I had the cause to seek out an ombudsman recently. The office is now called Ombuds. Fine by me, I talked to a woman.
What’s funny is the choice of the word “mission” in that terminology. Back in 2015 the FAA took away mission out of air ambulance phraseology. Mission, is from military parlance and has a connotation of “acceptable losses.” We were to use “Flight” instead. I still use mission but don’t tell my boss that.
Changing of the term due to people getting worked up, and getting worked up about the change are two sides of the same coin.
Where I work there is a chapter of the Society for Black Engineers. A white coworker nominated himself as Engineer of the Year. Everything was great until the interview. Now the application requires a photo.
Oooh! We call our flights “photo missions” quite a bit. Wonder if that means I have a previously un-recognized built-in safety hazard! Ironically, though, I feel my mission is incomplete unless the photos end up in the client’s possession…
“Woke” - and complaining about it - have been going on for AT LEAST 2,000 years. One guy literally got crucified for it that long ago, by the conservatives of the day who didn’t want their view of things changed. 500 years ago another guy came up with 95 reasons the powers of the day were off the mark. That resulted in people being burned at the stake for believing the wrong, “woke” things. Literally millions lost their lives over that argument over the centuries. It’s part of our DNA to fight change - especially if the change takes away an advantage we personally have. Just an observation…
Just because someone identifies as a cauliflower doesn't make them a cauliflower, nor should we be required to treat them as one. If some bum on the street claims he's the Son of God, I'm gonna treat him like I treat all these woke people - like he should be institutionalized.
I knew from years of painful study that German has three: masculine, feminine, and neuter. I knew there were other languages with three forms, so I went down that rabbit hole to Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_type_of_grammatical_genders Single-form languages are the most common, followed by the two-gender form languages, followed by the three-gender form languages. There are over 30 of those, including Old English. Then there are languages that classify nouns based on animate/inanimate distinctions (sometimes also with gender forms), and a handful of languages with more than three grammatical genders.
Sometimes it's a pain with the genders in languages. I know my male dog is always offended. Russian has 3 noun genders. Common noun for a dog is female gender. There is actually a different word for a male dog, but it's not commonly used. So my family constantly calls my dog a "she".
I actually agree with everything you said (and note that history doesn’t always record exactly what someone said or did, especially in a basically pre-literate society). I’ve also learned over time that there are things I don’t understand. That doesn’t necessarily make them right or wrong - just that I don’t understand everything. So I’m not personally willing to make as many blanket statements about those things, especially early on.
I don’t think those are direct comparisons. Instead of “the language you use doesn’t specifically include women,” it’s more equivalent to “you say you include women, but here I am and you’re not including me,” or “You used to include women, but now you don’t.”
I get the sense that the Institute for Women Of Aviation Worldwide don't want to hear about your members either. unamused_churchlady.gif
Well, there's no need to make it an "us versus them" sort of thing. For example, we low-wing saints don't really hate the misguided high-wing heathen. No, we actually love them despite their folly and we pray for their enlightenment and repentance.
There was a turbo Arrow at my club for a while. I loved it! Took it from the Bay Area nearly to the Canadian border once.
What is great is I am a member of, to my knowledge, the only Gentleman's only club in my state. In the club charter, formed in 1956, only males can be members. Although, women are allowed to social functions as long as they’re accompanied by their male. There is an 8 year waiting list just to be able to apply for membership.
I once saw the spelling of "women" changed to "womyn." Obviously not all women are alike, anymore than all men are. When I was growing up in Seattle, my mother and her friends referred to themselves as "girls." When I moved to Boston, I was informed that callings women "girls" was frowned upon. OK, I don't have a problem with calling people whatever they want to be called (within reason).
I guess that's why "flight deck" is favored, even for itty bitty aircraft. Of course it could just be a reference to a place where fights between male chickens are staged.
Wrote a post for Facebook including a link to one of my web pages. The posting was greyed-out, which means it was under review. The only reason I could see is that the web page referred to open-cockpit flying..... Ron Wanttaja
Along those lines, I'm pretty un-woke about certain things, but on the other hand, I don't have any wish to make life difficult for people I don't understand.
So true. Finally, someone says something reasonable. It only took to Page 2 to get there. Yes, I get ****ed off by words like "airman" as being exclusionary. No, I don't let such words ruin my experience in aviation. Yes, I think the FAA has more important changes it could make. But yes, I appreciate an organization like the FAA making the effort. It does speak. Maybe not to you, but to others. No, I don't think the change will solve anything in this generation. But it might help the next one. Changing the way you use language is one of the easiest things a person can do to make a big difference to another person in a positive way. There are lots of problems in the world that are hard. Language is low-hanging fruit. Yes, organizations like the 99's and WIA are of value. Because: you know that feeling of belonging and being understood by your peers? Male aviators have already got it, and we deserve it sometimes too. Yes, men can come to 99's events. Yes, I will get ****ed off if you refer to me as a "girl". (A girl is a child.) No, I don't mind being asked about these things. In fact, I vastly prefer it to having people (especially a roomful of men) just assume they know.
No. But thank you for asking. "Person" derives from the Latin "persona", which has to do with the character facing the world, has nothing to do with gender, and doesn't carry cultural baggage.
Language use evolves always, there’s never been a period of language stagnation. Try reading George Washington’s farewell address and it has to be read slowly and even with assistance of extra information to understand, and it’s technically American English- just from an era gone by. Every era goes by… nothing ever stays the same-ever. My airmanship isn’t challenged or demeaned by notams change to “air missions”. It’s yawn worthy. take a breath, times change, language changes and evolves- nothing new here to see nor get upset about…
"Human" also comes from the Latin in a non-gendered way. By contrast, "Airman" is a product of modern English, in which "air" was just spliced together with "man" -- which does carry gendered implications. So "human" does not have cultural baggage, whereas "airman" does.
Human --> man --> every single title that has man in it. It only has cultural baggage if you allow it to. Just like being offended by something. That's all on the person that's offended. Can't have it both ways either remove all masculine references including man or son or none of them.
