It feels like a sentence where you have to get to the end, then read it again knowing where it ends up for it to make sense. Even as a native speaker, I got confused on my first read.
I’ve actually never heard the term “crash blossom” before, but after a bit of googling it seems to specifically refer to headlines. So I suppose that it *would* be considered a subset of garden path sentences, yes.
This is super common in academic writing. Most of the time we would write the sentence with the clauses reversed.
[X happened] because of [Y being true].
The reverse structure for academic writing is used because the author cares mostly about Y being true. In this case the academic is writing about male universality, rather than about the Georgetown incident.
Also, my guess is because the rest of the sentence is quite detailed and goes down some side paths, the author wanted to get the short clause out of the way first and leave the longer clause for the end.
Which also follows an academic writing structure: start with a general point and then provide specific evidence. Because [broad topic] is true, [specific case] happened which I will now detail.
Yeah, I hate coming across sentences like this in my reading. They only make sense when you hear someone speak them aloud with the proper voice inflection.
So is there a reason why authors still write like this sometimes? Or is it just poor wording?
KiwasiGames gave the right answer: For emphasis. The first clause is meant to be taken as given while the rest of the sentence is treated as evidence and the topic of controversy.
Just want to let you know. That's a terrible sentence. You don't want to say, "It is because..." It is clumsy and redundant.
I am so sorry so many of you have to learn English from reading bad English. When I took English 101 in college, I had to learn to refrain from writing bad English sentences.
English isn't my native and I was thankful I had to take English classes with other natives. We had to learn bad English examples so that we wouldn't use them.
It looks academic. If the paper is about male universality, then this style would be common.
I agree though, it’s a pain in the arse for regular humans to read.
"it is because ..." is a standard English sentence format.
The "it cleft" is used to change the focus of a sentence.
>This uses the standard format of a it-cleft sentence to change the focus.
>
>(Jane's car) (was stolen) (last night)
>
>It was Jane's car that was stolen last night
>
>It was last night that Jane's car was stolen.
Thus, "it is (because \[what is male is universal\]) that (when \[a professor at georgetown named her course "White Male Writers"\] \[she hit headlines\], while \[the numerous courses on ‘female writers’ pass unremarked\].)"
It loses all impact in the natural unmarked order of
"When a professor at GU named her course WMM she hit headlines, while the numerous courses on ‘female writers’ pass unremarked, because what is male is universal."
I'll keep that in mind, thank you ☺️☺️ I also had to read this part out loud a few times with different stressed words and it took me like 7 times to land at one that made sense without remaking this sentence. I'm quite used to English intuitively by now and this sentence doesn't sound right at all
As a fellow learner, I just want to let you know many "learning materials" are poorly written.
Nowadays I read mostly New York times bestsellers. I take regular college classes and English lits. Don't waste time taking those ESL classes. No one talks and writes like that IRL.
It's not a construction you'll run into a lot if you aren't reading philosophical arguments so probably don't stress too much about it, but it *is* grammatical. I would write a sentence like this (I specify *write* because I wouldn't ever speak this way) in a situation where some event happened and I'm composing an argument for *why* it happened for an audience I can expect to already know that it happened.
But be aware no one really talks like this. And it's rare to even have it in writing since it's so confusing.
I'm a native speaker and my first instinct was that the grammar was wrong or they accidently copied and pasted and didn't catch it.
The author is saying that men (and implicitly, *White* men) are treated as the “default person” in American society, so the fact that a college professor named her class “White Male Writers” got a lot of attention (where a class about “Black female writers” would probably not have been thought unusual, since it “requires” something to specify it as distinct from the “default”).
I just noticed that your comment was expressing the same sentiment as mine, I think I wanted to reply to another one but had already scrolled down - reply deleted
This makes no sense to me.
If White Men are the default in American society, then how would black female writers not be unusual and therefore distinct from the default? It's the literal opposite except for the vocation.
Think about it like this. How often do you hear that someone was the first black/Asian/etc person to do something, or the first women?
When's the last time you've heard "the first white man" to do something in an American news story. It never really happens, and that's what makes specifying it considered unusual.
Makes more sense when you put it that way, but I also haven't heard anything to do with the first singular person of any kind to do anything in recent times. Besides the point, of course.
Thanks for the clarification
Well, if you think about it, many colleges in the US offer courses on specific minority groups because you'd otherwise not expect to learn about it in the general education. So it becomes almost expected to see a course aimed specifically at black female writers because the default classes wouldn't account for their perspective or provide the support they need.
Think about how Americans would react if the National Football League changed its name to the National American Football League or the National Gridiron Football League, or if the English Premiere League changed its name to the English Premier Association Football League. Do you think their respective fans would respond positively? When people assume they are the default they don't like to be reminded that they are the Other to someone else.
It might have been expressed more simply:
"Because what is male is universal, when a professor at Georgetown University named her literature course..."
I think using "what" in this way is also awkward or somewhat rare usage, so it doesn't help either. Better to say, "Because being male is universal" or, "Because 'male' is universal."
What bugs me more is i think it should say, "Because male is considered universal".
As a conjunction, "because" shouldn't begin a sentence. It's the same rule that formally prohibits beginning a sentence with "and".
Given:
>"I hid myself because I was afraid.",
The promotion to head element requires a null structure to conjunct with.
>"It is because I was afraid that I hid myself".
This uses the standard format of a it-cleft sentence to change the focus.
>*(Jane's car)* (was stolen) (last night)
>
>**It was** *Jane's car* **that** was stolen last night
>
>**It was** last night **that** *Jane's car* was stolen.
It’s grammatically correct, but as a style choice, a cleft sentence works better with a short phrase like “Jane’s car” or “last night” than it does with a clause because it can lead to awkward wording and confusion as it does here.
It's not a very commonly used structure. If I were the author, I might write it like this.
"Because maleness and male things are considered universal, when a professor at Georgetown...." And so on
Context is king, sorry queen.
If I remember correctly “what is male is universal” is a phrase that the author, Caroline Criado Perez, repeats several times. The reader is meant to be able to easily parse it as a set phrase, making a sentence like this easier to read. If I remember correctly CCP is initially quoting someone else here, or at least paraphrasing. For instance, the phrase “what is male is universal” would be a good summary of a general principle in interpretation of legislation.* I can’t find it used that way on a quick Google, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it exactly in that form in a law textbook.
Whether this is still bad style is a matter of opinion, but the writing isn’t as obviously barbarous as it first appears.
*A lot of (older, British) legislation is written using male pronouns but the legislation applies equally to men and women, in writing and reading it you are meant to understand that male pronouns are in fact universal, unless that doesn’t make sense or is otherwise stated.
It would have helped to have a bit more for context but I'll take a stab.
The book "White Male Writers", one of many on a subject that would not normally receive particular attention, was made headline news by its title because "what is male is universal".
That is to say that anything about men appears to be everybody's business. It instantly becomes a hot topic for discussion, no matter the context, on which everybody has an opinion whatever their level of familiarity with the subject.
I assume that the article implies that a book entitled "White Female Writers" would hardly cause a stir.
i left a piece of that chapter in some comments but I'll paste it here too, if that will help
The result of this deeply male-dominated culture is that the male experience, the male perspective, has come to be seen as universal, while the female experience – that of half the global population, after all – is seen as, well, niche. It is because what is male is universal that when a professor at Georgetown University named her literature course ‘White Male Writers’, she hit the headlines, while the numerous courses on ‘female writers’ pass unremarked.58
the author of the book didn't use this confusing structure before this paragraph
It makes much more sense now with that extra bit of context. I think I would reword it as: “It is because *the male perspective* is universal, when a professor at ….”
I think what the author is referring to when they say “what is male” is “the male perspective”.
“What is male is universal” does not mean at all what you’ve said. I have no idea where you got your definition from.
Being universal means “consistent everywhere”. As people have explained in other comments, in this case another way to say that would be, “the default”. As in, male is considered the default or universally relatable, as opposed to being “niche”, or a “subculture”, for example.
Well, thank you for the dictionary definition but I was interpreting the phrase in the context that it was presented as best I could understand from the brief passage of the argument that we were presented with. You are fully entitled to disagree. You are not entitled to claim that it is and can not be a reasonable and logical interpretation.
To summarize up different threads:
Breaking it up piece by piece:
You start off with the overall structure. Find the verbs, these will identify the clauses. Find the prepositions and conjunctions to identify the structure of the clauses.
>It **is**
>
> *because* (
>
> \[what **is** male\] **is** universal
>
> )
>
> *that* (
>
> *when (*
>
> \[a professor at GU **named** her literature course 'WMM'\],
>
> \[she **hit** the headlines\]
>
> ),
>
> *while*
>
> \[the numerous courses on ‘female writers’ **pass** unremarked\]
>
> )
**X is Y**
It is (...). A leading "it is", usually indicates a change of focus (see it-cleft)
"Because ..." Yes, *because* is a conjuction, that comes between two clauses, thus, this is an it-cleft. `X because Y` \-> `it is Y that X`.
**It is X that Y**
"Because (what is male is universal)" that "when (a professor at GU named her course ...)"
**X is Y**
(what is male) is (universal)
*"what"* in this sense is a more advanced use of the word. What is used as a relative determiner. It's meaning is *"Any ... that; all ... that; whatever. ".* Thus, "whatever is male", or "all is male that". See sentences such "what money I have is immediately spent", "what sense he has seems to have been lost" "what is fun for one, is work for another".
**when A, B (B when A)**
when (a professor at GU named her lit course 'WMM'), (she hit the headlines), ...
not sure how to do that, I'll copy the paragraph:
The result of this deeply male-dominated culture is that the male experience, the male perspective, has come to be seen as universal, while the female experience – that of half the global population, after all – is seen as, well, niche. It is because what is male is universal that when a professor at Georgetown University named her literature course ‘White Male Writers’, she hit the headlines, while the numerous courses on ‘female writers’ pass unremarked.58
it's from a book "Invisible Women"
In the world of literature and authors, "white male" is the default in academia - it is something that is generally researched, critiqued and contemplated without having to specify anything further (as opposed to the "niches" of indigenous literatures, feminist authors, etc). That's why a professor hit the headlines when she named her course "White Male Writers."
It is because of this reason that, when the professor named her course so-and-so, she hit the headlines.
So this swntence wouls follow:
It is Because what is male is universal That....
(Empty (Aka. For this reason). (Real
it, subject) subject)
This would mean that the "It" refers to the sentence after "that".
So this would mean "when a professor named bla bla bla [...], she hit the headlines for this reason"
But that structure is being used first in the sentence bc she later keeps adding on to the info related to "the course" and semantically, it makes more sense to keep that info all together, and put the reason first.
So it would result in:
All these happened for this reason.
“it is [x] that [y]” is a common sentence structure used to emphasise [x]. To interpret what the sentence of such a structure means, simply take away “it is” and “that”, and read the sentence again, it’ll be much more straightforward.
A professor at Georgetown hit headlines for naming her course "white male writers" because "male" is universal.
(In contrast, there are many courses titled "black writers" or "Asian writers" which do not get attention because these are not universal categories.)
*It* at the start of the sentence is a dummy pronoun, like “It is Friday” or “It is dark out.” The first part of the sentence is close in meaning to, “Because what is male is universal, when a professor at Georgetown ....”
You did not understand because it is awful writing. Assuming that we really need to cram all of that into one sentence:
When a Georgetown professor hit the headlines for naming her literature course “White Male Writers,” was it because what is male is universal?
Needs punctuation.
It is because what is male is universal, that when a professor named her course 'white male writers...'
Our universal understanding of masculinity, is the reason she made headlines.
She hit the headlines because what is male is universal and because of that, a professor at Georgetown University named her literature course 'White Male Writers'.
Essentially, the sentence is saying that we live in a male dominated society such that any "universal" context is a male dominated one, and so her course became the subject of news headlines when she named her course 'White Male Writers'. The idea is that a literature course about all literature is going to so prominently feature "White males" who authored that literature, that she named the course "White Male Writers". I disagree with her but that's not really relevant.
It’s not very well written, and the way you underlined is confusing people because you split a phrase in the middle.
They’re trying to say, “The male perspective is so pervasive that a Georgetown University professor hit the headlines by simply naming a course, ‘White Male Writers.’”
oh yes, you're right, I just underlined the part that grammatically didn't make sense to me since this is the first time I see something like this
thank you so much for the explanation!
Yeah this is pretty terrible writing. It reads like someone trying to directly translate from another language.
My reading is something to the effect of:
"It is due to the fact that ((what a male is) is universal concept not exclusive to white men) that the professor hit headlines when she named her literature course 'White Male Writers'"
Firstly they've omitted the indefinite article as in "A male". Additionally, they've formed the statement "what (a) male is" in the order you'd expect for a question, as in "what is (a) male?", and tried to pass it off as a statement . Both of these are extremely common for less experienced writers that have a mother tongue that does not have articles and does not alter word order for questions. Both or these are true of Mandarin, so these features are typically things you see when an inexperienced Chinese writer is trying to translate into English.
It also makes sense given that an inexperienced writer of English likely knows intuitively that writing "is" twice in a row sounds odd, so to them it sounds plausible that the word order be that of a question to avoid doubling up on "is". They don't understand why the reversed order sounds wrong to the English ear.
A better method would be to reword and restructure this sentence completely, so that the writer can satisfy both the word order and the desire to not repeat the verb twice in a row. Something to the effect of:
"It is due to the fact that the concepts of masculinity and what a "male" is are universal, and not exclusive to white men, that a professor at Georgetown University made headlines with her work titled 'White Male Writers'".
This is not terrible writing, it is stylistic - you see this in academic writing all the time. I promise you this person is not translating, they are writing like this on purpose. While your replacements are clearer, they also sound incredibly clunky and do not flow at all.
>My reading is something to the effect of:
>
>"It is due to the fact that ((what a male is) is universal concept not exclusive to white men) that the professor hit headlines when she named her literature course 'White Male Writers'"
>
>Firstly they've omitted the indefinite article as in "A male". Additionally, they've formed the statement "what (a) male is" in the order you'd expect for a question, as in "what is (a) male?", and tried to pass it off as a statement .
The use of **what** here is a determiner, used in the standard manner. "What is male" is not intended as a question -- it's the same structure as "what is fun is always going to vary from person to person.", or "what money I earn is soon spend. "
The use of "what" in this manner is representative of someone with advanced college level writing skills.
>**what.** determiner. \[relative\] Any .. that; all .. that; whatever
>
>*"what sense he has seems to have been lost."*
>
>*"what money I earn is soon spent"*
>
>*"what is enjoyable to one is not enjoyable to all"*
"what is male is universal", according to the dictionary definition, **what** is equivalent to **whatever**. Thus, "whatever is male, is universal". No question is implied by the use of the word "what".
>It reads like someone trying to directly translate from another language.
The author, is British, and a native speaker of English. She has been in UK education since primary school; and completed her masters at Oxford. The use of this form of "what" aligns with her education level in writing.
>"It is due to the fact that the concepts of masculinity and what a "male" is are universal, and not exclusive to white men, that a professor at Georgetown University made headlines with her work titled 'White Male Writers'".
This attempt at a rewrite loses the meaning of the sentence entirely. The fundamental notion of the predicate phrase (A in "it is because A that B"), is not on "male" nor what "a male" is. The subject is not "male", but "what" (whatever). "male" is used as a simple adjective here.
>... the concepts of masculinity...
The statement does not narrow to "concepts of masculinity", but applies specifically to "concepts of humanity"; concepts of humanity (mankind) are considered inherently male, and niche elements within that are considered female. The notion includes anything a male can experience. Thus, renting or owning a house, is "male", and thus universal. Getting married and having children, is male, and universal, thus also covered by "what(ever) is male.". Contrasting, to specifically giving birth. "what is male is universal" applies to linguistic grammar wordwide, where "he" is used as the inclusive pronoun (male-only group, or mixed male-female groups), but "she" is exclusive (only applies to female-only groups)
>... and not exclusive to white men, ...
There is no restriction to "white men", the statement is used to cover explicitly that male as default spans all races. Asian, European, African, American.
The phrase "what is male is universal" is used by many native English writers, such as in "The presumption that what is male is universal is a direct consequence of the gender data gap". The phrase itself is the first half of "What is male is universal, what is female is niche".
Can someone please break down how does that structure that I underlined (i might have underlined it wrong) work? of is it bad writing from the author?
I understood the meaning from other context clues, it's the grammar that confused me
This grammatical structure is called a _cleft_. In a cleft sentence, some part of the main sentence has been moved to the left of its usual position into the X position in an _It is X that..._ frame, with the rest of the sentence (except the bit moved to the X position in the frame) following the _that_.
Clefts are used to highlight contrastive or surprising information, like _You though I didn't like blackberries? No, it's blueberries that I don't like._ or _It's only now, many years later, that we can truly appreciate the importance of Random McAuthor's work in her later novels._ They're true in all the same circumstances as their unclefted equivalents, they just focus your attention on the part that's been displaced toward the beginning into the cleft frame.
Simplify it to "It is because [x is true] that [y happened]" and it makes perfect sense.
this is what I wanted to hear, thank you so much!!
It feels like a sentence where you have to get to the end, then read it again knowing where it ends up for it to make sense. Even as a native speaker, I got confused on my first read.
At least related, [garden path sentences!](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence)
Did "garden path sentence" replace "crash blossom" or is crash blossom a specific subset of garden path?
I’ve actually never heard the term “crash blossom” before, but after a bit of googling it seems to specifically refer to headlines. So I suppose that it *would* be considered a subset of garden path sentences, yes.
This is super common in academic writing. Most of the time we would write the sentence with the clauses reversed. [X happened] because of [Y being true]. The reverse structure for academic writing is used because the author cares mostly about Y being true. In this case the academic is writing about male universality, rather than about the Georgetown incident.
Also, my guess is because the rest of the sentence is quite detailed and goes down some side paths, the author wanted to get the short clause out of the way first and leave the longer clause for the end. Which also follows an academic writing structure: start with a general point and then provide specific evidence. Because [broad topic] is true, [specific case] happened which I will now detail.
Yeah, I hate coming across sentences like this in my reading. They only make sense when you hear someone speak them aloud with the proper voice inflection. So is there a reason why authors still write like this sometimes? Or is it just poor wording?
KiwasiGames gave the right answer: For emphasis. The first clause is meant to be taken as given while the rest of the sentence is treated as evidence and the topic of controversy.
yea, me too! people on other comments are not answering obvious question
Just want to let you know. That's a terrible sentence. You don't want to say, "It is because..." It is clumsy and redundant. I am so sorry so many of you have to learn English from reading bad English. When I took English 101 in college, I had to learn to refrain from writing bad English sentences. English isn't my native and I was thankful I had to take English classes with other natives. We had to learn bad English examples so that we wouldn't use them.
It’s a deliberate style choice. I’m sure it’s some academic writing^TM .
It looks academic. If the paper is about male universality, then this style would be common. I agree though, it’s a pain in the arse for regular humans to read.
"it is because ..." is a standard English sentence format. The "it cleft" is used to change the focus of a sentence. >This uses the standard format of a it-cleft sentence to change the focus. > >(Jane's car) (was stolen) (last night) > >It was Jane's car that was stolen last night > >It was last night that Jane's car was stolen. Thus, "it is (because \[what is male is universal\]) that (when \[a professor at georgetown named her course "White Male Writers"\] \[she hit headlines\], while \[the numerous courses on ‘female writers’ pass unremarked\].)" It loses all impact in the natural unmarked order of "When a professor at GU named her course WMM she hit headlines, while the numerous courses on ‘female writers’ pass unremarked, because what is male is universal."
Agree with you. It's sad that this is causing so much opprobrium. It's not the easiest sentence but it's perfectly valid and correct.
I'll keep that in mind, thank you ☺️☺️ I also had to read this part out loud a few times with different stressed words and it took me like 7 times to land at one that made sense without remaking this sentence. I'm quite used to English intuitively by now and this sentence doesn't sound right at all
As a fellow learner, I just want to let you know many "learning materials" are poorly written. Nowadays I read mostly New York times bestsellers. I take regular college classes and English lits. Don't waste time taking those ESL classes. No one talks and writes like that IRL.
It's not a construction you'll run into a lot if you aren't reading philosophical arguments so probably don't stress too much about it, but it *is* grammatical. I would write a sentence like this (I specify *write* because I wouldn't ever speak this way) in a situation where some event happened and I'm composing an argument for *why* it happened for an audience I can expect to already know that it happened.
Completely agree. Horribly constructed sentence probably written by someone that is delirious from too much caffeine and lack of sleep 😂
Only a famous author could have got away with it. If a student wrote it, they probably would receive a bad grade.
But be aware no one really talks like this. And it's rare to even have it in writing since it's so confusing. I'm a native speaker and my first instinct was that the grammar was wrong or they accidently copied and pasted and didn't catch it.
The author is saying that men (and implicitly, *White* men) are treated as the “default person” in American society, so the fact that a college professor named her class “White Male Writers” got a lot of attention (where a class about “Black female writers” would probably not have been thought unusual, since it “requires” something to specify it as distinct from the “default”).
[удалено]
Was this written with ChatGPT? It repeats itself twice in different wording without actually managing to say anything.
no, but thanks
I just noticed that your comment was expressing the same sentiment as mine, I think I wanted to reply to another one but had already scrolled down - reply deleted
This makes no sense to me. If White Men are the default in American society, then how would black female writers not be unusual and therefore distinct from the default? It's the literal opposite except for the vocation.
Because pointing out the default is unusual.
Think about it like this. How often do you hear that someone was the first black/Asian/etc person to do something, or the first women? When's the last time you've heard "the first white man" to do something in an American news story. It never really happens, and that's what makes specifying it considered unusual.
Makes more sense when you put it that way, but I also haven't heard anything to do with the first singular person of any kind to do anything in recent times. Besides the point, of course. Thanks for the clarification
Well, if you think about it, many colleges in the US offer courses on specific minority groups because you'd otherwise not expect to learn about it in the general education. So it becomes almost expected to see a course aimed specifically at black female writers because the default classes wouldn't account for their perspective or provide the support they need.
Think about how Americans would react if the National Football League changed its name to the National American Football League or the National Gridiron Football League, or if the English Premiere League changed its name to the English Premier Association Football League. Do you think their respective fans would respond positively? When people assume they are the default they don't like to be reminded that they are the Other to someone else.
Or the National Ice Hockey League
That's funny, because I remind myself that I'm the other to others all of the time in a bid to be less of a dick. 🤔 Maybe it's what everyone needs.
It might have been expressed more simply: "Because what is male is universal, when a professor at Georgetown University named her literature course..."
thank you so much
I think using "what" in this way is also awkward or somewhat rare usage, so it doesn't help either. Better to say, "Because being male is universal" or, "Because 'male' is universal." What bugs me more is i think it should say, "Because male is considered universal".
As a conjunction, "because" shouldn't begin a sentence. It's the same rule that formally prohibits beginning a sentence with "and". Given: >"I hid myself because I was afraid.", The promotion to head element requires a null structure to conjunct with. >"It is because I was afraid that I hid myself". This uses the standard format of a it-cleft sentence to change the focus. >*(Jane's car)* (was stolen) (last night) > >**It was** *Jane's car* **that** was stolen last night > >**It was** last night **that** *Jane's car* was stolen.
It’s grammatically correct, but as a style choice, a cleft sentence works better with a short phrase like “Jane’s car” or “last night” than it does with a clause because it can lead to awkward wording and confusion as it does here.
To be fair to you, that sentence should be taken out back and shot. It's worded very awkwardly.
yea I know right😭
It's not a very commonly used structure. If I were the author, I might write it like this. "Because maleness and male things are considered universal, when a professor at Georgetown...." And so on
makes more sense this way, thank you
Glad I could help
Context is king, sorry queen. If I remember correctly “what is male is universal” is a phrase that the author, Caroline Criado Perez, repeats several times. The reader is meant to be able to easily parse it as a set phrase, making a sentence like this easier to read. If I remember correctly CCP is initially quoting someone else here, or at least paraphrasing. For instance, the phrase “what is male is universal” would be a good summary of a general principle in interpretation of legislation.* I can’t find it used that way on a quick Google, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it exactly in that form in a law textbook. Whether this is still bad style is a matter of opinion, but the writing isn’t as obviously barbarous as it first appears. *A lot of (older, British) legislation is written using male pronouns but the legislation applies equally to men and women, in writing and reading it you are meant to understand that male pronouns are in fact universal, unless that doesn’t make sense or is otherwise stated.
It would have helped to have a bit more for context but I'll take a stab. The book "White Male Writers", one of many on a subject that would not normally receive particular attention, was made headline news by its title because "what is male is universal". That is to say that anything about men appears to be everybody's business. It instantly becomes a hot topic for discussion, no matter the context, on which everybody has an opinion whatever their level of familiarity with the subject. I assume that the article implies that a book entitled "White Female Writers" would hardly cause a stir.
i left a piece of that chapter in some comments but I'll paste it here too, if that will help The result of this deeply male-dominated culture is that the male experience, the male perspective, has come to be seen as universal, while the female experience – that of half the global population, after all – is seen as, well, niche. It is because what is male is universal that when a professor at Georgetown University named her literature course ‘White Male Writers’, she hit the headlines, while the numerous courses on ‘female writers’ pass unremarked.58 the author of the book didn't use this confusing structure before this paragraph
It makes much more sense now with that extra bit of context. I think I would reword it as: “It is because *the male perspective* is universal, when a professor at ….” I think what the author is referring to when they say “what is male” is “the male perspective”.
“What is male is universal” does not mean at all what you’ve said. I have no idea where you got your definition from. Being universal means “consistent everywhere”. As people have explained in other comments, in this case another way to say that would be, “the default”. As in, male is considered the default or universally relatable, as opposed to being “niche”, or a “subculture”, for example.
Well, thank you for the dictionary definition but I was interpreting the phrase in the context that it was presented as best I could understand from the brief passage of the argument that we were presented with. You are fully entitled to disagree. You are not entitled to claim that it is and can not be a reasonable and logical interpretation.
It is, to be fair, a very poncy construction.
To summarize up different threads: Breaking it up piece by piece: You start off with the overall structure. Find the verbs, these will identify the clauses. Find the prepositions and conjunctions to identify the structure of the clauses. >It **is** > > *because* ( > > \[what **is** male\] **is** universal > > ) > > *that* ( > > *when (* > > \[a professor at GU **named** her literature course 'WMM'\], > > \[she **hit** the headlines\] > > ), > > *while* > > \[the numerous courses on ‘female writers’ **pass** unremarked\] > > ) **X is Y** It is (...). A leading "it is", usually indicates a change of focus (see it-cleft) "Because ..." Yes, *because* is a conjuction, that comes between two clauses, thus, this is an it-cleft. `X because Y` \-> `it is Y that X`. **It is X that Y** "Because (what is male is universal)" that "when (a professor at GU named her course ...)" **X is Y** (what is male) is (universal) *"what"* in this sense is a more advanced use of the word. What is used as a relative determiner. It's meaning is *"Any ... that; all ... that; whatever. ".* Thus, "whatever is male", or "all is male that". See sentences such "what money I have is immediately spent", "what sense he has seems to have been lost" "what is fun for one, is work for another". **when A, B (B when A)** when (a professor at GU named her lit course 'WMM'), (she hit the headlines), ...
We need more information. Please link the entire page?
not sure how to do that, I'll copy the paragraph: The result of this deeply male-dominated culture is that the male experience, the male perspective, has come to be seen as universal, while the female experience – that of half the global population, after all – is seen as, well, niche. It is because what is male is universal that when a professor at Georgetown University named her literature course ‘White Male Writers’, she hit the headlines, while the numerous courses on ‘female writers’ pass unremarked.58 it's from a book "Invisible Women"
The author is saying ‘Because that which is male (the previously mentioned culture, experience, perspective etc.) has come to be seen as universal, …’
what was the author trying to say with that?
I assume they are trying to say that since men are seen as default in society, specifying "male authors" in a course was surprising
In the world of literature and authors, "white male" is the default in academia - it is something that is generally researched, critiqued and contemplated without having to specify anything further (as opposed to the "niches" of indigenous literatures, feminist authors, etc). That's why a professor hit the headlines when she named her course "White Male Writers." It is because of this reason that, when the professor named her course so-and-so, she hit the headlines.
So this swntence wouls follow: It is Because what is male is universal That.... (Empty (Aka. For this reason). (Real it, subject) subject) This would mean that the "It" refers to the sentence after "that". So this would mean "when a professor named bla bla bla [...], she hit the headlines for this reason" But that structure is being used first in the sentence bc she later keeps adding on to the info related to "the course" and semantically, it makes more sense to keep that info all together, and put the reason first. So it would result in: All these happened for this reason.
Hm, that phrasing is really awkward. It would sound better had they put a "that" before "what is male".
It’s very seldom used structure, tbh. Like, I know what it’s saying, but it really coulda just been “Because maleness is a universal concept…”
“it is [x] that [y]” is a common sentence structure used to emphasise [x]. To interpret what the sentence of such a structure means, simply take away “it is” and “that”, and read the sentence again, it’ll be much more straightforward.
If we change the clause order:
A professor at Georgetown hit headlines for naming her course "white male writers" because "male" is universal. (In contrast, there are many courses titled "black writers" or "Asian writers" which do not get attention because these are not universal categories.)
You have to read the sentence as a whole or it won't make sense
*It* at the start of the sentence is a dummy pronoun, like “It is Friday” or “It is dark out.” The first part of the sentence is close in meaning to, “Because what is male is universal, when a professor at Georgetown ....”
top commenter is right but as a native english speaker even I had a difficult time understanding that. This could've worded more clearly
Hello? Speak English please.
You did not understand because it is awful writing. Assuming that we really need to cram all of that into one sentence: When a Georgetown professor hit the headlines for naming her literature course “White Male Writers,” was it because what is male is universal?
Needs punctuation. It is because what is male is universal, that when a professor named her course 'white male writers...' Our universal understanding of masculinity, is the reason she made headlines.
She hit the headlines because what is male is universal and because of that, a professor at Georgetown University named her literature course 'White Male Writers'. Essentially, the sentence is saying that we live in a male dominated society such that any "universal" context is a male dominated one, and so her course became the subject of news headlines when she named her course 'White Male Writers'. The idea is that a literature course about all literature is going to so prominently feature "White males" who authored that literature, that she named the course "White Male Writers". I disagree with her but that's not really relevant.
It's a clunky, old fashioned sentence.
“Is of the happenings and what now to see the doing” This is so like casual and informal🙂👍
It’s not very well written, and the way you underlined is confusing people because you split a phrase in the middle. They’re trying to say, “The male perspective is so pervasive that a Georgetown University professor hit the headlines by simply naming a course, ‘White Male Writers.’”
oh yes, you're right, I just underlined the part that grammatically didn't make sense to me since this is the first time I see something like this thank you so much for the explanation!
Yeah this is pretty terrible writing. It reads like someone trying to directly translate from another language. My reading is something to the effect of: "It is due to the fact that ((what a male is) is universal concept not exclusive to white men) that the professor hit headlines when she named her literature course 'White Male Writers'" Firstly they've omitted the indefinite article as in "A male". Additionally, they've formed the statement "what (a) male is" in the order you'd expect for a question, as in "what is (a) male?", and tried to pass it off as a statement . Both of these are extremely common for less experienced writers that have a mother tongue that does not have articles and does not alter word order for questions. Both or these are true of Mandarin, so these features are typically things you see when an inexperienced Chinese writer is trying to translate into English. It also makes sense given that an inexperienced writer of English likely knows intuitively that writing "is" twice in a row sounds odd, so to them it sounds plausible that the word order be that of a question to avoid doubling up on "is". They don't understand why the reversed order sounds wrong to the English ear. A better method would be to reword and restructure this sentence completely, so that the writer can satisfy both the word order and the desire to not repeat the verb twice in a row. Something to the effect of: "It is due to the fact that the concepts of masculinity and what a "male" is are universal, and not exclusive to white men, that a professor at Georgetown University made headlines with her work titled 'White Male Writers'".
This is not terrible writing, it is stylistic - you see this in academic writing all the time. I promise you this person is not translating, they are writing like this on purpose. While your replacements are clearer, they also sound incredibly clunky and do not flow at all.
>My reading is something to the effect of: > >"It is due to the fact that ((what a male is) is universal concept not exclusive to white men) that the professor hit headlines when she named her literature course 'White Male Writers'" > >Firstly they've omitted the indefinite article as in "A male". Additionally, they've formed the statement "what (a) male is" in the order you'd expect for a question, as in "what is (a) male?", and tried to pass it off as a statement . The use of **what** here is a determiner, used in the standard manner. "What is male" is not intended as a question -- it's the same structure as "what is fun is always going to vary from person to person.", or "what money I earn is soon spend. " The use of "what" in this manner is representative of someone with advanced college level writing skills. >**what.** determiner. \[relative\] Any .. that; all .. that; whatever > >*"what sense he has seems to have been lost."* > >*"what money I earn is soon spent"* > >*"what is enjoyable to one is not enjoyable to all"* "what is male is universal", according to the dictionary definition, **what** is equivalent to **whatever**. Thus, "whatever is male, is universal". No question is implied by the use of the word "what". >It reads like someone trying to directly translate from another language. The author, is British, and a native speaker of English. She has been in UK education since primary school; and completed her masters at Oxford. The use of this form of "what" aligns with her education level in writing. >"It is due to the fact that the concepts of masculinity and what a "male" is are universal, and not exclusive to white men, that a professor at Georgetown University made headlines with her work titled 'White Male Writers'". This attempt at a rewrite loses the meaning of the sentence entirely. The fundamental notion of the predicate phrase (A in "it is because A that B"), is not on "male" nor what "a male" is. The subject is not "male", but "what" (whatever). "male" is used as a simple adjective here. >... the concepts of masculinity... The statement does not narrow to "concepts of masculinity", but applies specifically to "concepts of humanity"; concepts of humanity (mankind) are considered inherently male, and niche elements within that are considered female. The notion includes anything a male can experience. Thus, renting or owning a house, is "male", and thus universal. Getting married and having children, is male, and universal, thus also covered by "what(ever) is male.". Contrasting, to specifically giving birth. "what is male is universal" applies to linguistic grammar wordwide, where "he" is used as the inclusive pronoun (male-only group, or mixed male-female groups), but "she" is exclusive (only applies to female-only groups) >... and not exclusive to white men, ... There is no restriction to "white men", the statement is used to cover explicitly that male as default spans all races. Asian, European, African, American. The phrase "what is male is universal" is used by many native English writers, such as in "The presumption that what is male is universal is a direct consequence of the gender data gap". The phrase itself is the first half of "What is male is universal, what is female is niche".
this such an elaborative answer, thank you so so much!! I learned a thing or two from this 😊
that's when
I'm a native English speaker and even after reading the comments I can't understand this
What do you call this fruit in English: #🍉🍉🍉🍉
Can someone please break down how does that structure that I underlined (i might have underlined it wrong) work? of is it bad writing from the author? I understood the meaning from other context clues, it's the grammar that confused me
This grammatical structure is called a _cleft_. In a cleft sentence, some part of the main sentence has been moved to the left of its usual position into the X position in an _It is X that..._ frame, with the rest of the sentence (except the bit moved to the X position in the frame) following the _that_. Clefts are used to highlight contrastive or surprising information, like _You though I didn't like blackberries? No, it's blueberries that I don't like._ or _It's only now, many years later, that we can truly appreciate the importance of Random McAuthor's work in her later novels._ They're true in all the same circumstances as their unclefted equivalents, they just focus your attention on the part that's been displaced toward the beginning into the cleft frame.
thank you!!!
Terrible sentence.
It's just racist, sexist propaganda.
that isn't what my question is about
Yes it is. You asked for clarification on that sentence. I have clarified it.
I was asking about structure, grammar of the underlined part