OT: Re: gender-neutral English usage

[Krister Svanlund]

On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 2:12 PM, arne anka <openmoko at ginguppin.de> wrote:
>> I think it could be just historical. Nowadays, you should act the same
>> regardless of the gender of the person you're talking to or about except
>> in some situations. At least in a perfect world, where a
>> worker/colleague of either gender is considered the same value.
>
> what exactly has one's value to do with the gender or the pronoun you are
> using to refer to him or her?
> your proposition is based on the assumption that one gender is less
> valueable than the other, hence, using the male or female pronoun would
> express a judgement.

To me it seems obvious that ones own impression of something is
heavily based on the language you use (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity and the Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis).
If you make a difference between two persons (by assigning them
different genders) you will also put values on the difference even if
it isn't your intention.