androcentric generic man

The use of androcentric generic man, together with its compounds(such as chairman, manpower), has become a potential problem for effective communication in the language of English and its usage should be avoided. In general, when a particular person's gender is unknown, people are willing to use nouns that are gender-neutral to refer to that person, among which generic man is often used. What has been raised as a feminist issue is that since man can act both as a epicene and masculine noun, the usage of this word to represent people in general is claimed to be sexist. Many people think that its usage should be abolished. However, there are also people disagree with them saying that the neutral sense of man should retain. In my point of view, the generic use of man should be replaced by other terms due to the ambiguity it creates by its double-meaning characteristic, and sexism it brings when referring to both sexes by the masculine word. In the following part of this essay, I will use three sources to argue for my point. The study Frank(1989) did concentrated on the linguisticians' arguments of whether the generic man should be abolished. It provides people's view toward this controversial issue. I will present his study by analyzing reasons for why or why not this generic word should be avoided in the next paragraph. Cooper (1989)'s study relevant to my point is his research about people's declining frequency in using double-meaning man, which will be discussed in the second body paragraph . Following this: I will, firstly, to explain why man should not be used as a gender-blind word from linguistic and feministic perspective. Then, to show the usage is actually not very practical by summarizing the declining frequency of using in the formal writing. Finally, to show that there are better ways to refer to both sexes than the generic use of man according to Baron's (1986) suggestions about all kinds of possible solutions for the avoidance of man. The