TO THE EDITOR:
I am writing in response to the letters from Serena Witzke and Ted Gellar-Goad on Feb. 22 (“Negative reaction to letter a cause for much concern”). These authors seem to make an illogical claim when suggesting that Spanish is a better alternative to English because it has grammatical gender. On the contrary, when the plural is used if only one male is in a room full of women then the masculine form is used. This seems much worse than how gender is treated in English.
Furthermore, I feel that too many people are wasting time arguing over trivial words within the English language. If it’s that big of an issue to you, why don’t you suggest appropriate alternatives instead of simply crying foul about our biased language? Seriously folks, why don’t we discuss the gender pay gap or gender stereotypes that exist within certain lines of employment instead of wasting so much time arguing over whether to use “freshman” or “first-year.” Such an overwhelmingly politically correct culture has everyone so focused on the small, petty issues that we sometimes fail to recognize the meaningful problems that exist within our society.
Drew Martin
Senior
Business Administration
