My penmanship is so bad that if I’d been born before typewriters I could never have become a writer. I’ve always had rotten penmanship. So do my kids, so I’m guessing it’s genetic. I hate to have to write little note in cards, or–worse–send thank-you notes. I’ve always understood that they should be hand-written, but if I hand write them it is a risk that the recipient will be insulted as a result of mis-reading what I’ve written. “Thank you for a lovely time” is just as likely to be read as “Think you are a lousy friend.” You get my drift.
But — Hallelujah! — Thanks to the Washington state legislature, I no longer have lousy penmanship! What I now have is rotten handwriting. What’s the difference? I hear you ask. I don’t know, I have to answer, except that it means my shame is no longer gender-biased. That’s a relief, in a way. It has always seemed to me that women females fepersons-fepeople generally have nicer handwriting than males. That’s just MY gender bias. But these days it isn’t such a big issue for me, except on the very rare occasion when I have to write a cheque, which inevitably has a mistake that has to be scribbled out and initialed. Even then you can’t tell the scribbled bit from the rest. And, frankly, I’m tired of people telling me “You should have been a doctor.” hahabloodyha
What brought this to mind was a news article reporting that Washington state has now “scrubbed gender bias” from nearly 3,500 state code sections, out of about 40,000. This amazing project has been a six-year effort to rewrite state laws using gender-neutral vocabulary. A ‘freshman’ for example, is now referred to as a ‘first year student.’
Apparently Florida, North Carolina and Illinois have already been through that exercise. A number of states have passed similar constitutional mandates, while others are currently considering gender-neutral legislation. I’m a bit surprised to read about it, recalling the hoohah in the 1970s about this very thing. It was a crazy time (hence the ugly architecture, I suppose) when people were trying focus on anything but what mattered. Maybe that’s what’s happening now.
I recall that whenever I was addressed as “Madam Chairperson” — always tongue in cheek — I would always respond ” I prefer “‘Your Highness,’ thank you.” Can anybody remember who it was that pointed out that we couldn’t just replace ‘man’ with ‘person’ at the end of words ending in ‘man,’ as person itself was gender-biased, ending in ‘son,’ which is a male term. So it was suggested that words ending in man or son be changed to end with “offspring.” So ‘person’ became ‘peroffspring,’ hence chairman became ‘chairperoffspring.’ And so on…
Frankly, I’m relieved that my illegible scrawl won’t be called rotten penperoffspringship. I’ll settle for lousy handwriting. MM
The Meandering Matriarch 
6 years to remove about 10 per cent of the gender bias?!!!
a great case of
“just because you can doesn’t mean you should”
I pose a simple query
“What’s a single more productive enterprise which could have been engaged in other than expunging gender bias?
oh dear!!
Exactly. I too think its a pointless effort, and reckon we should find serious things to do with the resources. Removing10% of bureaucratic verbiage would have been more useful! Or 10% of politicians.
I wonder what Sue is really complaining about. We were mates at North Kansas City High. Up to this date I keep a letteer that she wrote to me sometime after I left KC (MO.) It is a delight to read it and re read. Maybe I misuderstood the whole point – maybe my English understanding is getting lousier by the day.
Maria! Hi
Wonderful to hear from you. We must do better than this, tho. Emails haven’t gone out of fashion at my house yet… Lets talk soon.
Hi Sue – we surely must do better than that. Would you right to me at my email or let me have yours again gold28@uol.com.br
Notes always look superior when written on “Orion” note paper.
Indeed!
These days, it seems like everyone has horrible handwriting–probably from not enough practice. I know my teachers preferred everything possible be typed so they didn’t have to decipher the students’ scrawl.
The substitution for man/son does get awkward sometimes. It reminds me of these books,
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/132383.The_Politically_Correct_Ultimate_Storybook?ac=1
which use such words as ”womyn.”
There you go–perhaps we keep the words and change the spelling!
On many committees chairperson was seen as ugly. I think males disliked it as well as females, so what we now have is ‘Chair’. So the meeting appears to address the item the person chairing the meeting is sitting on rather than the person. Time perhaps for a total rethink of the terminology surrounding meetings.
Hear Hear! I always felt the Madam part of the address was sufficient to identify the gender–if, indeed, it needed identifying.
If you want to see the fullness of rotten penpership, get a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 phone like mine and try writing with the stylus!
Oh, dear! occasionally have to use a stylus to sign for parcels at the post office (every day, now that I’ve discovered eBay) and it’s a mess. Fortunately they know me by now…
Hehehe. Regardless of the new laws, I have to tell you that your bad handwriting/poor penmanship really resonated with me. I too could never sit and handwrite anything. The thought of Jane Austen sitting there and writing out an entire novel (s) by hand gives me a panic attack.
What a thought. Especially if she was an ‘edit as you go’ writer. That would be one messy manuscript!!
Haha, you’re not kidding. After I write a paragraph long hand I actually want to cry.
Hats off to your Hilarious take on our crazy society. Why don’t we accept that we have genders. Gee golly whiz wow! Has anyone considered that the “offended” can decide whether or not to be offended? And get over it. Viv a la difference!
Heh, heh, heh.