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RE: Gender neutral - any new developments in your neck of the woods?
Subject:RE: Gender neutral - any new developments in your neck of the woods? From:"Sean Brierley" <sbri -at- haestad -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 3 Mar 2003 13:41:03 -0500
You alternated between "he" and "she" in a bulleted list. Cool. How
about "he," "she," and "it" and throw in gender-neutral pastels here and
there to spice things up. LOL!
Using "he" as a gender-neutral pronoun does not exclude women. Of
course, we can agree to disagree on that.
-----Original Message-----
From: dmbrown -at- brown-inc -dot- com [mailto:dmbrown -at- brown-inc -dot- com]
Sent: Monday, March 03, 2003 1:38 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Re: Gender neutral - any new developments in your neck of the
woods?
Sean Brierley wrote:
>
> "he" is standard language usage for someone of unknown gender.
But that audience is so small! I'm sure most of the people I write for
are of obvious gender. :)
>
> "She" will attract focus and applause from those who think
> using "he" degrades women...
I don't know that it degrades women. It does exclude them, though,
which seems unreasonable.
>
> ..."she" will attract a pause from the rest who will
> rightly assume you are trying to make a point.
"Rightly"? Not at all--quite wrongly, in fact: I'm not trying to make
a point.
I'm just trying to address my audience, more than half of
which--statistically, at least--is likely to be female.
>
> Most folks would read right past "he" and not pause to
> think that you are treating women unfairly by the use of
> the masculine pronoun.
Umm...that's precisely the problem.
Again, I almost always use "you." In the rare case that I need first
person singular, though, I've favored "she" for about four years, now.
In all that time, I've had exactly one negative comment from a reader,
who was distracted by the fact that I alternated between "he" and "she"
in a bulleted list.
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