Currently in Korean class we began to look at societal issues in Korea and some parts of the world. The main issue we are discussing is the appropriate name for jobs in our current society. some examples of this are like using postal worker instead of postman, as not only men work delivering post, nowadays women do as well. It makes you think about how far society has come in the recent years. This is also a matter or women's rights, as more women are taking on jobs originally dominated by the male gender, hence the names that primarily contain the word man in them. In our Korean class we not only looked at ways to address job roles with a particular gender in mind, but we also learned about the proper way to address people with disabilities. In English it would like the addressing of mentally disabled individuals as "Retarded" over "mentally challenged" or "disabled". In this context its more of an issue of morality, is it right or wrong to address someone who has a mental handicap as "retarded"? The word "retarded" stems back into history, it used to be the socially accepted name for the mentally handicapped, but now as societies are changing and becoming more socially aware and sensitive, names for certain demographics are changing. The same goes for the black race in North America, in the past it was more socially accepted to use the word "negro" to describe a person of African descent. Nowadays the more socially accepted name for individuals of African descent is either just simply "Black" or "African american". I would be interested in seeing where our society moves on from here, as the socially accepted names for individuals, could continue to change and words that originally were frowned upon could become the new accepted word.
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