Theos-Talk Archives (October 1996 Message tl00369)

In message <199610100711.AA29896@vnet.net>, Maurice de Montaine
<mauriced@hba.trumpet.com.au> writes
>               A PARALLEL TO GENDER NEUTRAL LANGUAGE
>
>                      Plural Neutral Language
>
>
>     An interesting parallel to the gender neutral language thread of
>which has been somewhat considered on the Theosophy List is that of
>plural neutral language. The misconceptions of humanity coupled to
>generalisations often find specific trends being developed in society
>which do not really reflect the purity of truth from a much higher
>level or viewpoint. Think for a moment on what I said about gender
>neutral language in my previous posting, eventhough I mentioned only
>a little about it.
>
>     There is another problem, though, besides those misconceptions
>and generalisations: how far do we go in the experiment of social
>engineering?

The problem does not arise from any "experiments" in "social
engineering."  The use of predominately male gender terminology offends
and devalues many women both by implication and even sometimes by clear
discrimination against them.  The Theosophical objects claim to exist
"without distinction of sex, race or creed," so the use of such
terminology now that the use of language has changed in many other
fields so as to be non-discriminatory is seen by many as contrary to the
principles of theosophy, and its continued use as hypocritical.

The rest of your post is based upon a hypothesis which seems, IMO, not
to be relevant to this question.

Alan
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