[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 15 (Friday, February 7, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1125-S1126]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO CASEY MILLER

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, a third subject matter I raise here in 
morning business today is one that did not get national attention 
except for those who may have been interested. But I want to pay 
tribute to a neighbor of mine, Mr. President, a neighbor and a friend, 
a woman who truly revolutionized the way we speak and write in this 
country. Casey Miller is her name.
  Throughout her life, Casey Miller promoted and venerated the role of 
women in our society by fighting to eradicate gender-specific language 
from everyday speech.
  Postal worker, artisan, police officer, and restaurant server are 
just some of the words that enter the glossary of modern English 
because of Casey Miller. While many falsely see these words as 
political correctness gone awry, they in fact represent a genuine 
effort to place America's women on the same linguistic standing as men.
  Her book, ``The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing'' is still considered 
the standard reference guide on how to correctly utilize language in 
order to properly address and speak of women. Too often in everyday 
discussions we use the words ``man,'' ``men,'' and ``he,'' as if they 
were interchangeable for all people. But these words only describe the 
role of the male gender and they demean to many women the significant 
position of women in our society.
  As the English novelist Thomas Hardy once said, ``It is difficult for 
a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men 
to express theirs.'' The fact is that ``the man on the street'' may be 
the woman with a strong opinion. Things that are ``man-made'' are often 
built by women. The ``man of the house'' is by no means always a man. 
And the ``land where our fathers died'' is the same land of our 
mothers.
  Through Casey Miller's writings, more and more Americans became aware 
of the implicit discrimination in our language and the distinct 
individuality of women in our society. Though she was not a household 
name, Mr. President, for most Americans, her impact on the way we write 
and speak has been profound. For all of her efforts she deserves the 
appreciation of women and men across this country of ours.
  Besides her groundbreaking work on behalf of women, Casey Miller was 
an active and vital participant in humanitarian and philanthropic 
causes.
  Through Childreach, the U.S. branch of Planned Parenthood 
International, Ms. Miller served as a foster parent for dozens of 
children in poor and disadvantaged countries. What is more, she shared 
her good fortune with others, generously donated to her alma mater 
Smith College, the NAACP, and the Humane Society.
  On a personal level I rise here, Mr. President, to talk about Casey 
Miller who passed away a number of days ago not just because she was a 
pioneer in the feminist movement, served our country in uniform in 
previous conflicts, but she was a dear friend, and she happens to have 
been my next door neighbor in Connecticut. More than just being an 
activist and someone who made a significant contribution through a 
particular avenue that she sought, she was a wonderful, wonderful, 
friend. I cannot tell you the countless breakfasts, lunches, and 
dinners, so lively across the lawn. I could spend an evening with Casey 
Miller and Kate Swift, her lifetime friend and partner.
  For millions of us across the country, Casey Miller has had an 
impact--you may not know her name--for the way we speak today, for the 
changes that have occurred. Even in our own legislative body Casey 
Miller made a significant contribution.
  Mr. President, I just wanted to rise this morning and pay tribute to 
my neighbor. I will miss her very, very much. She was a wonderful 
friend, a great person, an individual who proved, once again, that one 
person can truly make a difference in our society.
  I ask unanimous consent that two editorials about Casey Miller be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

        Casey Miller, 77, a Promoter of Using Nonsexist Language

                        (By Lawrence Van Gelder)

       Casey Miller, a writer and editor who was a pioneering 
     advocate of nonsexist language, died on Sunday at her home in 
     East Haddam, Conn. She was 77.
       Kate Swift, her close friend and co-author, said the cause 
     of death was chronic obstructive lung disease.
       Beginning in the early 1970's, Ms. Miller and Ms. Swift co-
     wrote numerous books and articles on English usage and its 
     relationship to the status of women. Writing in a climate of 
     increasing sensitivity and opposition to language that 
     relegated women to secondary status, Ms. Miller and Ms. Swift 
     waged a forceful campaign against what many considered sexist 
     language. If not all their proposals (like ``genkind'' to 
     replace mankind) found their way into everyday usage, the 
     women nonetheless helped to raise awareness of oppression by 
     language.
       Ms. Miller and Ms. Swift were the authors of ``Words and 
     Women,'' published in 1976 by Doubleday and 1991 by 
     HarperCollins, and ``The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing,'' 
     published in 1980 by Lippincott & Crowell and in 1988 by 
     HarperCollins. They also wrote many articles on sexism in 
     English that appeared in national periodicals and in more 
     than 30 anthologies and textbooks.
       They achieved widespread recognition as authorities on the 
     subject of linguistic disparagement of women with ``One Small 
     Step for Genkind,'' a 1972 article in The New York Times 
     Magazine that was reprinted in college textbooks as recently 
     as last year.
       In it, they wrote: ``Except for words that refer to females 
     by definition (mother, actress, Congresswoman), and words for 
     occupations traditionally held by females (nurse, secretary, 
     prostitute), the English language defines everyone as male. 
     The hypothetical person (``If a man can walk 10 miles in two 
     hours . . . ), the average person (``the man in the street'') 
     and the active person (``the man on the move'') are male. The 
     assumption is that unless otherwise identified, people in 
     general--including doctors and beggars--are men.
       ``It is a semantic mechanism that operates to keep women 
     invisible; `man' and `mankind' represent everyone; `he' in 
     generalized use refers to either sex; the ``land where our 
     fathers died'' is also the land of our mothers--although they 
     go unsung. As the beetle-browed and mustachioed man in a 
     Steig cartoon says to his two male drinking companions, `When 
     I speak of mankind, one thing I don't mean is womankind.' ''
       Ms. Swift said yesterday that the idea for the article grew 
     out of their first collaboration as editors in 1970, on a sex 
     education handbook for high schools that talked about the 
     nature of man and man's behavior and used the pronoun ``he'' 
     in ways that made it impossible to know whether the author 
     was writing about both males and females or only about males.
       ``We began to think this was a field that needed to be 
     written about and explored,'' Ms. Swift said.
       Their articles on the subject first appeared in New York 
     magazine and in the first issue of Ms. magazine. The New York 
     Times Magazine article appeared on April 16, 1972, and ``got 
     an awful lot of negative comment,'' Ms. Swift said.
       Casey Geddes Miller was born on Feb. 26, 1919, in Toledo, 
     Ohio. She received a bachelor of arts degree in 1940 from 
     Smith College, where she was a philosophy major. During World 
     War II, she served for three years in the Navy, working in 
     Washington in naval intelligence.
       She was on the staff of Colonial Williamsburg from 1947 to 
     1954, when she became the curriculum editor of the publishing 
     house of the Episcopal Church, Seabury Press. Ten years 
     later, she became a free-lance editor, working at her home in 
     Greenwich and after 1967 in East Haddam, where she formed her 
     editorial partnership with Ms. Swift.
       She is survived by her sisters, Kate R. Gregg of Falmouth, 
     Me., and Caroline S. Cooper of Gilmanton, N.H.
                                                                    ____


                         Taking on ``Mankind''

       Gender-neutral phrases like postal carrier and police 
     officer roll off our tongues nowadays as if they had always 
     been a part of our linguistic consciousness. But we know 
     that's not true. Until a few years ago, the English language 
     was loaded with male-biased terms.
       A turning point came in 1980, with the ``Handbook of 
     Nonsexist Writing,'' today considered the standard reference 
     on how to avoid degrading women with words. Its co-authors 
     were Casey Miller and Kate Swift of East Haddam.
       Ms. Miller died Sunday at the age of 77.
       In dozens of magazine articles and two books, Ms. Miller 
     and Ms. Swift made a strong case for banishing gender-biased 
     words from our everyday language.
       Many of their proposals--such as eliminating suffixes -ess 
     and -ette and replacing loaded words like ``craftsman'' with 
     the neutral ``artisan''--have been widely adopted.

[[Page S1126]]

       The two authors drew attention to other sexist expressions, 
     from founding fathers to working wife to old wives' tale, 
     arguing that prejudices in language reflect the mostly white, 
     Anglo-Saxon patriarchal society in which our grammar and 
     vocabulary developed. Such terms are destructive, Ms. Miller 
     and Ms. Swift wrote, because they perpetuate stereotypes 
     demeaning to women.
       Theirs were persuasive arguments.
       A graduate of Smith College, Ms. Miller's lifelong passions 
     were words and language. As a lieutenant during World War II, 
     she helped to break codes used by Japanese in the Pacific. 
     Later she worked in publishing before moving to East Haddam 
     in 1967 to begin her career as a freelance editor and writer.
       Although hers was not a household name, Ms. Miller has left 
     a more lasting legacy than others who have achieved celebrity 
     status: Changing the way Americans write and speak.

  Mr. DODD. I thank my colleagues for allowing me to digress. Mr. 
President, I yield the floor.

                          ____________________