Thursday, March 26, 2015

An Alderman by any other name . . .

Marash Girl received the following email today from Newton's Alderwoman (formerly known as Alderman) Emily Norton.

Call Me Councilor… City Councilor.  I am pleased to report that by a vote of 19-5, the Board of Aldermen voted last week to amend the City Charter to change our titles from “Alderman” to “City Councilor.” We also scrubbed the charter of other gendered references, such as changing “Chairman” to “Chair” and “School Committeemen” to “School Committee members.” The measure now must be filed by our State representatives and passed by the Legislature as a home rule petition.

Marash Girl has many questions.  
1)  What shall we do with the word "human"?

2)  Juliet (in Shakeseare's ROMEO & JULIET) states, 

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet. . ." 

or not, as the case may be. . . 

3) Do we really need gender references scrubbed?  Marash Girl kind of likes being known as Marash Girl and not Marash Writer or Marash Person or Marash Descendant or Marash Adult or Marash Writer or Marash Chamur . . . You get the point.

Your thoughts?

2 comments:

  1. Well, Newton has been good at staying ahead of the curve on various political correctness issues. This is yet another example. That said, Newton is a city (and has been since 1873!). It's about time the elected representatives are now officially City Councilors!

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  2. Boy, do I agree with your post today!!! What's wrong with Alderman? Maybe it is that I am just so old and so sexist!

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