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92 Notre Dame L. Rev. Online 1 (2016-2017)

handle is hein.journals/ndalro92 and id is 1 raw text is: ESSAY NEW WINE IN OLD WINESKINS: METAPHOR AND LEGAL RESEARCH Amy E. Sloan* & Colin Starger** And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.' INTRODUCTION Language gives and language takes away. Words can facilitate our thoughts, but so too can they calcify our thinking. Recall the 1980s critique of using male-only pronouns to refer to people generically. (When a judge decides, he exercises power; When a politician wins, he is happy). Feminists argued that this linguistic practice systematically excluded women and reinforced suspect patriarchal norms. Though debates raged for years, the critique rightly won the day and transformed our discourse.2 Today insisting on male-only pronouns seems sexist and as socially regressive as referring to African-Americans as coloreds. 0 2016 Amy E. Sloan & Colin Starger. Individuals and nonprofit institutions may reproduce and distribute copies of this Essay in any format, at or below cost, for educational purposes, so long as each copy identifies the author, provides a citation to the Notre Dame Law Review Online, and includes this provision in the copyright notice. * Professor, University of Baltimore School of Law. Thanks go to Linda Berger, Peggy Cooper-Davis, Linda Edwards, Ruth Anne Robbins, and Michael R. Smith for comments on earlier drafts and to Nathaniel Shyovitz and Laura Cress for research assistance. ** Associate Professor, University of Baltimore School of Law. Principal, SCOTUS Mapping Project. J.D. Columbia Law School, 2002. 1 Mark 2:22 (New Revised Standard Version); see also Matthew 9:17. 2 See, e.g., ANNE PAUWELS, WOMEN CHANGING LANGUAGE 225 (1998); Judith D. Fischer, Framing Gender: Federal Appellate Judges' Choices About Gender-Neutral Language, 43 U.S.F. L. REv. 473 (2009). 1