Tuesday, May 10, 2011

To each her own. Yeah, right.

One last thought regarding the "to each their own" topic discussed in the previous post:

The use of "his" in the original phrase ("To each his own"), and the convention of the masculine pronouns representing males or persons of unknown sex, may be sexist, but if you analyze the full implication of that situation, it's not in the way you might think.

Why don't we change the standard so that the feminine pronouns adopt the role of covering that scenario—so the saying becomes "To each her own" –as a way of balancing the scales (in a manner of speaking)? Because no one believes men in general could handle that. Whether men could or not is immaterial; the perception that they could not handle it without offense would be too strong to allow it to be considered.

When viewed in this light, the low opinion of males (with the implicit insecurity of their masculinity) is where the real sexist divide lies.

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So, what do you think?