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RE: On Avoiding Gender Bias

Subject: RE: On Avoiding Gender Bias
From: M Giffin <mgiffin -at- earthlink -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 10:40:30 -0800

I generally agree with Jennifer.

In addition, I believe that when used appropriately, the generic he is not sexist and it's not a gender slur. It's a grammatical convention that's worked well for hundreds of years, growing more neutral as time went on. It's simple, understandable and efficient.

It's not used as much as it used to be. It's probably possible to avoid it altogether (a good writer should be able to do it) and still have decent writing (I think Consumer Reports does it fairly well), but I don't think it's necessary. Some publications use the generic he occasionally (Computerworld does this, and I saw an example recently in Time magazine). I think people understand it when used, and that's the main point, social and political opinions aside.

To leave the generic he out altogether, I think can give a rather general, bland feeling to writing.

I continue to use it in an occasional, judicious manner. To insist that the generic he never, ever be used is a somewhat totalitarian approach I think is unnecessary.

I do believe it can be overused.

Mark Giffin

jennifer -dot- carey -at- cdi -dot- cerberus -dot- ch wrote:

I'm sure I'm asking for it here, and hopefully the PC (that's "Politically
Correct") police won't come to arrest me, BUT, while I'm a pro-woman woman,
I still prefer to read with the general use of "he", cause it's what I'm
used to and "she" distracts me almost every time to the point of irritation.
I find that "he" is like a transparent gender-neutral figure in my mind
while "she" is very much a woman (but NOT me since it's third person) doing
everything being described and I don't want to think about her.

I've started to notice the style of ping-ponging between gender to balance
it out in recent literature and I appreciated what the author is trying to
do, but i still find it distracting. Perhaps if I had been raised with
"she" and "her" it wouldn't have the same annoying effect since I'd be used
to it, and I suppose that we need to consider that in the choices that we
make as writers - whether we want to change the norms for future generations
or not, which audience we want to write for, etc., etc.,.

But nothing irks me more than sentences that are awkward and unclear in
their dance around the inevitable - the fact that we're talking about a
single person performing a task. I don't care what the official books say,
it's a pain to read and even more of a pain to write.

SO, MY opinion (and probably that of few others):
1) HE!
2) Gender Ping-Ping

Jennifer


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References:
RE: On Avoiding Gender Bias: From: Carey Jennifer (Cry)

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