We have previously discussed the national trend in colleges and universities to require faculty to use an increasing number of different pronouns for students. Faculty questioning such alternative pronouns have been subject to discipline or condemnation. There is even a move in states like California to criminalize the failure to use alternative pronouns. Now, the women’s college Mount Holyoke has ordered faculty to avoid calling its students “women” since some students may identify as non-genders or different genders.
Mount Holyoke College was created by Mary Lyon as an all-women educational institution. However, the college now maintains that the use of the word “women” will result in “misgendering” students and even warns against such language as “‘We’re all women here…’”
These new designations have led to an equally elastic list of pronouns. So at the University of Vermont, students can choose “he,” “she,” “they,” and “ze,” as well as “name only.” Other options are captures on the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee card given to faculty and students:
Reblogged this on The Inquiring Mind and commented:
Why are so many of these ‘places of learning ‘ demonstrating such stupidity?
How is Mount Holyoke enrollment holding up?
The English language is already confusing enough to both Anglophones and non-English mother tongue speakers. Leave it alone. So if I identify as a rich person, does that make me one? If I identify as a Native American, can I then take advantage of the opportunities only available to Native Americans? Where is the “identify with…” line drawn?
Yeah, there’s lots of people signing up for those “opportunities” – unemployment, discrimination, high rates of alcoholism and diabetes, shortened life spans, etc. – that are “only available to Native Americans.”
God forbid White people should be discriminated against and not receive those opportunities…