sexist language

[Joseph S. D. Yao]

In article <17574 at adm.BRL.MIL> rbj at nav.icst.nbs.gov (Root Boy Jim) writes:
>? From: Doug Gwyn  <gwyn at smoke.brl.mil>
>? If anything, you could say that this rule discriminates against males,
>? because in some cases it can be difficult to tell whether "he" refers to
>? a person explicitly male or just to a generic person, whereas "she"
>? always unambiguously indicates a female.

Some of you might be amused by this.

Harvard University has two undergraduate colleges, Harvard College for
men, and Radcliffe College for women (formerly, the "Radcliffe Annex
for the Education of Women" ...).  By now, of course, they are so
thouroughly merged that it's sometimes hard to tell them apart.  One
distinction is in the scholarship fund ...  Harvard College boasts a
fairly large scholarship fund, relative to Radcliffe's.  But the
University ruled a while ago that, because of the non-distinction in
language above, any scholarship fund that did not specify "male", but
just "undergraduate men" or the like, would be applied to both Harvard
and Radcliffe; while Radcliffe's funds, all specifying "women",
continue to be applied only to the women.  The upshot is that the
women have more funds available to them to the men.

This is purely anecdotal: I have nothing to do with this, and don't
know what the practical effect has been.

On the other hand, this is getting fairly far afield, so may I ask
that all replies not be sebt to the net?  Thanks ...

	Joe Yao