Re. More she/he/it (pronounced "shee-it")

Subject: Re. More she/he/it (pronounced "shee-it")
From: Geoff Hart <geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 1995 08:06:17 LCL

A few folks have wondered why we estrogen-reduced,
shortened-X-chromosome females, colloquially and unpopularly known as
"males", would quibble over replacing "he" with "she" in text to
correct a perceived historical imbalance. (Yes, you'd type this way
too with tongue in cheek! A good oral surgeon can correct the
problem.)

At the risk of sounding logical, I'd have to note that this is as much
an issue of familiarity as a matter of male dominance of the
testosterone-impaired. I'd personally vote for calling us the
"inhuman" race based on recent behavior in what used to be Yugoslavia,
Chechnya, most of the Middle East, and on and on ad nauseum. And
although this would probably be more logical, it _is_ two letters
longer (strive for brevity!) and everyone would trip over it until we
got used to it... and then what would we do about the millions of
books already in print? I trip over "she" for the same reason:
familiarity. My solution is to use neither he nor she unless I have
to.

The real problem with replacing "he" with "she" is that it also
attempts to make one gender dominant over the other. To me, this is
equally discriminatory, and Momma taught me that two wrongs don't make
a right. The swap is also illogical given that it's generally easier
to write your way around the problem and reserve the gender-specific
for cases where the gender of the subject is truly important. And
aren't we supposed to use words precisely?

--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

Disclaimer: If I didn't commit it in print in one of
our reports, it don't represent FERIC's opinion.


Previous by Author: Re. Virtually terminal
Next by Author: Re. Performance appraisals
Previous by Thread: Re: Value of Writing Degree
Next by Thread: Re: Re. More she/he/it (pronounced "shee-it")


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads