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

[eric -dot- dunn -at- ca -dot- transport -dot- bombardier -dot- com]

How long will this thread run until Eric Ray shuts it down once again?

>>> "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.

So, if using 'he' excludes women, then I think that it's only right to point out
that 'she' excludes men.

>>> ..."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.

But you are. You are trying to make the point that numerous years of standard
usage of 'he' is incorrect because it excluded women. Not to mention what such
thinking is implying about languages that use gender much more frequently than
English and also default to the male gender.

>>> 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.
Hence my opinion above. You are trying to make a PC point by the use of 'she'.

If your style guide must make a choice against standard English usage, then so
be it. But I question the necessity and why anyone would get hot and bothered
arguing for the use of she. After all forcing the use of 'she' only takes the
absurd position that years of a perceived wrong should be replaced with some
indeterminate time of a deliberate wrong.

How long is until someone thinks that writing an office manual using exclusively
'she' is demeaning because it stereotypes women into the job? <BAH>

Well, if 'he' is unacceptable and we continue to have conniptions about the use
of 'they' (even though it seems it was good enough for Shakespeare) that leaves
us with 'she' and 'it'. As both have their problems, how about a combination to
become 'sh**'?. Oops, suppose that has some problems all its own. <lol> But then
again, techsupport might like that one because it'll reflect what they often
think of the users anyways. <BG>

Eric L. Dunn



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