Theos-Talk Archives (May 1996 Message tl00202)

>I get a strong
>impression that when they say they are using "brother" to mean
>"everyone" and "man" to mean "humanity" they are not being honest

Virginia,

I like to give them the benefit of the doubt. I interpret the ladies saying
"man", "he", to mean all humankind, but they were so used to thinking of men
as the big shots, as the only ones who really counted, that they just
automatically said "he". I know that I still, to this day, when I hear about
a person in charge, an authority figure, automatically picture the person as
a man. As for instance, our head building maintenance mechanic is retiring,
& I heard that he was being replaced by a woman. My first reaction was "A
woman can't do that job!" Very automatically, very ingrained. I think it's
more that which we find in the older literature. Women just didn't count for
much in the way of authority, and so even they tended to think of "humanity"
as "man".

Liesel