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Subject:Re: So-Called Gender Bias in Language From:David Dvorkin <daved -at- HUMPBACK -dot- KAPRE -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 3 Aug 1995 09:08:58 +0700
James Perkins wrote:
> One of my university professors always used "she" instead of "he" in all
> of HIS writing. He explained at the beginning of his books and documents
> that this was his convention. It seemed quite inoffensive: women were
> happy to see the change to "she", especially from a man, and the biased
> men thought it was just a personal idiosyncracy of the writer. I adopted
> this convention when writing for students at a university in Australia and
> also found it well-appreciated.
Even if one were to agree -- and I don't -- that use of "he" constitutes
gender bias in any sense other than the strictly technical one that "he"
has gender and exclusive or dominant use of it is bias by narrow definition,
I still don't see why substituting "she" is an improvement. It may give
certain readers a warm and fuzzy feeling, but that's all.
One could argue the opposite: that consistent use of "he" reflects
adherence to a fairly old custom in English, and not necessarily the
social attitudes of the writer, whereas deliberate use of "she" instead
indeed demonstrates a social bias.
