Gender Neutral Writing

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Writing was easier in the past, when "he" and "man" could be used for general purposes. Now it is about finding non-awkward ways to avoid mentioning gender in a sentence. "One small step for humanity, one giant leap for homosapiens."
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  • "He" and "man" are what is called "false" generics. So it's actually a good thing they aren't used - it reflects the evolution from the idea of women as subspecies instead of just a gender of the species. It's awkward, though, because our language was set up as subordinating - with the female being a tagged* form of the male - fe-male, wo-man, s-he. Even the substitution of "human" is a subconscious indication of not just two genders, but of two different genus within the species.

    Unfortunately, the only way we can actually get away from this is by using a plural "their", as in "a person needs to mind their own..." Language purists who understand proper grammar but not the subconscious semantic impact of words go crazy over this construction and fight it. There aren't really any gender neutral words to substitute, though, like you get in German with "herr" and "frau".

    Spoken language attempts to adjust by the word "woman" being pronounced "womin", but that hasn't translated out into written language yet.

    About the only thing we're going to do to eradicate a naturally subordinating language is to completely change the words for women into untagged words completely.

    *a tagged morpheme is a morpheme or word that has a prefix or suffix added to qualify a portion of a category. Thus the tagged morpheme is always subordinate to the main morpheme. The main morpheme indicates the natural state or main class in a category.

    Yes this is the type of crap I actually studied and still write answers about when I wake up at 4:30 in the morning. Go figure.
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    • Sure, I understand and don't dispute the rationale behind it, but I still find it awkward at times. I think adding true generics could work, like "ta" for singular and "ta yi" for plural.
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  • MOST languages have this type of thing. BTW did YOU know that there is NO way to say I in Hindi or Arabic? There probably isn't in Hebrew EITHER! If you want to say I, you have to say "I, a male,", or "I, a female,"! EVEN THE VERBS change!!!!!!!!! So you think YOU have it bad! I imagine a lot of kids get a ribbing over a literal SLIP of the tongue! Seriously, a SLIP can change the sound enough to make it sound like the other. English sometimes gets a bad rap, even when it often has a LOT of things going for it!

    There IS a kind of pronoun set though,in english! one/they! So if one wants to specify that something can apply to either sex, they can simply use one and they! SPANISH, for example, has the SAME sort of thing! "Se habla espanol"(One speaks spanish)!

    Steve
  • "They" is the plural that I was talking about (their). It's technically wrong, but is mostly accepted now in light of the lack of alternatives.

    I agree that English, while a nightmare in the spelling aspect, is pretty functional. I can't imagine using a tonal language that depends on the pitch of the word for meaning, a language that has thousands of characters in written form, or a class dependent language. They would drive me nuts very quickly. French wasn't too bad with the "vous" and "tu" polite and familiar forms, but the languages that have clear class differences....yikes. Maculine and feminine in languages (i.e. the "le" and "la" in French) drive me nuts, too. I have some sort of mental block on those and get them wrong as often as right. Of course, if it's something your first language does it's no more headache than any other.

    Socially, though, how do you ever integrate a society when the very structure of the language they speak tells the people they are different from the others the way cast system languages do? People get all freaked about everyone not seeing everyone as equal now days - yet the very structure of their language violate the idea of equality. (Structure works subconsciously not consciously).
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    • "Giant leap for mankind" I find ok as the word man is in both genders names, woman and man. If you said "Womankind" you would be referring to one gender.

      Changing "Where No Man Has Gone Before" to "No One" was definitely required as it originally was referring to the male only.
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  • BTW ENJOY:

    Very Rare Majel Barrett Roddenberry Television Appearance on ITV s This Morning UK circa 2002 - YouTube
    star trek diversity - YouTube
    Star Trek_Racism - YouTube
    Steve
  • No worries OP.

    No amount of mutilations can make English any uglier.
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    • HEY, I think some of the other tenses, declanations, etc... that were in earlier versions of English made it WORSE!

      Steve
  • I suppose a truly gender-neutral version of that famous phrase would be: one small step for a human being; one giant leap for the genus, homo. But a man and mankind were reasonable substitutes, given the situation.

    Whether or not our language will eventually incorporate a gender-neutral word to replace he or she (that's better than s/he), I think the point has been made. For the most part, male authors today using a generic he aren't immediately assumed to be ingrained sexists. But only a few decades ago, arguments about the gender of language were an important step in altering the cultural mindset, and at least gave those who worked with the written and spoken word pause for thought.

    As Sal said, using their is more egalitarian, if technically ungrammatical. And the phrase he or she is cumbersome if used throughout the text. However, we've probably reached the stage where most people, realizing that the language has this particular limitation, are now willing to accept that no assumption of gender supremacy is intended by the author or speaker.

    It's a legacy of this issue though, that even now, many authors preface their books with a note on how they've decided to approach the neutral-gender matter. Some elect to alternate he and she by chapter. Others willfully use she throughout, either to cause the least offence or perhaps to start redressing the balance after centuries of he literary dominance. Still others will acknowledge the inherent language inequality but ask us to accept that their use of he is not to be taken as a personal philosophy on their own gender politics.


    Frank
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    • So an astronaut can not even refer to their OWN gender!?!?!!?!? I submit that if a man can not call themselves a man, a woman should not be able to call themselves a woman! We can then forget about all visable things, have women wear something to obscure their breasts/figure, and not have makeup, etc... We can then have all wear short hair, and neutral clothing, maybe something to change the voice, remove all pronouns, etc... and make all equal. I don't know how humanity will survive, but for the generation or two, nobody could claim sexism!

      I've seen a LOT of articles, etc... that have used the pronouns SHE and HER. So don't assume this is a male thing, or even that it is claiming superiority. I have used s/he and his/her a LOT. I even try to use male/female to avoid ageism. But things go TOO far.

      HECK the idea of sports, like a girl, was NEVER to insult females. females earlier tended to be away from sports, and many DID have an unusual way of doing some things. It was used merely as a prod for males. And ideally males AND females should be happy with who they are. In the past, that has been used as a prod for BOTH to insult and prod. Females have been accused of having male attributes and vice/versa.

      Steve
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    Gender Neutral Writing

    Writing was easier in the past, when "he" and "man" could be used for general purposes. Now it is about finding non-awkward ways to avoid mentioning gender in a sentence. "One small step for humanity, one giant leap for homosapiens."