From: "Keith"
Subject: "gender" selection

You idiot. It isn't gender selection at all. It's sex selection. In our overbearingly politically correct society sex is a dirty word so everyone uses the word gender instead, but gender is already a word, with its own definition. The two words are absolutely not interchangable.

One of the definitions of "gender" is the same as "sex." Which definition a person means when they use "gender" depends upon context - sometimes it means something different from biological sex (gender roles) and sometimes it means the same as biological sex (gender gap).

I don't use the term "gender selection" in order to be politically correct. I use it because it is a phrase which already has wide usage.

If people read the article closely, they will find that the authorities I quote use both "gender" and "sex" as words for "biological sex:" "the potential for inherent gender discrimination"; "psychological harm to sex-selected offspring"; "gender variety". Are they also using their terminology incorrectly?

People in the industry use the label "gender selection," so I see no problem with using it as well because I see no reasonable possibility of being misunderstood. When I write "Should parents be able to select the gender of their child?" I have no fear that anyone will think that people will assume I mean to ask if parents want to choose whether or not, when referring to their own child, the noun "child" will be neuter, masculine or feminine.

Also, I have no fear that anyone will think that parents want to genetically manipulate their child to make it more "masculine" or more "feminine" (socially speaking). Now, perhaps someday we will have the ability to do such a thing and people will actually want to do it. At that time, we may need to reconsider the words we use because we will want terminology for "make male or female" as opposed to "make masculine or feminine." Right now, though, such precision is not required and thus is not expressed in the words we use.

I realize that for some the employment of such precision is necessary and even that creating such a distinction for the possibility of needing it in the future would be a virtue (because when we don't make allowances for such eventualities, we end up having to change a lot). However, that is not the way that ordinary language works. It is rarely as precise as we might like it and it necessarily contains all sorts of ambiguities (both latent, as above, and overt). Or, to use Friedrich Waismann's phrasing, ordinary language has a lot of "open texture."

What the hell is wrong with you? You sound like as ignorant as a Christian when you write crap like that. What's the point of even having a language if people don't try to use it properly. Gender already has a definition. If we merge the two words into one, how does anyone actually refer to gender anymore. The answer is, they can't.

Whereas Keith here sounds mature and intelligent, right? Should I take his writing as a model for my own? Unlike so many, Keith answered my response and apologize for both the tone and the language - he recognized that it was pointless and unproductive to state things in such a manner.

As to his idea about what would happen if the two terms were merged, he would be right only if "gender" and "sex" merged so completely that "gender" lost every other connotation other than what is also denoted by "sex." But there is no reason to think that will happen and it certainly has not happened.

Gender has three general connotations: biological sex, social role, and grammatical "sense." Which one is meant is dependent upon context. If we hear on the news that there was a large "gender gap" in the last election, which of those three connotations would we think was meant? The first, of course. We know that, in this context, "gender" means "biological sex." The words we use can't be understood without careful consideration of the context of their use. In the context of my article, "gender" means the same as "biological sex," as demonstrated by how the industry itself uses the term in the same context.

More selections from the Agnosticism / Atheism Mailbag...