ABOUT GENDER EQUALITY

. . . I am an advocate of gender equality. During the mid-->late 60's men began to wear COLOR, a development not seen for years! I taught school while dressed in striped bell-bottom trou and sporting long hair.

. . . I mention MARIJA GIMBUTAS, thinking primarily of her last book. . . . I have read "The Alphabet Versus the Goddess" by Leonard Shlain. (Includes the thought that the angry desert god doesn't like pictures (images) because pictures bypass the word-coding part of the brain). People are mostly right-handed because of language ... a rigid form of abstraction.

. . . I have read Elaine Morgan's "The Descent of Woman" (written to counter Desmond Morris, whose work is male-centered). She has valid arguments aplenty, but misses the boat when she speaks of sex ... I am not being necessarily male when I say I don't think she has ever been in real love (which reflects on everything she writes) nor do I think she has ever had satisfactory sex. I write these things because I know both love and sex (well, as much as anyone I know at present). This reflects a bit on her projections based on the human body ... MUCH of her arguments.

. . . In other words, I have done my homework, both on paper and on the street. I've been in the midst of this struggle since the mid-60s. I was raised by a single mom and that's why I respect women. My mom could shoot and butcher her own pig and calf. She built pig sties. She also wrote and painted.

. . . I suppose I am being a bit defensive, but I've argued sexual equality until I am exhausted. My friend Biz hates the word 'history' because of the 'his', hates 'person' because of the 'son' and on and on. It's exhausting indeed. What I want to see are some concrete proposals or action in the street. I dearly want true equality. I am tired of dragging the stoneboat behind me when I write and when I speak.

. . . The issue demands attention, true, and even a bit of micromanaging our compatriots' language may be called for, but the anger is NOT called for.

. . . I once created a non-gender specific pronoun, "te", that I thought filled the bill. (I am fucking angry at being forced by intolerance to say "when the student rises, HE OR SHE must do such-and-such".) Too many lifeless words. And I am NOT PLEASED with using "he" as an 'unmarked' or default referent. "They" will not do for the singular instance. Te=subjective. Ter=objective. Tes=possessive. Since my 'creation' I have seen what I thought were my personally created pronouns used by others! Marge Piercy, for instance, and she is a fierce feminist.

. . . There have been a great number of 'attempted' singular non-gender specific pronouns proposed, but most die out quickly. BUT, my 'te' suggestion is the neologism that I think will re-arise and LAST because it occurred to a number of people who were not communicating with one another simultaneously.