Re: he/she redux

Subject: Re: he/she redux
From: Stan Schwartz <stanz -at- cam -dot- org>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 09:59:29 -0500


Dick Margulis:

The question on the floor was how to refer to the baby. "Baby this" and "Baby that" and "Baby the other thing" gets tedious and does not aid readability. The pediatrician's simplifying convention of always referring to mother as she and baby as he, which is fine for professional literature, does not work when you are addressing the mother of a girl. (Aside from the fact that politically sensitive mothers would be offended, cognitively impaired mothers would just be confused.) And using they, while I can justify it on historical grounds and don't mind using it in business writing, similarly won't cut it with mothers.

Baby, newborn, sibling, child, person, individual, young, infant, one, tot, and juvenile along with appropriate modifiers such as tiny, young, new, and your should ease your way to creating a gender neutral and non-sexist document.
s
Whadyathink?

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References:
he/she redux: From: Dick Margulis

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