Re: gender bias in language

["Delaney, Misti" <ncr02!ncr02!mdelaney -at- UCS01 -dot- ATTMAIL -dot- COM>]

Gene,

your experience of irritation and distraction at being excluded in the
grammar of the book you rejected perfectly mirrors that of women trying to
make our way through "conventional" androcentric texts over the last
thousand years.  Unfortunately we haven't had the option of tossing the fool
things aside in disgust if we wanted information or entertainment.

Your reaction makes the point perfectly that, although none of the current
attempts are satisfactory, the attempt to find a inclusive third person
singular pronoun is important.  The last thing technical writers should do
is alienate 51% of our audience by excluding them in our writing.

Misti
ncr02!mdelaney -at- attmail -dot- com
 ----------
From Gene Ledbetter:

James Perkins mentioned the idiosyncratic convention of using the pronoun
"she," rather than the traditional "he," when referring to an anonymous
individual.

I once owned an entire book that followed this unconvention. The practice
was distracting and irritating, and it detracted from an otherwise
interesting book on how to get published. I have also read material in which
the author alternated between "he" and "she." This practice was extremely
irritating, and I tossed the fool thing aside unread.

The last thing technical writers should do is subject their readers
[writers/their] to unnecessary confusion or complexity. If we must have a
fetish, let it be precision, e.g., "the hermaphroditic patient should visit
his and her physician regularly."