we were talking about this in my humanities class the other day; its usually said that being "colorblind" as in not seeing the color of race. and being gender neutral not realizing man from woman...is a good thing, but is it?
i think its important to acknowledge, if your a white person in a room of black people and you keep talking about "well our ancestors..." thats not gonna mean crap to them and they might even be affended that your assoicating yourself with them.
my teacher brought up a valid point when we all (my class) said that its a good thing to be gender neutral...to not acknowledge gender; male from female. but then she said "well is it okay for me to call Michael here a girl..." and she went more indepth about how we need to acknowledge gender but just not let it play a role in most of your decisions.
but at the same time, say youre running a business, you need someone to move a bunch of heavy boxes for you, are you going to ask the man or the woman? you think of the man correct? well it does make a difference if your man is short, looks apparently weak, kind of shy and nerdy. and your woman is a tall, strong woman, you hear her mention the gym alot. your going to choose the woman. and visa versa.
so is it better to be gender neutral and color blind or only to a certain degree?
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the point of being color blind and gender neutral is just so people won't be biased and discriminate. i don't think a woman would be upset if a man was chosen to do a job that involved strength if he was actually stronger.
I find it very foolish to call a Michael a female unless the said Michael is, in fact, a female. That's taking it too far. Same thing with the "our ancestors" bit when you have a clearly white speaker among those of other colors.
But, otherwise, I do think it's generally important not to see much in gender or skin color. There are a million other factors that are much more important.
"Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt."
"Freedom of press is limited to those who own one."
H. L. Mencken
i am with you guys on this subject, my teacher is kind of a quark...because i said all the things you said at first; and then she brought up the points of being colorblind is to not see and judge color. at all. and the same with gender neutral and everyone (like me and you) say its such a good thing to be colorblind or gender neutral...but if you are completely colorblind and gender neutral...you would call michael a girl and you would say "our ancestors" in the room of another race. that was her point. interesting, eh?