Reply To: Sexism in Rules?

[John D Salt]

Rob Robertson asked:

Why should more traditional writers be criticised for exercising their freedom of expression […]?

Freedom of expression does not entail freedom from criticism of the ideas you express. Why should people who make prejudiced assumptions not have those assumptions pointed out to them?

What is so bad about the words man, men, he, his, etc. that some think they must be expunged from rule sets and others see the need for a quota system to balance the his/hers/other frequency. Rules writers are not part of a grand social engineering project and should not be conscripted into such a role unless they wish to do so.

That seems a strikingly overblown response to the use of non-sexist language — or, as Mr. Picky likes to think of it, accurate language. Nobody has said that masculine pronouns are naughty words, or that they should be “expunged” — it just that some people object to using them to describe people who are not male. I have never heard of a pronoun quota system being proposed, nor of anyone being conscripted into anything, and I strongly suspect that you are just making this stuff up, or else listening uncritically to someone who does (I understand that the USA is richly supplied with professional liars who have a full time job retailing their lies by means of radio broadcasts).

I’m a bit disappointed at the idea that inclusive writing matters principally with respect to the outlook for the wargaming market. There are things more important than money, and the bean-counting habit of reducing everything to cash terms is one I find unedifying. It’s hard to put a price on not hurting people’s feelings, but, really, all this preference for inclusive language is just an aspect of following the Golden Rule.

Angel Barracks wrote:

Again not especially inclusionist*.

*Have I just made that word up?

It’s already used in Christian doctrine (everyone goes to heaven), and in Wikipedian jargon (everything goes in Wikipedia), but you seem to have made it up with the meaning I guess it has.

All the best,

John.