Should there be an F in GALA?

[Cynthia McLemore]

>Sociolinguistic differences include things like language use (women speak
>Garifuna more, men speak Creole more) and bilingualism (Garifuna men are
>more likely to be multilingual than women).
>
> I think of these phenomena as gender linguistics, and there is no need
>for feminism in this type of study (tho I'm certainly not anit-feminist).
>It does seem to limit things to restrict GALA to feminist language and
>gender issues.
>
>Geneva Langworthy
>Taos, New Mexico

I agree.  I've been teaching Language and Gender at Princeton this
semester as a sub-topic of sociolinguistics, and down here in the
pedagogical trenches the issue of feminist-or-not doesn't seem very
relevant.  But maybe I've missed some of the discussion here about the
consequences of GALA's political identity.

Cynthia McLemore