Gender Issues

[Tom Phillips <tphillips -at- CCMGATE -dot- MBSBOOKS -dot- COM>]

     Hi all. Forgive me if this seems a little late on the subject and/or
     if someone has already brought up this point...

     In a recent posting on gender issues, the author (sorry, can't
     remember exactly who) gave several illustrations of how to avoid using
     "he" as a generic pronoun. If memory serves, the examples the author
     gave were taken from "The Non-Sexist Word Finder," which apparently
     used famous quotes with the generic "he" to illustrate how such things
     can be revised.

     Now, regardless of how you think the gender issue should be dealt with
     (he/she vs. s/he, etc.), I am curious to know how everyone feels about
     correcting famous texts/quotations to avoid generic pronouns? Is it
     right to take a famous quote, such as "From each according to his
     abilities, to each according to his needs," (Karl Marx) and change it
     to "From each of us according to our abilities, to each of us
     according to our needs?" Is it right to take a famous passage from oh
     say Shakespeare and change it?

     IMHO...

     I say No. I am a strong supporter of avoiding "he" in contemporary
     writing (technical, creative, and otherwise), but I also feel strongly
     that it is wrong to go back and change past texts/quotes. Such
     tampering is, in my opinion, an unforgivable misrepresentation of that
     author's/person's words. There are those who would argue that the
     meaning of the text/quote is not changed by such alteration. I
     agree--the meaning is NOT changed, but that's irrelevant. I still
     think it's WRONG to change the words of others. What gives us the
     right?

     I'm sure that many of you will disagree with me. Great! Let me know
     why you think it is OK to change texts/quotes to avoid using the
     generic "he". But PLEASE don't flame me--I'm just expressing an
     opinion here and am not looking to pick a fight.

     Tom Phillips
     Technical Writer
     MBS Textbook Exchange, Inc.
     email: tphillips -at- mbsbooks -dot- com

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