Nature of GALA

[Alice Freed]

Hi everyone,

     I understand the concern that some have expressed about the
idea of a "national" organization for the study of Language and
Gender as opposed to an international one. Perhaps, however, this doesn't
have to be a very complicated discussion. Knowing the facilitators
as I do, I am sure that none of them intended this discussion or
the future organization to be in any way exclusionary.

     One solution would be to simply call this the "Gender and
Language Association" without designating anything one
way or another about its national or international affiliation.
Since the facilitators of the discussion and the location of
the server are in the United States (at least for now),  it
may seem to be dominated by people residing in the
USA but this doesn't have to be the case. On the other hand,
the LSA (Linguistic Society of America), and a number of other
organizations, the despite the word "America" in
their names, have an international membership. I do assume that this
is what everyone wants.

     I would like to see an organization that focuses on the
importance of our field of research and the need for (and
possible means of) disseminating our concerns to a wider public.

     Alice Freed

     ____________________________

     Alice F. Freed
     Department of Lingusitics
     Montclair State University
     Upper Montclair, NJ 07043 (USA)
     (973) 655-7505
     freeda at alpha.montclair.edu