Re: Gender neutral - any new developments in your neck of the woods?

[dmbrown -at- brown-inc -dot- com]

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.

--David 
 
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