Gender sensitivity

By DR LIM CHIN LAM

SCIENTISTS talk of animals as having evolved from the one-celled protists to the higher life-forms – fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals – with man at the very top of the evolutionary tree. In such context, the mere name of the animal suffices, e.g. duck, goose, pig, cattle, etc.

There is no need to distinguish between drake and duck, gander and goose, boar and sow, bull and cow – except in specific contexts such as anatomy, physiology, and reproduction.

Outside of zoology, the word man in its different forms and usages presents some interesting features. Let us look at some of these instances.

The word ‘man’ in salutation.

The word man is commonly used as a form of address or salutation, without any hint of insult or derogation. Examples: “I say, man, could you please tell me how to get to the bus station?”, ”Hurry up, man,” and “Man! that’s huge!” (an informal construction, used especially in the United States, “to express surprise, admiration, etc.” – Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 1990, page 756).

To these examples, we must, of course, add our own construction in Manglish: “What, man! Do that cannot. Do this also cannot.”

Compare the situations where other forms of the word, viz. young man and woman, are used. These forms are not as innocuous as man in the above examples.

The expression “I keep telling you, woman, that all tickets have been sold out” carries a derogatory term plus a tone which the addressee may find offensive.

In “Young man, how dare you speak to me like that!”, the particular form of address is a way of chiding the speaker for his naïveté.

‘Man’ as an enclitic

Here I use the term enclitic as defined in Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary (1974), thus: “a word or particle which always follows another word, so united with it to seem a part of it.”

I recall one occasion when this enclitic caused an unseemly problem. As the dean of academic affairs in a private college, I had vetted a draft examination paper, which included the word breadman, a word commonly used and understood locally. However, the moderator from a British university (a partner under a twinning arrangement) said that the word was meaningless.

It was then duly amended to bread seller. And yet, we Malaysians commonly use the enclitic man to mean “a door-to-door vendor”, as in breadman, eggman, and newspaperman (one who sells and distributes newspapers door-to-door).

Are we Malaysians really incorrect in our use of the enclitic man? After all, an English nursery rhyme has Simple Simon going to the fair, meeting a pieman, and asking to taste his ware. If pieman can be a pie vendor, why cannot our breadman or eggman be a vendor of bread or of eggs?

We must, however, also be aware that the enclitic can also denote an occupation, e.g. fireman, policeman, and postman – as well as gender, e.g. policewoman or postwoman. Because such terms are now often regarded as outdated and sexist, “there has been a move away from -man compounds except where referring to a specific male person. Alternative gender-neutral terms which can be used instead include firefighter and police officer.” – Concise Oxford English Dictionary (2004), page 865.

However, there is no escaping the seemingly sexist enclitic -man and -woman. Thus, we have horseman, sportsman, and swordsman, and, for the female, horsewoman, sportswoman, and swordswoman (which terms are better than horseperson, sportsperson, and swordsperson).

Even then, when it comes to denoting the associated art or skill, we say horsemanship, sportsmanship, and swordsmanship – not horsewomanship, sportswomanship, and swordswomanship.

‘Man-’ as a proclitic

I realise that the term proclitic in this heading is not quite correct, but I nevertheless use it to distinguish between the enclitic man attached to the end of a word and the “proclitic” man attached to the beginning of a word. It is not quite a prefix, but rather a combining form.

Note, however, that the morpheme /man/ in such words as manager, mandate, and manufacture is not connected with the word man, unlike in most words such as manhandle, manhole, manhunt, and manslaughter. Note, too, that the latter words may be deemed sexist – but there are no gender-neutral alternative terms.

Note, furthermore, that the compound adjective, man-made – as in man-made chemicals, man-made fibres, and man-made lake – is sexist. The alternative synthetic may be substituted for man-made in the case of chemicals and fibres, but not for that of lake.

‘Man’ as a verb

The word man is also used as a verb, as in “to man the office during lunch-time” or “to man the ship”. Here again there may be sexist objections to the word – a pity because the alternative to the said verb would be the phrase “to provide personnel to service/run/operate/defend a machine/vehicle/place”.

Now try to be non-sexist and paraphrase as succinctly as possible the expressions “to man the counter in a post-office”, “to man the office during lunch-time”, “to man the boat”, and “to man the fort”.

Parting shot: “I say, man, don’t you agree that the simple word man can present so many quirks and nuances in its usage?”