November 1987

I am delighted that Harry Allison (letter 11/23) has deigned to "grant women equality" as if he were actually in a position to do so. However, as his sarcastic response to our letter of 11/16 (from the undersigned and Doris Zepezauer) indicates, he clearly remains ignorant of the significance of exclusionary language.

Languages in daily use by living people are themselves living and developing entities. It is inevitable and entirely proper that they change as societies change. While I am also a linguistic traditionalist in many ways ((I fail to see how the acceptance of run-on sentences improves communication) at the same time I applaud new words, usages and constructions that accurately reflect our cultural realities.

Mr. Allison's description of "chairperson" as an "awkward, self-conscious obscenity" seems a bit hyperbolic. Dare I infer that "chairwoman" (another alternative to the misuse of "chairman") fills him with similar loathing?

I have never had Mr. Allison's good fortune to live in a society in which my sex formulated the rules and decided who would play the game. Therefore I can only hope that I would exhibit a more insightful, egalitarian attitude toward attempts by the oppressed sex to render the system more just.

Mr. Allison writes like a man who perceives himself under siege, fearful of losing undeserved privileges. He makes a quantum leap, which I assume he thinks humorous, moving from the feminists' dissatisfaction with the misapplication of "manpower" to "bisexual power". Yes, I can imagine although not without some difficulty where the term "bisexual power" might be relevant. But Harry's deliberate trivializing of this point lends credence to my impression of him as a narrow-minded, sexist male determined to appear obtuse.

I would consider the creation of a Spinster of Arts degree a not insignificant step on our way to recognizing the full humanity of women; such a designation might move us a little distance toward dispelling the thoroughly arrogant male idea that a never-married woman is, by definition, a failure, somehow deficient, pitiable.

The Harry Allisons of the world do serve to keep progressive folks like feminists grounded in patriarchal reality. We must not forget that for each person struggling to move civilization beyond rampant inequities there are probably a thousand working equally hard to maintain the status quo, unsatisfactory and destructive though it may be.