In response to the reading on gender, being sexist and talking about people with disabilities I find myself kind of stuck. I feel it is important to treat people as equals regardless of race, ethnicity or gender. However, if a person is a man in business I think he should be called a businessman, if there is a woman in business I think she should be called a businesswoman. I know that there is this huge issue over political correctness and I really wish people would just cut the crap and say how it really is. Obviously I think that women should have the same opportunities as men because they too are individuals. I think that if a person is doing a bad job then they should be fired. I think that if a person has had a stroke then it is totally fine to refer to them as a stroke victim. I cannot think of a person that would offend. Blind and deaf I think are the same way. If you are blind then you are blind. A blind person will not come up to you and say, ‘hello, I have no vision can you read me the menu.’ He is going to tell you he is blind, expect you will help him out, and you will. I think that it is important for people to be mutually respectful of one another and that terminology has been made too big of an issue. I feel that if one certain person calls you a name you don’t like then you should hash it out with them instead of speaking for all those with your same characteristics (i.e. blind, deaf, woman, man, stroke victim) and assume they too dislike that particular term.
In one of my other classes we read a book called “Tally’s Corner” and it talked about how back in the 1970’s Blacks were fighting to have the politically correct term at that time, Negro, capitalized. They fought for the term they wish to be referred to as to be made to begin with a capitol ‘N.’ Now obviously people in that race no longer wish to be called Negros, but Black or African American but the point I’m trying to make is that things change and as they do so do the terms people wish to be referred to as. The author of the article simply explained what he felt was politically correct language to use, but in the future and maybe even now people are looking at his article and thinking that it is outdated.