Traces the historical development of the authority of grammar handbooks and their current status as monitors of language. Focuses on the evidence that English speakers use the "singular they" and the "generic he." Interprets current handbooks in terms of their social roles and political constructions. (HB)

Discusses college handbooks and rhetorics' stereotypes of women as sex objects, passive nourishers, perpetual children, and invisible presences. (DD)

Author summarizes the various papers in this theme issue of College English as illustrative of the discrimination which women experience in the profession, the extent to which women writers have been neglected or distorted and the impetus that interdisciplinary courses can be given by a Women's Studies program. (NL)

The study of ethnic literature could illuminate the diversity of American "white" culture. (JH)