Conference turris::womannotes-v3

After years of being conditioned to say "Is it a boy or girl" on hearing of 
the birth of a baby, now I ask "What did they name it?".  A name is a more
personal thing and reflects something of what the parents hope for the child.
The name may or may not make it easy to identify the baby's gender, which as
edp points out should be irrelevant (at least until sexual awakening).

			Bb

    I think there are many reasons people ask, some of them sexist, some of
    them not.
    
    First and foremost - habit. People are just in the habit of asking.
    People also ask the baby's weight and its height, for no good reason
    that I can tell. I mean really, what earthly difference does it make
    how long the baby is? Do you normally go around asking people what
    their height and weight are? How long will you remember these bits of
    trivia anyway? But it's a habit, and old habits do die hard.
    
    Secondly - to avoid offending the parents. Some people get mortally
    offended if you refer to their particular lump of suet by the wrong
    personal pronoun. I think it's pretty silly, but it's there.
    
    Thirdly - to know how to behave towards the baby. This is the sexist
    one, since at that age I can't imagine how or why you would behave
    differently based on the babies sex - unless the reasons were
    fundamentally sexist (in the strict sense of the word). The only people
    who should care about the sex of a baby are parents, pediatricians, and
    pederasts. (Unless you're volunteering to change diapers - in which
    case you'll know as soon as you need to!)
    
    Being a smartass (who, me?) I tend to answer questions about Kai's sex
    with a fishy look and a "Why do YOU care?" Then a smile. Bb's technique
    of asking the name sounds like a good one, but some of us have made
    even that somewhat risky. Besides you need to put a pronoun into even
    that quesion - "What is <it's> name?". Since ALL babies are "it" until
    they get bigger, why not just stick with "it"?
    
    It's absolutely incredible how early sexism starts, and how hard it is
    to fight. I find myself constantly asking myself if I'd treat a little
    girl like this. Baby boys tend to get played with rougher, and get
    cuddled less, little girls get responded to quicker when they cry, and
    dressed in silly little frilly things. Even at that age, you can dress
    girls in "boy" clothes, but just try putting a little baby boy into one
    of those "ribbons and bows" outfits - never mind that he'd look
    adorable in it!
    
    So, the bottom line for me is that there are non-sexist reasons for
    asking, but I don't think there are any legitimate reasons for caring.
    Especially since that seems to be the FIRST question everyone asks -
    even before age or name.
    
    hmmm...
    
    	-- Charles

    	It seems funny now, but I've often told the story of how I forgot
    	to check my baby's sex in the delivery room shortly after birth.
    	
    	After checking to see that he had the standard number of limbs 
    	and digits, I leaned back and rested (until the doctor reminded
    	me that I didn't know Ryan's sex yet - he was aware that the 
    	genital area was not within my field of vision.)  At that point,
    	he moved Ryan's knees and I leaned forward to discover that he
    	was a boy.
    
    	Sometimes I wonder how long I would have waited to check if the
    	doctor hadn't reminded me about it.  I would have thought it 
    	would be of burning interest to me, but I was more concerned that
    	he was alive and healthy.
    
    	When he was around 18 months old, I remember growing his hair long
    	(since it was so nice to see him go beyond the bald stage,) and
    	my parents commented that he looked like a girl.  Well, he did look
    	like a girl, actually, but I didn't mind (and neither did he.) 
    
    	My parents were still concerned about it, though.  I told them that
    	he knew who he was, even if others were mistaken about his sex, but
    	they were still so uncomfortable about it that I had his hair cut in
    	a more boyish style (although I still kept it fairly long.)
    
    	I don't think my parents were afraid of having people think their
    	grandchild was female - their concern seemed to be that Ryan might
    	become confused about his identity in some way if people treated
    	him as if he were a girl.  (I'm not sure about this, though.)
    
    	P.S. Ryan wasn't actually completely bald as a baby.  He lost all
    	his birth hair except for a top notch, which I tried to spread all
    	over his head to simulate hair.  When the wind blew, though, he
    	looked like Woody Woodpecker.  ;^)

I really don't see that asking about the sex of a baby is being
sexist. 

When I ask whether a friend had a girl or a boy, I'm learning
about a new human being. The details about personality
and character and values aren't available yet: they come in due
time. The details about the child's sex and health are available.
To bypass those questions seems pretty impersonal to me.

Kathy

PS: I don't like the old blue-is-for-boys and pink-is-for-girls 
routine. Color-coding children does seem to set the scene for
reinforcing sexist attitudes and behavior. 

    I think Charles hit the biggie.
    
    English doesn't have an appropriate, impersonal pronoun to use.
    We ask about the baby's sex so we know which one to use in further
    discussion.  Most parents are/will be offended if you refer to the
    child as an 'it' - the kid isn't an inanimate thing!  Even in the
    first couple of hours, babies display some sort of personality.
    
    Alison

    Re .4 & .5, yeah, she sounds like a "real woman" then, doesn't she?
    Just kidding! :-)
    
    Re .6, I agree with you.
    
    Re .0, Eric, since I was the first person to ask the sex of Charles'
    baby, I guess I should reply to you here, since you're apparently
    accusing me of being sexist.  But, hey, since I was brought up in
    a sexist society (born 1949, and raised in the 1950's and 1960's
    in a working class/non-college educated family), it would be very
    unusual for me to be entirely devoid of any sexist behavior.  So,
    hopefully I won't be hung for it.  Also, I don't have the benefit
    of your coldly, logical mind when viewing the world so I guess that
    sometimes tends to make me say and ask trivial things.  However,
    I know I'm not, relatively speaking, a very sexist person, even
    if I did ask if the baby was a boy or a girl.
    
    The reason I asked is that I happen to be interested in names and
    not having ever heard the name Kai (is that it?) before, I was curious
    as to whether it was a name they had given to a boy or a girl. 
    
    I think being so picky as to call people who ask whether a baby
    is a girl or a boy "sexist" is going overboard to the point of the
    ridiculous.  There are more important sexist issues to concern yourself
    with.
    
    Lorna
    

    Because all babies start with a slightly blueish cast to their eyes.
    
    							Ann B.

re.0

[and this isn't meant to be flip _at_all_]  actually I really _am_ curious as
to the result of your coin flip.  It doesn't make any significant difference in
my life, but I have been conditioned to be curious about coin flips -- they 
usually precede who kicks off and who receives; who serves; who picks up the
check; or any number of other events that evoke my interest or have an effect
on my life.

As to whether a baby is male or female, I don't really _care_ but I like to
know.  It makes even less difference to me than the outcome of a coin toss
I've witnessed because the child's gender may _never_ matter to me in real terms
but I could easily be impacted by the outcome of the toss.

I really think that asking if a child is a boy or a girl is mostly meaningless
noise that lets the parent[s] know that the speaker is interested and will not
walk away if said parent[s] need to enthuse further.  Most new parents I have 
met find 'oh' an inappropriate response.

  Ann

    I always assume that when someone tells me about the birth of a child,
    that they are telling me because this is an event that makes them
    happy. By telling me, they are paying me the compliment of asking me to
    share their joy. When they tell me "We just had a baby!", one possible
    response would be "thank you very much for that bit of information".
    Another might be to say,"I am very happy for you! Thats Wonderful".  To
    me, it is apparent that the first response communicates only marginal
    interest in the event, and a reluctance on my part to share in the
    experience of the new mother/father.  The second response on the other
    hand communicates (to me) a higher level of interest, and a willingness
    to participate in the new parent's joy. If, I then continue by asking
    questions about the event and the newborn, then I am giving the new
    parent permission(if such is required) or maybe inviting her/him is a
    better turn of phrase, to share the experience more fully with me. 
    Since I am of the opinion that a joy shared is a joy multiplied, I
    would "normally" choose the second path. 
    
    So, what kind of questions can one ask, that will relate to the event,
    and invite the new parent to share with me?  Well, I could ask if
    "everything is alright", which is kind of an all-embracing euphemism
    for does-it-have-all-its-body-parts-and-is-the-mother-progressing-as-per
    -usual-in-these-cases?  I could ask of a new father, if he had
    participated as labor coach, I could ask what college is being planned
    for the new arrival, or, what sports will it be encouraged to
    participate in. I guess according to someone eyecolor is out as a
    meaningful point, but I'd probably ask anyhow. I could ask if it takes 
    after Dad's side of the family, or Mom's and on and soforth. But two
    questions I would be sure to ask are "is it a boy or a girl", and
    what's his/her name. And I would probably ask these two first. 
    For by doing so, I am participating with the parent in the arrival 
    of a new soul. My participation is assuredly very small; it consists of 
    removing this new person from the abstract of some nebulous "personhood" 
    and acknowledging his/her uniqueness by couching all those other
    questions in terms of his/her name when appropriate, and sex when
    appropriate. 
     
    Before Anna was born, Linda and I referred to our impending littleone
    as "the baby" or "it". But after her birth, we never said "it" we used
    her name, or said "she" or "her" in referrence to her. I would have
    been somewhat hurt-feelinged if someone had referred to my beautiful
    child as an "it" 
    
    Someone, expreesing agreement with .0 said something to the effect that
    "sex doesn't matter until the time of sexual awakening". I don't know
    about your kids, but her sex is very important to Anna. Its part of who
    she is at 10 (and it has been since she has been able to talk, to my
    knowledge) just as much as it will be whenever that "sexual awakening"
    happens.  
    

    	RE: .11 
    
    	You raised some good points, Jim.  It is far more personal to refer
    	to a baby as "he" or "she" than "it" (and it reflects acknowledgement
    	to the parents that this new person is regarded as a unique human
    	being with his/her own identity and personality.)
    
    	Rather than avoiding asking what sex a new baby is, it would be
    	more helpful to raise awareness about the ways people treat girl
    	and boy babies differently (so we can stop doing this so much.)
    
    	When my baby turned out to be a boy, it didn't matter to me as long
    	as he was healthy, but the one disappointing thing that occurred to
    	me was that he might not be very affectionate to me as he grew up.
    
    	In my mind's eye, I pictured this young cowboy or Indian who would 
    	never touch me again after his 5th birthday.  Instead of refraining
    	from hugging him a lot, I decided I'd better get in a lifetime supply
    	of little-boy hugs before he cut them off (so I hugged him A LOT!)
    
    	As a teenager, he still hugs me to this day (and I can't help feeling
    	that the ability to hug is an asset for him.)  If I'd refrained from
    	hugging him so much (as some people say parents do with baby boys,)
    	he'd be a different person.  
    
    	He's so wonderful the way he is, I'm glad I went for the hugs!

    On the light side,
    
    Some years ago my brother called to tell me that his wife had just
    delivered their first child.  I was delighted at the news and trying
    hard not to ask the big question.  After the politically correct
    round of questions, (is Deb okay?  is the baby ok?) I finally
    blurted out,
    
       "Am I an aunt or an uncle?"
    
    My brother laughed and replied,
    
       "You're an aunt and you've got a handsome nephew."
    
    
    Sometimes us old time feminists try too hard....
    
       cheers,   Margaret
    

    re: .9
    
    Did you mean all pink babies start with blueish eyes?
    
    At least some brown babies start (and finish) with brown eyes.
    
    It's all very subtle, and can be painful even when no pain
    was intended.  That's what makes the issues so difficult.
    
    	Pennie
    
    (Who has one pink daughter and one brown one, both with
    androgynous names)

    
    	RE: .15  edp
    
    	> English does have a singular, third-person pronoun that does not
    	> indicate gender.  It is "they", and it has been used in the singular 
    	> in English for several hundreds of years.
    
    	Rather awkward, though, when talking to parents about a baby:
    
    		"How is your new baby?  Do they sleep all night yet?"
    
    		"Have you had any luck finding a good place to take
    		them for daycare?  My friend is having a baby soon, too."
    
    		"Oh, is that a picture of your baby??  They're an adorable
    		child!"
    
    	If someone spoke this way to me about a baby of mine, I would wonder
    	if the person thought I'd had twins (or was merely seeing double.) :)
    
    	Eric, the word "they" is fine to use in a generic sense in place of
    	"he" or "she" when talking about an unspecified person, but it doesn't
    	work well when talking about a specific (named) individual.
    
    	Correctness doesn't always dictate the way people are willing to
    	phrase things.

    
    	RE: .17  edp
    
    	> I do not see anything awkward about it.  Go ahead and use it.        
    
    	It sounds awkward to me, which would make it uncomfortable for
    	me to use, even if I thought most parents would appreciate it
    	to hear their new baby called "they" (which is not the case, as 
    	far as I know.)
    
    	> I did not say it was correct.  The OED reports usage.  
    
    	Some people think it is incorrect and improper, so others might be
    	reluctant to use it (if it gives the impression of ignorance or
    	improper grammar.)
    
    	Inquiries about a baby are usually meant to be warm and friendly,
    	so using a pronoun about someone else's baby that would grate on
    	the parents' ears would tend to defeat the purpose of the social 
    	exchange.

    
    re:.4,.5
    humpph
    

    edp, if I'm reading you right, I'm understanding you to say that gender
    identity leads to sexist activity (good or bad) in later life.  Is that
    an accurate reading?
    
    If so, are you also saying that all sexist activity is bad?
    
    Even as an individual who has always been on the short end of the sexual
    discrimination stick, I have to wonder if it's wise, possible,
    or even desirable to eliminate gender identity.  Do _you_ know for
    certain what the results of such social engineering might be?  (This
    might be worth a note of its own!)
    
    IMO, gender identity isn't the evil we need to be fighting. 
    Adverse discrimination based on that identity is.
    
    Karen
    
    P.S.  In case my opinion isn't clear, I believe "sexist" and
    "discrimination" are both morally neutral terms.  It's only when
    they're used, consciously or unconsciously, to relegate people to rigid
    roles that I consider them "bad."
    
                                     

    re .15
    
    If we had never thought of men and women as being unequal, we would
    still have thought of them as being not the same. Why? because they
    are not the same. No man can experience life as a women does. No women 
    as a man. Even if all thoughts/words/deeds which foster the current
    state of affairs were eliminated tomorrow, this would be true. 
    
    If gender were of no importance (meaning no stereotypes?) to society it
    would still be important to each and every individual. Why? You figure
    it out. 
    
    It seems to me to be not an optimum solution to say "if diversity is
    the problem, eliminate the diversity"  Or in the case of your
    proposition, since the difference cannot be eliminated physically, make
    it socially unacceptable, impolite or politically incorrect to recognize
    the difference.  The logic is inexorable; it is also absurd. 

    re .22
    
    
    No, you didn't say those things, I did. In the first instance it was a
    comment to the effect "equal" doesn't mean "the same" and that the
    difference is important. In the second, just my attempt at a summation
    of what it seemed to me you were saying. (I could be wrong) I need to
    be able to synthesize these things before I understand; my problem.  
    
    What you DID say, "The only reason we consider gender important is
    because we discriminate"  
    
    Well I certainly discriminate in the choice of sex partners based upon
    gender, so in at least one sense you are correct.  I offered other
    reasons why gender may be considered important besides "intent to
    discriminate" Note that I do not say that we do not discriminate based
    upon gender, (some if it's bad, some of it's o.k.) I only say that
    there are other motivations involved in wishing to know the sex of a
    child other than to use such knowledge as a template for ones behavior
    toward him/her for the rest of her/his life.  

    re .24
    
    then I take it that in light of what you said in .24, you are reversing
    your previous thesis that "gender is important because we
    discriminate".    Since that is the case, we can now move on to other 
    issues, like how can we act in raising children of either sex so as
    to ensure that stereotypical sexual roles are not imposed upon them
    by us as parents or by the environment. 

    One reason we find gender important very early is that gender is
    part of our language.  There are times when it is somewhere between
    awkward and impossible to refer to an individual (known or unknown)
    without using the third person singular -- and it is taboo to use
    "it".
    
    Why is our language like this? might be a better question.
    
    							Ann B.

On rethinking...

Gee, seems obvious to me.   Eric, people place a great amount of important on
gender because gender *is* important!

Maybe it shouldn't be, but it is.  What the sex of the baby is will have a
*tremendous*, *unbelievable* affect on that person's life.  Forever.  The
child's sex may not be irrelevent to *you*, but unlike eye color or birth
weight, it will be tremendously important to the child.  So it doesn't seem
sexist to me to ask about a factor that will become, if it isn't already, 
extremely important to the child and to the parents.

My first reaction when someone tells me they got a new job is "Oh, what is
it?  *DO YOU LIKE IT?*"  It doesn't affect *my* life at all whether they
like their job.  But it matters a lot to *them*, and therefore if I am genuinely
interested in them as people, I will ask them about those things that are
important to them.

Sex of the child is very important to the child and to the parents.  Therefore
it is personal interest and respect and genuine caring (or at least an 
attempt to fake those things) that motivate me to ask what the sex of the
child is.

I am at a total loss for where you come up with this idea that gender isn;t
important, when that is quite *obviously* false.

D!

    
    re:.29
    are you suggesting that 'making gender less important' by worrying
    about what color clothes infants might wear or the ettiquette of
    inquiring after the gender of a newborn is of equal impact as, say,
    worrying about the equal rights ammendment?
    

    	
    	Well, we've seen a good many non-sexist reasons presented for
    	inquiring about a baby's gender, so I'm satisfied that this act
    	is not sexist in and of itself.  
    
    	It's not the knowledge of sex that is harmful.  It's what we
    	*do* with the knowledge.
    
    	Interesting discussion, though.
    

    re .29, edp, it sounds to me as though you are saying that the only
    way that women can ever be equal to men is by conforming to some
    preconceived idea (whose? yours?) of how people have to act in order
    to be treated equally.  I believe that equality lies, not in forcing
    everyone to be the same, but in valuing everyone's differences equally.
    I don't think there is anything wrong with a society that has two
    different sexes, as long as each sex is allowed the same options,
    and as long as the options one sex *may* predominantly choose (such as
    child care, or the arts) are valued as much as the options the other
    sex may predominently choose (such as carpentry, truck driving or
    engineering).  To me an equal society would be a society where,
    for example, the best suited people to be soldiers, would be soldiers
    (if they wanted to be) regardless of whether they were men or women.
     But, it would not be a society that would force ill-suited 19 yr.
    olds of either age to enter the military.  An equal society would
    be a society that would listen with equal respect to a presentation
    given by a person in a pink lace dress as to a presentation given
    by a person in a grey flannel suit.
    
    Lorna
    

edp (.29):
    
>    Sexism is a loop...
 >   
>    The loop must be broken.  There is no best place to break it -- at
>    every point I point to, you can say "see, that comes from this other
>    point".  The place to break the loop is at EVERY point.
 
First, I explained why asking a babies sex wasn't sexist, just recognizing
that in reality, it is important.  The *asking* itself might be (probably
is, I would guess) an *offshoot* of sexism.  It isn't sexism, and it isn't
part of the loop - it is a tangent to the loop, and making it PI to ask a
baby's sex will *not* break the loop.

Second of all, of course there are better places to break the loop than
others!!  (That is because the "loop" analogy is not perfect, and unlike
a loop of string, the loop of sexism is not consisent, is not perfectly
circular, etc.  in fact, it isn't circular at all...rather, I would say
it is more like a massive jumble of interconnected strings...a whole
net of loops.)  Some places are weaker, and therefore easier to break.
Some breaks will have a further reaching, more positive effect.

I think the analogy of a tangle works better.  The tangle must be unknotted
carefully.  It *can't* be done in parallel.  Some parts of the knot are
more important than others.
     
>    	Do you want a society in which there is equality for all?

Oh please!  Was this directed to me (since you were responding to my note?)
   
>    	Are you willing to do the things that would be done by a
>    	person in a society in which there is equality for all?

Given that our society is *not* equal, would I be willing to do things 
that I *would* do, if it were equal?  Depends.  If I feel like doing such
things, of course.  If doing such things helps the cause of creating
equality, then yes.  If doing such things does *not* further the cause, 
and I don't want to do them, then no.

I think the flaw with your (implied) logic here is that it isn't necessarily
true that acting as if society is one way, when it is really another, will
cause society to become the first way.

Pretending that society is not sexist will not, in most cases, cause it to
be less sexist, I believe.

D!

    I have deleted one note that clearly violated our Style policy and
    probably also violated the Trashnote policy in light of the gratuitous
    nature of the style violation.  I also deleted several other notes that
    were orphaned by the deletion of the first.
    
    							=maggie 

I doubt that the legitimacy of "they" as a gender-neutral indistinct third-
person singular pronoun means that it is (or ever has been) appropriate to 
use it in all third-person singular contexts.  My impression is that "they"
is, in fact, used only with a generic or indistinct antecedent, such as "one"
or "someone" or "an engineer".  I suspect that it is *not* used for a specific,
identifiable individual (i.e., one whose gender is known).

I will be very surprised (and will gladly retract this entire observation) if
any of the usage examples in the OED do use "they" with a specific antecedent
of known gender.

Nor would it be appropriate to counter that the *rule* expressed in the OED
allows "they" to be used indiscriminately as a singular pronoun, and that
the examples merely illustrate one specific usage of this:  for the OED is
being descriptive, not prescriptive, and my perception is that the "rule"
in question is in fact merely a not-too-precise inference *from the examples 
presented*.

	-Neil