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Re: Dog as masculine (the watchdog debate)
Greg Laden (gladen@HUSC.HARVARD.EDU)
Wed, 7 Feb 1996 21:16:30 -0500
On Wed, 7 Feb 1996, Gretchen wrote:
> But dog
> is just a taxonomic nomenclature. Same as fish, cat and giraffe.
exactly. And indeed, this is not an alegory, but a direct analogy:
There are, in fact, watch dogs. Dogs that watch, for a living. A person
who is a watch dog is a person who watched. Watchperson dosn't sound the
same, but means the same thing. I can't imagine why watchdog is a sexist
(or even gender-laden) term!
Greg Laden
Department of Anthropology
Harvard University
11 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge MA 02138
gladen@fas.harvard.edu
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