!) Living in Washington has made me much more aware of the conflict in terminology between "Indian," "Native American," and so forth. My part of California did not have the debate, because it seldom came up outside movies. However, in both cases, I try to defer to what the people of that group prefer to be called. (Which is the problem I've seen with "Indian" versus "Native American"; there doesn't seem to be a consensus.) If a woman tells you that she is bothered by being included in "man," why do you keep telling her it's not a problem? "Mankind" is better in that it has an archaic feel, and the poetry of the phrase "one small step for [a] man; one giant leap for mankind" does appeal to me. I'm certainly not arguing that we should go back and change everything, but I am saying I would like us to move forward.

A thousand years ago, "man" meant person. Then, the Old English word for "man" was dropped, for reasons I don't know if we'll ever know, and "man" took its place. (According to my reading, it happened in Latin, too, and "homo" didn't always imply "male.") And then, for centuries, "man" meant both "person" and "male person." We are not going to get rid of the "male" connotation, so I'd like us to stop using the same word for "male" and "person" and pretending that it's universal. The connotation is always there, and it always leaves out women. If men don't see that, well, why don't they try looking at the language from a female perspective for a while?

I don't think it's that we don't see it. The question is what would we do about it? How are we going to rename everything? Is it really something that is so upsetting that it is hurting the quality of your life even when we tell you that we aren't being sexist about it?

Those are rhetorical and I really don't know how you could answer them. I'm just pointing out some problems I see. Personally, I wish that there was some term that had absolutely no gender connotation associated with it. I get tired of writing and trying to remember if it is time to use "him" or "her" or "they". But we don't have a gender-neutral word (in the common usage, not the dictionary usage) other than words like "people" which are awkward to use, especially in written communications. It seems to me that we would need a gender-neutral pronoun that refers to people. I don't know of any other than the "they" family, which is plural. Call it a problem with our language, but I don't think that you're going to change it. I don't know how you would change it. The drafting software we use at work calls a door that a person uses a "man door". I've never seen a blue print that had a "person door" or a "human door". I know it doesn't make any difference in this but, in English at least, there are other words besides "man" that denote both the male of a species and the species itself while the female has a distinct designation. "Dog" is one example of that. I don't know much about the evolution of the English language but I would imagine it evolved that way because we had a patriarchal society for so long.

As for the black vs. African-American thing, that was my point precisely. That it is usually those outside the group telling those of the group what they should be offended by. I think someone earlier, maybe Paul, gave the example of "retarded". The word "retarded" means "delayed". "Retard" means "delay". Until the relatively recent past, "retard" was used almost exclusively as a verb meaning "to delay". Then some jerks decided to use it as a noun for a retarded person. As a result, it became a pejorative as well as every connotation of the word. What was once used to describe a specific family of medical conditions was replaced with words and phrases that are ambiguous at best and dishonest at worst. We should be concentrating on preventing, treating, and assisting those with mental retardation. Instead, we are worrying about what to call it. Words like "disabled" mean a lot of different things. So, what happens when some jerks start deciding to call disabled people "disables" or something like that? We will decide that "disabled" is a pejorative and we will eliminate that. The point is that combatting ignorance and insensitivity isn't about changing the language. People will find ways to say what they think. You're never going to eliminate jerks. And, I would argue that not allowing a jerk to say what he (or she) wants to say just makes them even more hostile. All we are doing is fighting the symptoms when we need to fight the disease. We get angry at politicians for using doublespeak but the solution isn't to change what they can say. The solution is to change how they think. I don't see how that wouldn't apply to the general population. If I am a poor speaker but you still understand what I mean, how could that offend you if I'm not being vulgar about it?

There are large groups of people who think that we should just accept autism, no matter how severe, as "just another way of thinking". I've been around severely autistic children. The morality of accepting that as it is and not trying to do anything to prevent or treat it is very questionable to me. Autism is a spectrum disorder, and it is possible for those with high-functioning autism to be superior in certain ways to other people and so I don't have any problem with those of us being thought of as "just another way of thinking". Severe autism is debilitating and tragic. The thought of just accepting that is abhorent to me. Yet there are people, in the misguided belief that they should not be singled out, who are advocating just that.

I know this jumps around a lot and may not be very coherent to those reading it. I apologize for that. I always have too much to say about this stuff.

[Maur]

A thousand years ago, "man" meant person. Then, the Old English word for "man" was dropped, for reasons I don't know if we'll ever know, and "man" took its place. (According to my reading, it happened in Latin, too, and "homo" didn't always imply "male.") And then, for centuries, "man" meant both "person" and "male person." We are not going to get rid of the "male" connotation, so I'd like us to stop using the same word for "male" and "person" and pretending that it's universal. The connotation is always there, and it always leaves out women. If men don't see that, well, why don't they try looking at the language from a female perspective for a while?

What was the Old English word for man?

I always though that the Latin word for man was Vir, but apparently i was wrong (in my native language, we don't have a word that can mean either human male or human regardless of gender. I though Latin was similar)

[Gillianren]

I think a good place to start is not using "man" to mean humans. I know of at least one case wherein someone in authority was advised to make that very change--use "humans" or "people" instead of "man"--and categorically refused, because what was wrong with "man"? Despite being told that some of the people being specifically addressed would not want that. The problem was with them, not the word.

I agree that "accepting autism" is lunacy, and I've had to restrain myself from using exactly that term with a friend who advocates for it. She knows autistic people, but I don't think she knows any severely autistic people. I don't think she knows anyone for whom it's completely debilitating . . . or the families of any. Telling her that it's so completely disabling for some people probably wouldn't help.

It seems to me that if you think about the words you use, it may actually change your attitude. I don't know for sure if it's true, but I know that language is important to humans. How we describe things can shape how we think about them. The fact is, hardly anyone participating in this thread is a poor speaker, and that means, yes, I hold them to higher standards. If you were all the kind of idiots who took an offensive word meaning "gay" and used it by extension to cover all people you didn't like, I wouldn't bother debating the subtler points of language with you. But you aren't, so I do.

"Man" and "men" aren't used to describe groups of exclusively women, though by the arguments here, they could be. But all it takes is one man, and the group can be and is described as "men." Not "people." There are a lot of reasons that I feel that society doesn't value women as much as men, and there aren't a lot of them I can do anything about. (Stories about girls are just for girls, but apparently, stories about boys are "universal.") So I'm fighting this particular battle because it's one I can maybe influence people in.

[NEOWatcher]

A cow is a female bovine...

...or whale, elephant, and probably others.

[primummobile]

I think a good place to start is not using "man" to mean humans. I know of at least one case wherein someone in authority was advised to make that very change--use "humans" or "people" instead of "man"--and categorically refused, because what was wrong with "man"? Despite being told that some of the people being specifically addressed would not want that. The problem was with them, not the word.

I agree that "accepting autism" is lunacy, and I've had to restrain myself from using exactly that term with a friend who advocates for it. She knows autistic people, but I don't think she knows any severely autistic people. I don't think she knows anyone for whom it's completely debilitating . . . or the families of any. Telling her that it's so completely disabling for some people probably wouldn't help.

It seems to me that if you think about the words you use, it may actually change your attitude. I don't know for sure if it's true, but I know that language is important to humans. How we describe things can shape how we think about them. The fact is, hardly anyone participating in this thread is a poor speaker, and that means, yes, I hold them to higher standards. If you were all the kind of idiots who took an offensive word meaning "gay" and used it by extension to cover all people you didn't like, I wouldn't bother debating the subtler points of language with you. But you aren't, so I do.

"Man" and "men" aren't used to describe groups of exclusively women, though by the arguments here, they could be. But all it takes is one man, and the group can be and is described as "men." Not "people." There are a lot of reasons that I feel that society doesn't value women as much as men, and there aren't a lot of them I can do anything about. (Stories about girls are just for girls, but apparently, stories about boys are "universal.") So I'm fighting this particular battle because it's one I can maybe influence people in.

It may not seem like it to you, but I am listening to what you say. And your words are having an effect on how I am thinking. I'm not saying I agree with it, but I understand it. I think our disagreement is that I don't think your solution would solve the problem. I tend to see problems I can't find a solution for as a problem I'll just have to live with.

[Moose]

But all it takes is one man, and the group can be and is described as "men."

I haven't been following this thread all that closely, so I may have missed something, but I'm fairly certain nobody in this thread is suggesting that (specifically) this is true or desirable. 'Man' (capitalized) doesn't pluralize at all. It's a classic translation for the collective noun referring to our singular species (genus?); not individual members of it. A mixed group of sentient beings would properly be called 'people'.

Gillian, I do understand where you're coming from. I really do. And I do respect your feelings in this matter. Still, I'd rather we focus on (say) the denial of education / voting / safety / reproductive liberty to women in certain parts of the world; keep progressing on things like eliminating active discrimination in the workplace; and counter the glaring misogyny in many parts of media-related culture. Those just seem more immediately pressing than coining gender-neutral nouns and hoping they stick.

[DoggerDan]

"Man" and "men" aren't used to describe groups of exclusively women, though by the arguments here, they could be. But all it takes is one man, and the group can be and is described as "men." Not "people."

I don't think I've ever observed this happening in real life. Whether it's one female among a bunch of men, or one man amidst a bunch of females, I've heard and have used the following terms when addressing them:
- people
- ladies and gentlemen
- colleagues
- folks
- group
- class
- team
- workers
- anyone (as in, "Does anyone have any questions?")

I do admit to having used the term "guys" when addressing a team of mixed-gender persons, but I've never heard someone say, "Ok, men, our mission is..." if there's a woman present. More often than not, they simply leave it off: "Ok, our mission is..."

There are a lot of reasons that I feel that society doesn't value women as much as men, and there aren't a lot of them I can do anything about. (Stories about girls are just for girls, but apparently, stories about boys are "universal.") So I'm fighting this particular battle because it's one I can maybe influence people in.

Should that be "...because it's one in which I might influence people?" or "...others?"

Back to the gender address issue, I find it surprising how often Hollywood insists on using the term "Sir" to address female captains of starships, squad leaders, etc. What's up with that?

[primummobile]

I do admit to having used the term "guys" when addressing a team of mixed-gender persons...

In the part of the country I live in, it's fairly common to refer to a mixed group as "you guys" in an informal setting, such as a restaurant. My wife and I go out to eat often, and I more often hear that coming from the waitresses than I do the waiters.

Back to the gender address issue, I find it surprising how often Hollywood insists on using the term "Sir" to address female captains of starships, squad leaders, etc. What's up with that?

I'd love an answer to that. I'd never heard that until I saw it on Star Trek.

[caveman1917]

"Man" and "men" aren't used to describe groups of exclusively women, though by the arguments here, they could be.

Consider the following sentence: "after a decade of hard work, we finally put a man on the moon". Does the word "man" here refer specifically to the gender of the person? I think not. If it were a woman, i'd still consider "we finally put a man on the moon" to be correct, and more eloquent than "we finally put a woman on the moon", since, to me, it is obvious that "man" is used in the sense of human being. As in "as a human race, we finally were able to put someone on the moon".

Saying "we put a woman on the moon" (if that were the case) specifically brings up gender, which has nothing to do with anything either way.

There are a lot of reasons that I feel that society doesn't value women as much as men, and there aren't a lot of them I can do anything about.

I think you're approaching the issue looking a priori for gender inequalities. From that perspective it is natural that every use of the word "man" would make you consider its meaning as "male" rather than the gender-neutral "human being".

I don't think anyone with at least half a brain would make a statement to the effect of "I've read an interesting book on the history of mankind. Oh, and it was about women too".

I'll grant you that you'll probably be able to find a bunch of ignoramuses who would think that "mankind" or other obviously universal uses of "man" can be construed to support some sort of male superiority they prefer to believe in. But if that is the reason you're looking to change it, a computer coding adage comes to mind: You can never make a program foolproof because fools are too inventive.

Also, while you may very well be correct about the most frequent use of a word to be used as the primary meaning, that doesn't mean that every use of the word should be interpreted as having its most frequent meaning, especially when context makes it clear that the secondary meaning is the correct one. If that were true, there would be no point in having words have different meanings in different contexts, all of them would have only a single meaning.

[caveman1917]

"Man" and "men" aren't used to describe groups of exclusively women, though by the arguments here, they could be.

I think they could. Suppose in a story some sort of virus wipes out the entire male population and only females are left. If the story then states a sentence like "This was perhaps the hardest issue faced by man in its entire history", i would consider that a fair use of the term "man", even though it refers to a group of exclusively women.

[Paul Beardsley]

I don't think I've ever observed this happening in real life.

Me neither.

When I was learning French at school, I remember the teacher explaining that the plural of "elle", "elles", is used for a group of women or girls, but if there is one male also present in the group, it becomes the plural of "il", "ils". I thought that was weird even at the time. But in English, "they" is gender neutral of course.

I've only ever heard "men" used for females as a joke, and that was in France. (It was a father addressing his young daughters; it sounded weird but was apparently a family tradition.) In a similar vein, I had a boss who invariably greeted me and the rest of my all-male group with, "Good morning girls."

But I too have addressed mixed and all-female groups as "guys". This is because it's something I've picked up from TV and real life in which I have seen women addressing women as guys.

[Paul Beardsley]

Consider the following sentence: "after a decade of hard work, we finally put a man on the moon". Does the word "man" here refer specifically to the gender of the person? I think not. If it were a woman, i'd still consider "we finally put a man on the moon" to be correct, and more eloquent than "we finally put a woman on the moon", since, to me, it is obvious that "man" is used in the sense of human being. As in "as a human race, we finally were able to put someone on the moon".

I disagree strongly.

As I said in at least one earlier post - a point which is crucial even though nobody has acknowledged it - "man" without an article or other determiner is very different to "man" preceded by "a" or "that" or made into the plural "men".

"Man has ruined the environment," is very different to "That man has ruined the environment," or "Those men have ruined the environment."

If a woman was first on the moon, and you wanted to de-emphasise her gender, we would say, "We finally put a human on the moon."

Suppose in a story some sort of virus wipes out the entire male population and only females are left. If the story then states a sentence like "This was perhaps the hardest issue faced by man in its entire history", i would consider that a fair use of the term "man", even though it refers to a group of exclusively women.

Again, you are using "man" without a determiner, which is legitimate when referring to all humanity. Although in the circumstances you describe, the term "humanity" would probably overtake "man" in the popularity stakes.