Sexist Language

I figured I needed a post about this after I did the one about ableist language. Now I, personally, am better about not using sexist language than I am about not using ableist language. I won't go into the reasons for that at the moment. However, there are still sexist terms I do use. So here's essentially a bulleted list.

-Mailman (and similar: I've gotten better about these types)
-Freshman (this I have been pondering for a while. That is, I know it's sexist, but I'm trying to come up with an alternative.)
-Man (to refer to people in general)
-Man (as in "man the booth"-... at our club night at school, I said I wouldn't man the booth, but I would woman the booth.)
-Guys (I use this one a lot... Currently trying to find a replacement)
-Manmade
-Chairman
-Mrs., Miss (I'm hoping this is obvious. I'll explain if it isn't.)
-He as default (...Lately this has been largely changed to he or she. See next item.)
-He or she (Notice that the male always comes first. Gee, I wonder why?)
-Manmade
-Sportsmanship
-Hysterical (Look at this if you don't understand why.)

Somehow, I know that as soon as I am out of reach of my computer, all the other sexist terms that I'm forgetting at the moment will come rushing in.


Sources (other than my mind- I'm mostly putting these here so I can find them again):
Why Sexist Language Matters from Alternet
Gender-Sensitive Language

Ableist Language I'm Going to Try to Avoid

I know that I use ableist language with some frequency. I'm going to try to work on that. I figure that it will be easier to do such now than later. So these are the words and phrases I'm going to try to avoid. If you hear me using these terms please point it out to me. I imagine I'll be making some mistakes for a while. I'm not going to include words that I already avoid.

-Lame (I don't think I use this word too much, but I'm not sure)
-Crazy (I know I use this one a lot)
-Insane (See crazy)
-Blinded to/by/etc. (Actually, when I use this one, I tend to say I'm blind because I can't find something. Still not acceptable.)
-Normal (Say, as opposed to disabled or similar)
-Paranoid (Not sure if I use this one.)
-Hysterical (I don't think I use this one too much, but I may)
-Idiot (I know I use this one all the time.)

If you notice me using these or other ableist words, you have my full permission to tell me.

Updates

The book I'm reading at the moment is called Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, by bell hooks. It's really good and enlightening. I'd definitely recommend it. It also challenges a lot of common ideas that aren't actually rooted in fact.

So I was wondering if anyone would be interested in a post solely dedicated to the different blogs I like to visit. There are a number of them that I quite like. Some of them I've linked to, but some of them I haven't yet linked to.

I think I'll leave this post at that since I'm still contemplating these things.

Women in Mathematics-Related Fields

You may want to read my previous post to see what exactly caused me to write this.

So, obviously women are not innately worse at math than men are. That's complete nonsense. Here of some examples of women who did well in mathematics-related fields:

First, of course, I have to put Ada Lovelace. I find her personally interesting because she's widely acknowledged to be the first computer programmer. Here's a biography describing her achievements.

Maria Agnesi wrote the first math textbook written by a woman.

Marjorie Lee Browne was one of the first black women to get a graduate degree in math in the US

Grace Hopper invented the compiler (basically, a compiler converts code written in a programming language to machine language. Click on the link if you have no idea what I'm talking about and are so inclined.).

And there are many more if you care to look.

Another Veganism Post

This one's just going to be about how it's perfectly possible to be healthy as a vegan. So one question any vegan will probably be asked is how they get their protein. I'll be including links and commenting on parts of them. The first site I'm referring to is an article at veganhealth.org about, of course, protein. One thing I found notable was that "It's now been about 20 years since protein in vegan diets was determined to be a non-issue by nutrition researchers." And yet people are still convinced- and clinging on to the idea- that vegans (or even vegetarians) couldn't possibly be getting enough protein. As a 16 year old female, I'm supposed to get about 50 grams of protein per day. Half a cup of tofu has 8-11 grams of protein.

It must be one of those doublethink kinds of things, but it always seems odd to me that people can simultaneously think that vegans can eat nothing but tofu and that they couldn't possibly eat enough tofu to get much of any protein out of it. Half a cup of soybeans has 14.3 grams of protein. I certainly eat plenty of soybeans, although frequently indirectly. Tofu, of course, is made of soybeans. As is my vegan ice cream. As is soymilk; etc. And then vegetables have protein. You can look at the list if you're curious.

It also points out that unless they don't eat enough food in general or eat total junk food, vegans don't have to worry about protein. There's a brief snippet of this article that deals with the same issue. I'm going to take a possibly too large quotation from this:

"a varied diet of nutritious plant foods provides all the protein that you need. Unlike animal protein, plant-based protein sources usually also contain healthy fiber and complex carbohydrates. Animal products are also full of artery-clogging cholesterol and saturated fat, and consumption of animal protein has been linked to some types of cancer. Plus, it's suspected that the high sulfur content of animal protein weakens people's bones. (For example, a study by researchers at the University of California found significantly less bone formation in meat-eating women than in vegan women.)"

I knew I had heard somewhere that animal protein weakened bones. And you thought I made that up. And then this article points out that "with protein, more (than the RDA) is not necessarily better [...and] Diets that are high in protein may even increase the risk of osteoporosis and kidney disease ."

This article is also illuminating. It points out that "The meat and dairy industries spend billions of dollars to project their message right into your shopping cart through television commercials, magazine ads, and grocery store ads." Which makes sense. I'd point out more, but much of this stuff is repeated. You know what I should do? I should print out a copy of each of these articles and, say, attach them to my skin somehow. Alright, so I'm exaggerating, but people really seem to hate the idea that vegans can get enough protein.

Alright. So I've got protein covered. I may write another thing on, say, calcium, but I think I've written enough for now.

Famous Feminists: Part 1

This is the beginning of a list of famous feminists that I'm going to compile. This part will include mostly first wave feminists. If you have any suggestions of first wave feminists that I may have missed, tell me so and I'll add them.

Mary Wollstonecraft
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Lucy Stone
Susan B. Anthony
Olympia Brown
Helen Pitts
Jane Addams
Barbara Bodichon
Lucretia Mott
Alice Paul
Margaret Sanger
M. Carey Thomas
Sojourner Truth
Harriet Tubman
Lucretia Mott
Margaret Fuller

I know I've got to be missing people here. But it's a start.

Racism Links

Well, here I am at home, feeling ill. I have a sore throat and I can't speak all too clearly. So I figured I'd do another linking post. Only I decided these links would be about racism and white privilege because I don't think I've posted enough about those things here. Some of these links may be older, but they all are important to read.

Anti-Racist FAQ
"Check my what?": On privilege and what we can do about it from Shrub.com (Not only about white privilege, but that's certainly included)
On "Colorblindness" from The Angry Black Woman
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh
On the definition of racism from The Angry Black Woman
On white privilege from The Angry Black Woman
And then a lot of things from Womanist Musings, of course.

I'll be on the lookout for some more.