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Subject:Re: gender bias in language From:Gene Ledbetter <gledbet -at- HEARTLAND -dot- BRADLEY -dot- EDU> Date:Thu, 3 Aug 1995 16:55:52 CDT
James Perkins mentioned the idiosyncratic convention of
using the pronoun "she," rather than the traditional "he,"
when referring to an anonymous individual. I once owned an
entire book that followed this unconvention. The practice
was distracting and irritating, and it detracted from an
otherwise interesting book on how to get published. I have
also read material in which the author alternated between
"he" and "she." This practice was extremely irritating, and
I tossed the fool thing aside unread.
The last thing technical writers should do is subject their
readers [writers/their] to unnecessary confusion or
complexity. If we must have a fetish, let it be precision,
e.g., "the hermaphroditic patient should visit his and her
physician regularly."
Gene Ledbetter
> One of my university professors always used "she" instead
> of "he" in all of HIS writing. He explained at the
> beginning of his books and documents that this was his
> convention. It seemed quite inoffensive: women were happy
> to see the change to "she", especially from a man, and the
> biased men thought it was just a personal idiosyncracy of
> the writer. I adopted this convention when writing for
> students at a university in Australia and also found it
> well-appreciated.
