Re: CHAT: BOOK/CHAT: FW: Lunatic Lovers of Language

Laurie Gerholz wrote:
> I really *hate* it when it is implied
> that my work can't exist because I'm a woman and "women are better at
> language".
I meant "women *tend*, as a fair generalization, to be better at
language." - on average, women have larger vocabularies than men, for
example, and *tend* to make finer gradations of meanings.  However, men
are often given more training in *persuassive* speaking in many
cultures, and women have traditionally been discouraged from writing -
even if it's been quite subtle, while men who show promise are often
encouraged to write.  A female friend of mine pointed something like
this out.  She's now in seminary, but she told me that it never occured
to her that she could be a pastor until our pastor suggested it to her.
No one had ever explicitely told her "women can't be pastors" (well, no
one in *our* denomination), but that idea had been subconciously
planted.  Same thing happens in terms of writing, I think, and often
more explicitely.

I do believe firmly that there are inherent difference between what the
AVERAGE man can do and what the AVERAGE woman can do, but it's greatly
complicated by culture.

--
"Public media should not contain explicit or implied descriptions of sex
acts.  Our society should be purged of the perverts who provide the
media with pornographic material while pretending it has some redeeming
social value under the public's 'right to know.'" - Kenneth Star, 1987
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