Yankee  +  291751 Sat, 11 Nov 06 09:07 AM Vicky would have probably been aghast at MM's flagrant use of the word 'woman'. Yankee Joined on Sat, Apr 15 2006 Connecticut, USA Veteran Member 6,506 Amy "You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." - Mark Twain

	nona the brit  +  291776 Sat, 11 Nov 06 11:31 AM So EU, you admit that Victorian language is not really appropriate for modern writing. nona the brit Joined on Wed, Sep 22 2004 England Veteran Member 11,713 The name says it all.

	MrPedantic  +  291797 Sat, 11 Nov 06 12:17 PM  Englishuser wrote: You might like to know that the word 'gender', in its modern sense, entered the English language sometime between 1930 and 1969, when feminist ideology grew stronger. "Gender" was used for "sex" in Middle English, but was restricted to its grammatical meaning thereafter, except in jocular contexts. The modern usage is an example of euphemism: as the copulatory aspects of the word "sex" began to predominate in ordinary usage (from the 1920s on), those speakers who were embarrassed by its overtones began to substitute the word "gender". I'm with VR on this one. Nouns and euphemists have gender. The rest of us have sex. MrP MrPedantic Joined on Tue, Oct 12 2004 Veteran Member 12,592 ...opella forensis / adducit febris... Genders, Nouns

	Englishuser  +  291833 Sat, 11 Nov 06 01:44 PM Hi MrPedantic, I would say that it's quite sexist to use 'sex' for 'gender' in many contexts. Englishuser Englishuser Joined on Thu, Mar 30 2006 Regular Member 717 Genders

	nona the brit  +  291838 Sat, 11 Nov 06 01:59 PM How can that be sexist? Sexism is to discriminate against one of the sexes. How does using sex instead of gender do that? Who is being discriminated against? nona the brit Genders

	Englishuser  +  291867 Sat, 11 Nov 06 03:10 PM Hi nona the brit, Your question is very interesting - and no less important. I am sure many of those who have written feminist flavoured style manuals could answer the question in a much more elegant way than I can. Nevertheless, I will do my best to give you an explanation. It is a fact that the concept of sex differs from the concept of gender. While 'sex' is a strictly biological matter, having to do with your set of chromosomes and your primary sex organs, 'gender' involves other things such as a person's gender identity and gender-role behaviour. A person's sex and gender need not correspond with one another; gender-role non-conformists are probably the ones who'd be discrimated against if we were to use biological, sex-related terminology in our everyday speech and writing. Englishuser Englishuser Genders

	MrPedantic  +  292008 Sun, 12 Nov 06 12:26 AM <...While 'sex' is a strictly biological matter, having to do with your set of chromosomes and your primary sex organs, 'gender' involves other things such as a person's gender identity and gender-role behaviour...> I don't see how we can exclude the possibility that "gender identity" is also "strictly biological". What aspect of an organism isn't, after all? Besides, the word "sex" is perfectly capable of including all the aspects that some would include under "gender" (e.g. "gender identity" → "sexual identity"). MrP MrPedantic Genders