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Exactly.
I can see where you're coming from, but in Europe there's no claim culture like that. Thankfully. @Darth in this case I side with @Thunderfinger. You should trust your students, just as much as they trust you. There's Always talk about teachers (used to be when i was in school), especially in that age bracket. But the step of making an official complaint (especially if there's no basis for it) is still huge. There's a reason why these cases end up on the national news: they don't happen very often.
And if you have any doubt about the intentions of the pupils themselves, talk to fellow teachers about it and indeed don't allow yourself to be in a closed-door situation. But even though you're as handsome as you are, that probably doesn't happen often.
Sadly he lost the case. I was quite looking foreward to having him have to pay for his pension again instead of getting it.
Basically because he is such an annoying attention seeking dick.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001k5k?fbclid=IwAR3Bg3eK8CkdEb0MQnEaqH64Zm7J2a4ComWPso6U07wJ9z32BRoZqYUqq-o
It's gone so far now that I legitimately thought you were kidding, but a Google search is unfortunately telling me that is not the case and this is totally a thing. Wow.
How is a gingerbreadman sexist? As in it's only men getting torn up and eaten alive?
Can't they just rename it "gingerbread person"? Problem solved! :-)
I think they should skirt the issue all together.
"Men and women, we don't serve your kind here; we only serve persons."
But I've offended some, not least for calling them Shirley.
Goofy goes with the flow.
There may be hope for us yet. Pretty good stuff. Thanks, Goofy.
My problem is not that some people don't easily fit in either one of the traditional categories, but rather that our language(s) may not be ready to wash away gender-specific terminology just yet. Grammatically (not morally) speaking, it feels wrong to call Eva Green an "actor", though it doesn't feel wrong to call Eva Green and Daniel Craig the lead "actors" of Casino Royale. Why? Because so far in my life, that is how the language game has always been played. Likewise, the "Dear madam" salutation, when formally addressing a woman in an e-mail (e.g. the mother of a student), feels more respectful and humble than "Dear Angela Scott" or just "Hello". I may risk dealing with a parent who no longer feels like a woman, but I lack the tools to find an appropriate alternative without being too direct or borderline disrespectful.
I furthermore refuse to use the "they" construct when talking about e.g. Sam Smith simply because it doesn't work, grammatically speaking. "When they sang the song for Spectre, Sam Smith was at the height of their career." I'm sorry, but no. The grammar in that sentence is fundamentally flawed and my language checking software is threatening to sue me.
Lastly, "steward(ess)" is considered insulting because the brackets, apparently, suggest that women are inferior. Aren't people reading too much into this now? It is simply a helpful trick for those who don't want to write "steward and stewardess", repeating the first several letters when you don't have to. It is not about pushing one gender into an inferior position.
The startling thing is that people simply assume that languages can be changed overnight and that such changes will be accepted without a fuss. That is not the way it is. Languages change slowly and organically and not because some have decided that they must because of often far-fetched reasonings about which most people care little. If Glen become Glenda and turns from "he" into "she", that's fine. If Glen feels neither Glen nor Glenda, that's fine too. All of that is fine, but in the latter case, Glen(da) will be a he, she or sometimes he and sometimes she without a clear preference for either. What Glen(da) cannot do is demand that we throw grammar rules out and choose the plural form just like that.
As a teacher, I work very hard, every day, to get my students to speak and write proper Dutch. (And I am a science teacher!) But if they don't, they risk missing important opportunities in life since language is a big part of the impression future employeers, employees, partners..., will have of them. Yet with certain drastic and sudden changes, whimsically imposed by small groups of people who may or may not have been overthinking a few things, it becomes impossible to help improve the grammar of my students. Concord errors are all too often made; gender confusion in written and spoken language doesn't help avoid them one bit.
I am not a fan of our age-old language rules bowing so suddenly to the wishes of people who may be a tad too sensitive about the gender rules. Most people merely apply the rules as taught to them, and do so without intending any harm, insult or sexism. Perhaps sudden changes will do more harm than good since people are resistent to change, especially when they fail to appreciate the necessity for it. I too hope that we can keep our grammar rules intact for a while longer without having to feel guilty of maybe, possibly, yet unwillingly and unintentionally insulting anyone.
That's horrible. I was always taught that if the gender is unknown, we choose a convenient "he". I know this is how we do it in Dutch and in French too.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
Defaulting to ‘he’ has often also been acceptable of course, but we’re moving away from that, and language has always changed throughout history: just have a flick through Chaucer for an example of that! :)
I work in a clinic part-time that has a doctor who specialises in "transitional therapy", which involves counselling as well as other supports for patients making the change to what they consider to be their appropriate gender. It's been an enlightening experience for me to see these people first hand more regularly instead of just hearing about them or observing from a distance (nobody I know personally has ever gone through such a transition, so I've never known what it's been like).
One such patient came in recently, and I was checking them in. Unfortunately, the system still had their male name on file - it hadn't been updated yet. So I made a mistake in calling them by their male name instead of their female name. I apologised, but they were good sports about it.
"That's why I decided to become a woman - I got tired of being wrong all the time!" they said.
LOL
You may be moving away from it, but I sure as hell am not. I'm utterly done with a tiny minority with a sex fixation to dictate everything in life the rest is up to. There's no sexism in language, if you think brackets mean the part that's in brackets is deemed less, you're utterly wrong. We always use it for the part that is may or may not be applicable. You can use it for singular/plural, or male/female.
And yes, the term for a human born with female organs is called 'woman', just like a human born with male organs is called 'man'. These are technical terms without further value. Biologically it just isn't possible for two men to repodruce together, no matter how much they love eachother. There's no use to make a fuss about it or try and put people into distinguashable 'boxes' for it. If a man doesn't feel like a man but wants to dress like a woman, fine. Biologicaally that won't change a thing. Life isn't 'fair'. That's another human invention. And yes, life has a thing for mixing things up a little, with 1 in 10.000 or so having a mix of organs. So they can choose. Or everybody can choose in which way they want to be adressed, who cares. But starting to change language just so we can cater for those who can't accept what life has thrown at them makes no sense. If you've been adressed in a way you don't like, say it. End of story.
I belong to a group of people that's been the most disciminated against of all humans, but we don't complain about it. We just accept the fact that we're in a minority and we take the inconvenience in our day to day life for granted. When I say what it is, you'll laugh and say that's nothing. Exactly because nobody complains about it. Should we start complaining? No. It's a fact of life, and turning it the other way won't help. It caters for the majority, and that's the end of it.
There absolutely is sexism in language which defaults to the male, of course there is. It's nonsensical to claim otherwise.
Grammar is made by people, it isn't more important than them. If we were inventing the English language today there's no way we'd set out a system whereby it defaults to just half of the population, there's no reason for it and it doesn't make sense. So we'll change it and we'll move away from needlessly gendered words, because the language is something we invented in the first place.
They have been saying it, that's the point. If someone decided to change their name to, say, Sean Connery even though he was born Thomas Connery because he couldn't accept the Christian name life threw at him, would you respect his wishes and call him Sean? I expect you probably would, there would be absolutely no reason not to. So why refuse to use a gender term that someone else decides they'd like to be known as? Just because you're not used to it? That's a bit silly, isn't it.
It changes in the way the majority of it uses it, and no, there's no sexism in grammar. There might be sexism in the use of it.
Let me give you an example of this line of thought: If I call a person of colour a 'monkey', it doesn't make the word 'monkey' racist. The use of it however IS (if that was my intention). By banning the word you won't make me less racist, nor will it help in any way, shape or form the person in question. It will however make it difficult for biologists to refer to a certain group of mammals.
If you dislike the default of going to the male version, go default to the female version. It doesn't make a difference. I've read (mostly scientific) - no, i'm not saying scientific is worth less here - articles that took the female form as the default. Works just as well, and nobody was offended.
The problem therefore lies in the fact that these people WANT to be offended for it gives them a podium. They're not there to solve a problem, they're there to get their subsidies and make money out of social injustice.
I think you're missing the point a bit. Picking either gender is troublesome- if you want your daughter to grow up with the idea of the world being a place where she can succeed as well as anyone, referring to 'policemen' or 'postmen' or calling hypothetical people 'he' does not help at all.
So you're suggesting.. change the way grammar works? The female is not the default gender, but you're saying you're able to change to it.
If you're willing to change grammar and you're able to... what's the problem?
But the thing is, you're acting like the offended party here. It doesn't harm anyone to just use a different pronoun. It's really easy, as yourself just suggested.