By Katy Grimes

The radical feminists are on a roll. They continue to make gains in their attempt to make “man” and “men” officially unacceptable terms in government.

The latest weird politically correct idea to make it into legislation seeks to remove alleged “gender bias” from the language — at taxpayer expense. Using the word “man” is no longer allowed.

Washington state is now actively replacing “gender bias” words with new gender-neutral references, and requires the use of such words as “handwriting” instead of “penmanship,” “signal operator” for “signalman,”  “fisherman” with “fisher” and  “freshman” with “first-year-student.” There are no more “journeyman plumbers”; now they are “journey-level plumbers.”

I’m not sure what a “journey-level” is. This ridiculousness proves that gender-neutral language is ungrammatical, and not allowed in AP Style. How will I write?

Kinder, gentler, gender-neutral state

In February, I wrote “A kinder, gentler, gender-neutral state,” about the creepy push to take the word “man” out of law books, school books, and spoken language.

Washington state had already spent the last six years changing language in the law books of the state.

Word such as “dairymen,” “freshmen” and even “penmanship” were on the short list for neutering when I wrote my story in February. And now they have been neutered.

When I was in college, I worked at a grocery store as a “box boy,” also known as a “bag boy.” During my two-year stint, the offensive term was changed to “courtesy clerk.”

“Nearly 3,500 Washington state code sections, out of a total of about 40,000 have been tediously scrubbed of gender bias, although most involve adding pronouns ‘she’ and ‘her’ to augment the existing ‘he’ and ‘his,'” the Huffington Post reported recently.

Washington’s Legislature,  controlled by Democrats, recently passed the bill outlawing these manly words and ordered the state’s law books to be painstakingly edited to reflect the new man-free law.

According to the Huffington Post, Washington is the fourth state to eliminate gender “bias” from its official lexicon. Florida, North Carolina and Illinois preceded Washington.

Some think this is a proper use of lawmakers’ time, and taxpayer money because of their belief that we must eliminate gender “bias” from the language.  “Nearly 3,500 Washington state code sections, out of a total of about 40,000 have been tediously scrubbed of gender bias, although most involve adding pronouns ‘she’ and ‘her’ to augment the existing ‘he’ and ‘his,'” the Daily Mail UK reported.

But what about the words WoMAN, FeMALE, MANager, MAN, ReaSON, PerSON, GovernMENt? What will we do when we have to use these offensive words? I am guessing “HIStory” will no longer be allowed; “HERstory” will probably replace it.

Perhaps someone will author a bill to change the word “politician” to “dimwit.”

By Katy Grimes

Have you noticed the press releases from legislators at the state Capitol are all gender-neutral? Lawmakers and staff refer to each other as “Assembly members,” and not “Assemblywoman” or “Assemblyman.”

And even more ridiculously, the don’t refer to a Committee head as a “Chairwoman” or “Chairman;” they call each other “Chair.”

Washington state is taking this gender-neutral form of speaking to a new level. “In Washington state, dairymen, freshmen and even penmanship could soon be things of the past,” Fox News reported.

Attempts to fix language are misguided to the point of absurdity. Remember “huperson,” “woperson,” “personslaughter” and “personhole” covers?

Former Sacramento Mayor Anne Rudin became the butt of jokes for her attempt to rename manhole covers, “personhole” covers.

New lingo

Washington state officials have spent the last six years changing language in the law books of the state, as the AP photo above shows. But gender-neutral language is ungrammatical, and not allowed in AP Style. 

“So while the state has already welcomed ‘firefighters,’ ‘clergy’ and ‘police officers’ into its lexicon, ‘ombuds’ (in place of ombudsman) and ‘security guards’ (previously ‘watchmen,’) appear to be next, along with ‘dairy farmers,’ ‘first-year students’ and ‘handwriting,’ Fox reported.

The feminists have finally won — they have eraced “men” even from the law books.

“But language matters. It’s how we signal a level of respect for each other,” Seattle Councilmember Sally Clark said.

What’s wrong with calling Clark a “Councilwoman?”

“Clark and former councilmember Jan Drago — the Seattle City Council has long eschewed the terms councilwoman or councilman — brought the issue to Sen. Jeannie Kohl-Welles in 2006 after they came across references to firemen and policemen in the mayor’s proposed budget, as well as in state law dealing with local-government pensions.”

“I don’t see the need to do gender neutrality,” Republican state Rep. Shelly Short said, adding that her constituents want her to focus on jobs and the economy. “We’re women and we’re men.”

Even more disturbing, is how much taxpayer money has been spent on this absurd project. Kyle Thiessen, the state’s code reviser, has been working on the project along with two attorneys since 2008. I wonder how many support staff are dedicated to this ridiculous project.

Exactly how will this help Washington’s economy, debt, standard of living, or job creation?

California used to be a trendsetter, from boogie boards to surf music. Now it’s a retrograde state. It’s going in the wrong direction.

Gov. Jerry Brown is proposing a massive income-tax hike. Others, such as leftist lawyer Molly Munger, are proposing even bigger income-tax hikes. Great way to kill jobs.

Other states are leading the way by moving to abolish their income taxes. Some already have: Texas, New Hampshire, Alaska, Washington, Nevada, South Dakota, Florida and Tennessee.

Now, under Gov. Mary Fallin, Oklahoma is working to be better than OK by phasing out out its income tax over the next decade.

Why can’t California get a governor like Mary Fallin? Why do we get a 1970s retread trying to bring back the Disco Decade?

The Wall Street Journal reports: “Maine, Nebraska, New Jersey and Ohio are debating income-tax cuts this year….

“The experience of states like Florida, New Hampshire, Tennessee and Texas also refutes the dire forecasts that eliminating income taxes will cause savage cuts in schools, public safety and programs for the poor. These states still fund more than adequate public services and their schools are generally no worse than in high-income tax states like California, New Jersey and New York.They have also recorded faster revenue growth to pay for government services over the past two decades than states with income taxes. That’s because growth in the economy from attracting jobs and capital has meant greater tax collections.”

Get that, tax increasers? When you cut taxes, you attract businesses. Businesses create jobs. The new businesses and jobs then generate more economic activity. The additional economic activity then generates more tax revenues, even at lower tax rates.

It’s true that some of the states — Alaska, Oklahoma and Texas — enjoy large revenues from oil and natural gas production. But as we reported here on CalWatchDog.com yesterday — here and here — California continues to repress energy development.

Our enviro-crazies, beginning with Brown, would rather kill off all energy-related jobs and drive the state into bankruptcy than scar Gaia, their earth goddess.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback is working on phasing out his state’s 6.45 percent state income tax. A sensible fellow, he said: “Our goal is for our economy to look more like Texas, and a lot less like California.”

Tax-increase Gov. Brown vs. tax-cut Gov. Brownbeck. That’s what it comes down to.

Feb. 9, 2012