From this awesome site.
There are some things I hate with a passion. February comes to mind. Another is gender-neutral language.
Sometime maybe 30 years ago, someone decided that the pronouns we’ve been using for centuries to express ourselves in English are Not Good Enough, and that womyn need equality in writing, too, and as a result, we get sentences like,
It’s better to ask your doctor; she’ll tell you that you have encephalytis.
or
When approaching your boss, better catch her on a good day so she’ll give you a massive raise and a bottle of fine Dom Perignon.
or
Every one should know his or her telephone number in case the aliens come and have 4G and LTE.
This has been going on more and more ever since I was in middle school, and I still can’t get used to it. That’s over 15 years of reading this crap, and every time I see it somewhere, it throws me out of my natural rhythm of reading and into a bout of rage.
As a womyn with interest in womyn’s issues, I am not at all interested in the “gendering of language.” Because I have a brain and have English reading context, I assume that when you say “he,” you mean everyone. When you say mankind, you don’t just mean the half that has man parts.
Otherwise, if you fill in stupid he/she crap, I’m going to assume that you assume that I’m stupid, have a weak small brain, and can’t extrapolate from your sentence what you mean. Because I’m a woman.
Writers, bloggers, blaughers, tweeters, copy editors, journalists, tumblrs. Please. Revert to the normal use of the language.
And let’s move on to the actual important topics that matter to women.
Gonna have to disagree on this one, or as the russians say: “what you feel is wrong”.
Not so long ago people were wondering if a woman could be president. Even a couple of weeks ago some people said that perhaps women can’t fight on the front lines even if they pass the physical exam. Because you know it seems weird, like those weird pronouns.
The pronouns unfortunately will forever be weird to us. But perhaps the next generation will not be pre-conditioned as we are to the idea that a woman doctor or a woman boss looks weird on paper.
That’s true; generational norms change all the time. But the norms changed regardless of the pronouns that were used.
I don’t think they’re a huge stumbling block.
Ah, young woman who takes everything for granted.
Consider this scenario: you’re a man, and you have never had to perform a quick subconscious gender switch in your head while reading in order to imagine yourself in the protagonist/subject role of whatever you’re reading. Then you come across a sentence where it says “she.” And you’re thrown, maybe only for a few seconds. Suddenly, you have some inkling of what women learn to do from the very moment they learn to read.
Yes, *you* (like all women) are very good at ignoring the inherent bias in making male the encompassing “neutral” context. That doesn’t mean the bias isn’t there, or that it doesn’t need to be shaken up occasionally. There’s a reason these things stand out for you, and it’s not about the quality of the writing.
I think you are saying the same thing as Mark, which is that the nouns look strange because even though we are referring to 50% of the population, we do it in a male way.
I also think it’s impossible to tell the effect that this bias has and, from my perspective, there are much more important and effective things we need to be doing to advance women than this, and that this is stupid and condescending in the same way that political correctness is.
I think people should accept the fact that using “they” isn’t that big a deal. Yes I know it’s a plural pronoun but an English teacher asking a roomful of students “Does everyone have his homework?” just sounds obnoxious. At least we’re not Sweden: http://shine.yahoo.com/team-mom/kids-raised-gender-neutral-society-sweden-thinks-033400030.html#!pegz
It’s true there are some sentences like the one you just said that sound more natural with “their.”
Re: Scandinavia…I was going to include that link, but then decided that Scandinavia is a Special Place and they do things Differently.
In college, I hung out with a lot of wimmin and womyn and women. I knew a woman in college who changed her last name to “Zimmerwoman.” Then, I discovered a few of these womyn had some curious problems with Jews and definitely with Israel. Last week, one of the editors where I work asked me why I always use the “he” pronoun instead of “she.” Interesting cultural changes.
“I knew a woman in college who changed her last name to “Zimmerwoman.””
Writing this post was worth it just to learn that.
The worst is when conversing over the net with someone using a very stereotypically male name (e.g. Richard) and you use a gendered pronoun only to be jumped on.
It makes a person seem frivolous to be worried about such things.
I agree with you completely. I’m actually tired of all the gender neutrality taking over my daily life. ze, xe, xem, hir… Really? What’s wrong with she and her, he and him? Keep it simple. I have too much going on to try and attempt your new code words for gender. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
(apologies for sad internet meme phrase).