outies

In the Viking culture(ca 789-1066), to be a homosexual man was not automatically considered to be unnatural, evil or perverted. These concepts were introduced together with christianity. Nevertheless, vikings looked down upon homosexual men that did not want to get married(a fuðflogi, or "man who flees the female sex organ") as well as homosexual men who took the passive part of the relationship.

The word for a man who played the passive or female part in a male homosexual relationship was ergi, and the the main reason for the scorn of such a man was that they were considered to be weak men; followers, rather than leaders. Many insults in Old Norse were related to the concept of Nið, or passive male homosexuality, including níðvisur ("insulting verses"), níðskald ("insult-poet"), níðingr ("coward, outlaw"), griðníðingr ("truce-breaker"), níðstöng ("scorn-pole"). It is interesting that as late in the mid-twentieth century the word "niding" was still in occasional use in the Swedish language to mean "an evil or bad person, someone who does ill deeds".

All of my life I have always had the urge to do things better than anybody else.
- Babe Didrikson Zaharias

Introduction

Mildred 'Babe' Didrikson Zaharias, named by ESPN as the tenth-greatest athlete of the twentieth century, was born June 26, 1911¹ and died September 27, 1956 at the age of 45. A short list of her sports accomplishments include winning two gold medals and one silver medal in track and field at the 1932 Olympic games, and winning 82 golf tournaments.

Growing up

Before I was ever in my teens, I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up. My goal was to be the greatest athlete that ever lived.
- Didrikson

Born Mildred Ella Didriksen² in Port Arthur, Texas to Norwegian immigrant parents Ole and Hannah Didriksen, the family moved to nearby Beaumont, Texas after a hurricane in 1915. A tomboy, Didrikson along with her siblings were encouraged to play on the gymnasium equipment Ole built in the family's backyard. It was during neighborhood sandlot baseball games that she acquired the nickname Babe; the boys she played with thought she batted like Babe Ruth³.

When she entered Beaumont High School, Didrikson played a number of sports, including baseball, basketball, swimming, tennis, and volleyball. Only keeping her grades high enough to remain eligible to play sports, her best sport in high school was basketball (the most popular women's sport at the time) and the team never lost a game when Didrikson played.

Basketball and track

The formula for success is simple: practice and concentration then more practice and more concentration.
- Didrikson

Didrikson's basketball prowess attracted the attention of Colonel Melvorn J. McCombs of the Casualty Insurance Company in February of 1930, when she was still a senior in high school. With the promise she would have plenty of time to concentrate on athletics, Didrikson dropped out of high school and joined the company as a stenographer in order to play on the company's semiprofessional women's basketball team, the Golden Cyclones in Dallas, Texas. Voted onto the list of All-American women's basketball players for the next three years, Didrikson led the Cyclones to the finals in 1930 and 1932 and the championship in 1931. At that time in women's basketball, a team score in the twenties was considered good; Didrikson usually averaged a score of twenty points herself per game.

On July 16, 1932 at the Amateur Athletic Union championships Didrikson was the sole member of the Golden Cyclones track team, and in three hours she broke four world records. Out of the ten track and field events offered, Didrikson competed in eight and placed in seven. Taking first place in five events - the baseball throw, javelin, shotput, long jump and 80 meter hurdles - she tied for first in the high jump and came in fourth on the discus throw. She broke the world records in the 80m hurdles, baseball throw, high jump, and javelin events. Didrikson won the national women's team championship by herself that day with thirty points, with the second place twenty-two member Illinois Women's Athletic Club scoring twenty-two points.

1932 Olympics

The Babe is here. Who's coming in second?
- Didrikson

Having qualified for the Olympics in the javelin, 80m hurdles and the high jump at the AAU event, Didrikson became a member of the United States Olympic team of 1932. Actually, Didrikson had qualified for five events, but the Olympic rules at the time only allowed women to compete in three events. Her fellow Olympic teammates did not like Didrikson, considering her a braggart, overly aggressive, and a prima donna.

At the Los Angeles Olympic Games, Didrikson won the gold medal and set a world record in the 80m hurdles, won the gold medal in the javelin throw, and received a controversial silver medal and tied the world record in the high jump. Even though Didrikson tied for first place (and therefore the world record) with Jean Smiley in the high jump she received the silver medal because the judges ruled her form - going head-first over the bar, now known as the Western roll - was a foul, even though no foul was called on her previous jumps. Ticker-tape parades greeted her return to both Dallas and Beaumont, and Didrikson was named the "World's Greatest Girl Athlete" by the magazine Famous Athletes of Today, and "Female Athlete of the Year" for 1932 by the Associated Press.

Sports celebrity

You can't win them all -- but you can try.
- Didrikson

Losing her amateur status because she appeared in an automobile advertisement, Didrikson was no longer eligible to play with the Golden Cyclones. In order to earn money, the "Amazing Amazon" first travelled to Chicago, Illinois and appeared in a vaudeville act, where she performed athletic feats and played the harmonica. Later she travelled the country with a billiards exhibition team, formed a barnstorming professional basketball team (with both men and women) called Babe Didrikson's All-Americans, and participated in some 1934 baseball spring training exhibition games. Also in 1934, Didrikson joined the House of David baseball team on a nationwide tour, where she struck out Joe DiMaggio during one exhibition game.

Golf

I played many sports, but when that golf bug hit me, it was permanent.
- Didrikson

Sportswriter Grantland Rice suggested the "Texas Tornado" take lessons to improve her golf game, and in 1933 she went to California in between engagements and took lessons from Stan Kertes. Sometimes hitting 1000 golf balls a day until her hands were sore and had to be bandaged, Didrikson played her first golf tournament in 1934. Winning the Texas Women's Amateur Championship in 1935, the United States Golf Association ruled she was not eligible to play amateur golf, and Didrkson returned to touring the country giving exhibitions. Touring with golfer Gene Sarazen in 1935, sometimes she was able to drive the ball further than Sarazen, the winner of seven major golf tournaments, with Didrikson regularly driving the ball 250 yards.

Qualifying for the 1938 Los Angeles Open as the first woman to ever qualify for a men's Professional Golfer's Association tournament, Didrikson met George Zaharias, the "Weeping Greek from Cripple Creek", and they married on December 23, 1938. He became her manager, and she won the Western Open and Texas Open tournaments of 1940. Making a deal in 1940 with the USGA to regain her amateur status, the "Terrific Tomboy" agreed to not participate in professional athletic events for three years, and in 1943 she was again eligible to play in amateur tournaments.

Again in 1945 Didrikson was named Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year (she also won it in 1946, 1947, 1950, and 1954), and over the course of the 1946-1947 season she won thirteen consecutive tournaments (not seventeen as she would claim: she lost in the first round of the Spokane Open in 1946.) Before she turned pro in 1947, Didrikson became the first American to win the British Women's Amateur Championship and won seventeen of eighteen tournaments played.

Fred Corcoran became her manager when Didrikson turned pro in 1947, and the two of them, along with thirteen other women golfers, founded the Ladies Professional Golfer's Association in 1950 after the WPGA folded in 1949. Named Woman Athlete of the Half Century by the Associated Press in 1950, "Whatta-Gal Didrikson" won ten majors, including the 1948, 1950, and 1954 U.S. Women's Open, and had won every women's golf title at least once from 1940 to 1950.

Sexuality

In response to a female spectator asking where Didrikson's whiskers were:
I’m sittin' on ‘em, sister, same as you.
- Didrikson

Questions about Didrikson's sexuality⁴ were rampant during the 1932 Olympics; the press wondered if she was neither male nor female but some "third" category, and in the locker room at the Olympics some of the other female athletes accosted her to check for themselves. Labelled an "Amazon" (a code word for lesbian athlete by sportswriters of the day), questions remained until she married Zaharias. Once she was married, Didrikson began to play up her femininity - growing out her hair, getting her nails done, and dressing stylishly. Buying a home with her husband in Florida, Didrikson invited photographers over to see her posed in an apron playing the part of housewife; her obituary in the New York Times mentions that she "...spent considerable time making chintz curtains."

Unhappy with her marriage and wanting a separation, Didrikson began to travel openly with nineteen year old golfer Betty Dodd to golf tournaments in 1950. Unwilling to grant her wish, Zaharias and his wife apparently came to an agreement, and Dodd moved in with the couple, living there until Didrikson's death in 1956. Dodd and Didrikson even appeared together in 1953 on The Ed Sullivan Show, with Didrikson playing the harmonica and Dodd playing guitar. When Didrikson announced she had cancer in 1953, Dodd acted as her caretaker, and that seemed to mollify the public as to why Dodd was constantly with Didrikson.

Cancer

Well, that's the rub of the greens.
- Didrikson in response to learning her cancer had spread.

In April 1953 Didrikson was diagnosed with cancer, soon after winning the inaugural Babe Zaharias Open. Surgery was performed that same month, and the doctors said her professional athletic career was finished; though the original tumor was removed, the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes. A mere fourteen weeks after the operation, however, Didrikson was back to playing tournaments, and she won the Ben Hogan Trophy as comeback player of the year.

Persistent pain in Didrikson's hip was the first sign of trouble in 1955, and by that June the cancer had gotten bad enough that she spent the rest of her life in and out of the hospital. Along with her husband, Didrikson established the Babe Zaharias Fund in September of 1955 to help finance cancer clinics and treatment centers. The "Belting Babe" died on September 27, 1956 at John Sealy Hospital in Galveston, Texas and was buried in Beaumont.

The Babe Didrikson Zaharias Museum and Visitor's Center is located at 1477 North Martin Luther King Parkway in Beaumont, Texas and features memorabilia and trophies.

¹ Various sources list either 1911 or 1914 as her birthdate; her baptismal certificate and tombstone list 1911.

² Didrikson changed the spelling.

³ Another story says Didrikson was originally called "Baby" by her mother, and it became "Babe" later.

⁴ Though Didrikson never publicly admitted she was a lesbian, her partner, Betty Dodd, was interviewed for Susan Cayleff's biography BABE: The Life and Legend of Babe Didrikson Zaharias (University of Illinois Press, 1995) and talked about their relationship.

References:

http://www.theglassceiling.com/biographies/bio38.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/specials/magazine4/articles/zaharias1.html
http://www.famoustexans.com/babedidrikson.htm
http://www.greatwomen.org/women.php?action=viewone&id=177
http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00194636.html
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/siforwomen/top_100/2/
http://www.sacbee.com/static/archive/news/projects/people_of_century/sports/didrikson.html
http://search.eb.com/women/articles/Zaharias_Babe_Didrikson.html
http://www.outsports.com/history/BabeDidrikson.htm
http://myhero.com/myhero/hero.asp?hero=b_didrikson
http://beta.encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761576942/Babe_Didrikson_Zaharias.html
http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00014147.html
http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00014149.html
http://www.hoover.archives.gov/exhibits/AmericanWomen/11%20women/zaharias.html
http://www.10ktruth.com/the_quotes/babe.htm
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?path=/SportsRecreation/IndividualandTeamSports/Golf&id=h-835
http://www.traveltex.com/pg.asp?SN=2050054&LS=0&PN=4343

Thanks to liveforever for pointing out a factual error which has been corrected.

Ec"dy*sis (?), n.; pl. Ecdyses (#). [NL., fr. Gr. 'e`kdysis a getting out, fr. 'ekdy`ein, to put off; 'ek out + dy`ein to enter.] Biol.

The act of shedding, or casting off, an outer cuticular layer, as in the case of serpents, lobsters, etc.; a coming out; as, the ecdysis of the pupa from its shell; exuviation.

© Webster 1913.

The world could use another opinion.

Before I attempt a refutation of the accusation that Spivak pronouns are awkward, let me give you some of the reasons why I will personally use a Spivak pronoun, if I am put up against the wall. I will reiterate many ideas already found in the gender neutral pronoun node. You may want to begin by reading that node instead, and perhaps follow some of the softlinks therein. Come back whenever you're ready.

Let's begin. As the cliché goes, sexuality is fluid. There are many reasons why not to specify the gender of a person with language. First and foremost, because it is not important. Think about just how irrelevant gender is for almost anything but sexual intercourse (and even in that case, there are various work-arounds). Girls are more sensitive than boys? Boys are more self-assured than girls? Girls prefer creative arts; boys prefer rational sciences? Girls love boys who love them back? Hogwash! Counterexamples abound. Any such perceived boundaries are artificial and arbitrary.

It is not true that language shapes a person's thoughts, but it certainly expresses some of her perceptions. Is "he" really ungendered? The female pronoun "she" could be just as ungendered, right? Well, then why did you notice that I replaced "his" by "her" in the first sentence of this paragraph? The implications are there, very subtly, but always in the back of your mind. Doing something as natural as conjugating a verb in the past tense, you are reminding yourself that the action was done in the past. Using a gendered pronoun you will think of a generic male or female, a stick figure with or without a triangle skirt below the waist. You will very inadvertently form one image or another in your mind, and then attribute certain characteristics to that image that most likely do not apply at all! What if our language did not reflect gender, but say, the colour of our eyes? Think of what it would be like if every time you referred to someone, you needed a different pronoun depending if that person had dark or light eyes. Perhaps it makes a difference in certain situations, if you were writing a poem about kissing said person with both pairs of eyes open, for example, just as eir sex might be an important factor if you're writing an erotic story. For almost anything else, it doesn't make an iota of a difference! Gender is incidental.

So suppose you accept that modifying our language is a good idea, or at least to be careful about the phrases we pick in order to avoid specifying a gender. The most comfortable situation is when we can avoid using pronouns altogether. This avoids the necessity of making any choice at all. Unfortunately, this is only possible for so long. We are up against the wall, and we must use a pronoun in order to reduce the redundancy of English somewhat. No alternatives are evident. The next word must be a pronoun, if our sentence is to make any sense at all. Pick an ungendered pronoun, now! The accepted possibilities are:

1. Giving both gendered pronouns with a delimiter between them. Examples: he/she, him/her, his/her. There are several variants on the usage of the slash as a delimiter, such as "he or she", "he and/or she". It seems most common and accepted to put the male pronoun before the female pronoun, oh, for no reason whatsoever, really. We just like it that way, but we mean nothing by it.

2. Merging both gendered pronouns into a single word with parentheses. Example: (s)he. This only seems to work for personal pronouns, as the morphology of the possessive pronouns varies too much between the two genders to make this a viable alternative for the other pronouns.

3. Using the plural pronouns. They, them, their, theirs, themselves, themselves. These pronouns are already ungendered, but whatever verb is conjugated with them, must be conjugated in the plural. Sample sentences: "Chris sunbathes in the lawn. Their hair streams down their shoulders. The cold beer is a welcome sensation in their hand." Now it sounds as if we were talking of more than one Chris.
4. Randomly alternating between the male and female pronouns. Sample sentence: "Chris loves her body, since it gives him great pleasure to watch herself in the mirror when he is fully naked and without her inhibition." Clear as mud, is it not?

5. Using it, its, and itself. So now we would have "Chris loves its body, since it gives itself great pleasure to watch itself in the mirror when it is fully naked and without its inhibition." Mind you, nobody is objectifying Chris here.

I am obviously not being unbiased in my presentation of the orthodox alternatives. Some people attempt to salvage the above alternatives by introducing additional rules. For example, the silly sentence I made up for alternative 4 could be made more readable by picking only one pronoun for Chris, thereby failing to fulfill our purpose of assigning Chris a gender at all. Options 1 and 2, besides being long-winded also require you to put one gender in front of the other, precisely the sort of thing we are trying to avoid. Option 3 seems awkward, and gramatically leads to strange sentences. It seems clear that if you already accepted that the need for a modification of our language is not trivial, then you should also acknowledge that the not-so-tacit complaints to the standards above are not trivial either. These possible accepted solutions are as unnatural as making up new words. The next alternative to our gender quandary: make up some words!

Yes. I have to concede that Spivak pronouns are artificial. They did not arise naturally. However, we are making an effort to make them as natural as possible. Attempts to use the current English lexicon leads to awkward phrases, so might as well have an artifical lexicon with familiar phrases. It seems natural to require that a set of artificial pronouns should be

1. ungendered and singular.
2. mindful of English morphology and phonology.
3. easy to remember.
4. easy to understand.
5. inconspicuous.

I claim that the slightly modified set of Spivak pronouns ey, em, eir, eirs, emself satisfies the above requirements, unlike competing sets of artificial pronouns. By construction, the first requirement is trivially satisfied. Take an already existing set of pronouns that some suggest as a plausible orthodox alternative, and simulate a consonant drift by removing a few fricatives. By etymology, this set of pronouns satisfies conditions 2, 3, and 4. Spivak pronouns do not require semantic explanation. When most people encounter a Spivak pronoun, they often confuse it with a typo, but the meaning of the pronoun in the sentence is clear (except, of course, for the gender). Spivak pronouns can go completely unnoticed were it not for the helpful pipelinks.

Spivak pronouns have been accused of not being "real words". Pray tell, then, what IS a real word? A word is a linguistic unit that conveys a meaning or an idea, one or more morphemes that can be moved around in a sentence. Spivak pronouns convey a meaning that is very easy to guess without a whole writeup to explain their meaning. They are words. So is greyberry, if you ever run into such a thing, because you know exactly what to expect, even if you never saw it in any dictionary.

Spivak pronouns have also been censured for being distracting, awkward, and artificial. The last of these adjectives I have already conceded. As for the first two, all I can say is that it just takes a little while to get used to. Eventually, the awkwardness just goes away. Think about it like learning a piece of technical vocabulary. With a little practice, it may well become second nature.

Wait a minute... after all this mindless propaganda for Spivak pronouns, why did I begin this writeup by saying that I resort to Spivak pronouns only when I am up against the wall? Here comes an ideological apology. Spivak pronouns are still not accepted but (come the revolution!) some day they may be, and they already are in certain academic circles. For the rest of the time, there are certain ways to avoid them and still remain true to their spirit. In a fight-or-flee scenario, I believe that you many either avoid using a pronoun altogether, or use a Spivak pronoun. Certainly beats making any artificial choice of gender. Look at the intrinsic. The general. What lies within. Not at any particular accidental features of a person.

By the way, Spivak pronouns are not about sexism, feminism, racism, or any other ism I can think of. In particular, they are not about political correctness. Perhaps the pronouns are about this for other people, but not for me. 1984? Give me a break. Nobody is forcing you to modify your language into doublespeak. This is just an offer on the table you may accept or reject. I'm a mathematician by vocation (much like Michael emself), and like to look at the most general and most natural truths. This I seek to understand independently of the prejudices and choices we humans sometimes have to make in order to see the deeper meanings. Spivak pronouns let me do just that.

Right. All my radical ideas about gender neutral pronouns have already occured to others. But the world could use another opinion indeed.

6:30 am:Wake. Remove sleep mask. Begin drawing bath. Play Franz Liszt CD
6:45 am: Add scented bath oil and rose petals to the bath. Apply honey and avocado face mask. Place cucumbers and teabags over the eyes to reduce swelling.
7:05 am:Soak in bathtub. Enjoy Franz Liszt.
7:45 am: Relunctantly get out of tub. Decide which outfit looks the best. Choose the armani suit and the hand-painted silk tie. Quickly gel morning hair.
8:26 am: Finish dressing. Look in the mirror to make sure all the creases are in neat lines. Decide to frost hair.
8:35 am:Leave for work.
8:57 am: Stop into coffee shop and order a double Caramel Mocchaccino Valencia, or other pretentious drink. Look at scones, decide not to eat one.
9:07 am: Breeze into work. Compliment receptionist on her stunning fashion statement, try not to laugh.
9:15 am: Call best friend. Pretend it's important business. Gossip shamelessly about your ex-boyfriend's current beau and his horrible fashion sense.
10:45 am: Finish phone conversation. Attempt to look busy for fifteen minutes.
11:00 am: Dash out for lunch at trendy new fusion restaurant with sharp-tongued female friend.
11:15 am: Arrive for lunch exactly fifteen minutes late. Kiss friend on cheek. Gossip ruthlessly.
2:05 pm: Finish up bottle of house wine. Kiss friend goodbye.
2:07 pm: Call best friend on cell phone. Tell everything you learned at lunch. Chuckle smugly.
2:22 pm: Arrive back at work. Manage to look busy for forty minutes.
3:02 pm: Dash off for appointment with personal trainer.
4:03 pm:Shower. Call hairstylist and beg to be fit in for a walk-in
4:32 pm: Arrive at hairstylist. Get wash, rinse and color.
5:57 pm: Leave hairstylist. Decide the color is horrible. Call ex and cancel dinner.
6:07 pm: Subjugate the Earth with unholy legions of devoted minions. Destroy the nuclear family. Outlaw Religion and sack the Vatican.
6:45 pm: Meet best friend for cafe au lait and a light snack. Discuss vacation plans.
7:45 pm: Briefly attend fete at art gallery. Ask cute sculptor if he'd ever been to a circuit party. Slip him home phone number
8:55 pm: Arrive for enzyme facial and steam bath at trendy spa.
9:22 pm:Go home. Change into adorable Dolce & Gabbana outfit.
9:35 pm: Arrive five minutes late for Foreign Art film. Loudly talk about your four-week affair with the lead. Pretend you understand dream sequence.
11:50 pm: Go clubbing. Flirt with muscular bartender.
2:03 am: Leave club with several phone numbers, but no unemployed skanks.
2:27 am:Set alarm. Get dressed for bed. Place on sleep mask.