UNC drops term ‘freshman’ in favor of ‘gender inclusive language’

Submitted by Mastodon on Tue, 2012-10-23 16:08

Article here. Excerpt:

'The University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill has removed the word “freshman” from official university documents, citing as their reason an attempt to adopt more “gender inclusive language.”

We are “committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all members of our community,” reads a statement administrators sent to Campus Reform on Monday.
...
Some students, however, expressed discontent over the change in policy.

Brandon Hartness, Executive Vice Chair for the school’s college Republicans chapter, told Campus Reform he feels the university is allowing political correctness to drive their decisions.

“I feel like they are making a big deal out of nothing,” said Hartness. “Girls are not going to deem the word [freshman] as sexist.”'

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Comments

"Man". In fact, any word that has it in it is sort of "dirty" these days, isn't it? Every word has to be neutered-- if it has "man" in it, with the exception that if it has the two leading letters: "wo", it's OK.

Fireman: Should be fire-fighter. Never mind that 97%+ of US firemen are... men (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_firefighting#USA). "Policemen" are now "police officers", despite the fact that 85% of sworn police in the US are men (there's an argument here, though; 15% is nothing to sneeze at-- much better case to be made). You see, it would acknowledge that indeed, the people in these very risky jobs are in fact almost all men. Feminists find that infuriating.

But to this case, we are now looking at what, "freshpersons"? Or just "First-years"? Not so unusual, first year law students in the US are frequently referred to as "1-L"s. See, nice and gender-neutral.

But next time your Congresswoman is referred to that way, watch how many people stand to object.

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Submitted by Matt on Wed, 2012-10-24 01:39