Re: Optimum number of symbols, though mostly talking about french now

Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>Well, you would have a hard time with our feminists then. They are on a
>crusade
>for the feminisation of ALL nouns of professions. They argue that if a noun
>of
>profession doesn't make the gender distinction, it implies that the
>profession
>is reserved to just one sex, which is sexist. Thus they want feminine forms
>to
>be adopted for all nouns of profession (even those who at first didn't have
>one, like "maire" or "ministre". So we've seen things like "la mairesse"
>and "la ministre" appear). Not everybody agrees with their view, but I
>think
>they have a point.
Funny. I know more than one feminist who claims that even having
gender-specific forms for ANY profession, let alone using, is sexist. Some
of them think that all the plentiful Swedish profession words ending in
"-man" should abolished, and in extreme cases also the impersonal pronoun
"man" too, while others take the more workable approach that "man" in these
cases should be seen as gender-neutral.

                                                    Andreas

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