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Subject:War of the Words (was he/she) From:Gene Ledbetter <gledbet -at- HEARTLAND -dot- BRADLEY -dot- EDU> Date:Sat, 5 Aug 1995 20:14:12 CDT
Several remarks by Jean Ichbiah [Salut, Jean !] on a
perfectly functional French grammar based on the gender of
nouns, followed by no more than one glass of Ranier ale, lead
me to realize the inevitability of the following bizarre
scenario.
Increasingly, more and more women, liberated from the evils
of gender bias, began to use the generic "she." Increasingly,
more and more men, liberated from the strain of appeasement,
began to use the generic "he." At first, only the most
progressive women and the most regressive men went to these
extremes, but soon all women and all men followed suit to
avoid being labeled traitors to their sex.
No one gave in, years went by, and revolutionary and
reactionary zeal eventually subsided. But by then everyone
was habituated to the new practice, and forevermore -- or at
least until the next social revolution -- personal pronouns
referring to persons of unknown or uninteresting gender were
referred to as "she" by women and "he" by men.
