After reading Beth Behland’s column about the freshman English experiment with gender-neutral word choice, I’m both amazed and amused.

As a baby-boomer committed to feminism (“that dirty word that many females try to distance themselves from,” according to Behland), I sometimes wonder how my generation managed to produce young women so totally ignorant of women’s history.

Equally puzzling is the hostility some display toward the continuing struggle for women’s equality.

Behland writes that “with any luck,” equal pay for equal work is on its way to begin a universal standard. But as most of us understand, it takes a great deal more than luck to effect such a profound social change.

Years of protests, demonstrations, speeches, petitions, lobbying, striking, suing, persuading, and demanding have brought us a long way.

It’s these tactics that seem to embarrass many young people. How tacky it is to carry a picket sign! How pushy is it to insist on equal treatment! How fanatic is it to press for non-sexist language!

It’s my hope that those who feel this way are still too young and naive to realize that it’s foolish to accept the benefits gained for them by feminists, but to reject any overt attempt at further progress.

When an example of that attempted progress is simply an increased sensitivity to language choice, it’s pretty hard to take seriously a charge of “blatant censorship.”

If teaching students to be balanced, fair, and non-sexist in their writing is censorship, then journalists have been practicing it for years.

I teach my high school journalists directly from the 1982 edition of the United Press International Stylebook, which says in part: “Women should receive the same treatment as men in all areas of coverage. Physical descriptions, sexist references, demeaning stereotypes, and condescending phrases should not be used … treatment of the sexes should be evenhanded and free of assumptions and stereotypes.”

Censorship? Never. Fairness? Definitely.

Barbara Henson

DeKalb citizen