Gender Neutral Language

Refactoring Note: This is still in progress. I'm taking it slow, because there's lots of good ideas here. I'm also trying to put it into the PortlandForm. Help distilling is appreciated. -- SeanOleary

The first section below appears to have become garbled.

Problem:

On HomePage, someone complained that a paragraph referring to a man who spends every night at his local pub was overly sexist. The author suggested different ways to modify the sentence in order to make it less sexist.

Although you can't tell from WikiWikiWeb (where no-one assumes FrancisHwang is a woman), over half of the US population are female. Sometimes we need to modify our message to make our point effectively. Frequently we are unaware that our language may be perceived as sexist (GirlsDontWiki for example).

The EnglishLanguage is the largest contributor to perceived sexist language. Americans are taught to use male pronouns for the common gender. Some job names (Actor, Aviator) have feminine forms (Actress, Aviatrix). Other jobs are perceived to be male (Surgeon).

Usually this is because of habit. We speak as we have been taught. We also adapt the speech habits of others around us.

Our language is also

However, sexist language is seldom intentional. Most people, when learning of the perceived.

Unless there is an overThe reason this happens is twofold, ..." or "this is caused by..." or "Usually this is because of...". "You will want to..." or "It is important that..." or "The primary goal is...". "But..." or "You will also want..." or "Another important issue is...". [Cause of the problem followed by the forces that must be resolved in order, roughly, from strongest to weakest and with conflicts between the forces highlighted]

Therefore:

You may want to consider using Gender Neutral Language where perceptions about gender are important.

consideration to gender attention to perception is Take some particular kind of action; or, build something that looks like this; or select this sort of option over that sort. [Describe a solution that resolves the strongest forces in this context.]

"Now you can..." or "Next you will want to..." or "This means that you will have to..." or "You will still need to...". [Describe the resulting context: what has been resolved, what needs to be addressed next, what new possibilities are available at this point, what new problems have arisen, what possibilities are no longer available etc...]

"This is part of the same problem that is addressed by..." or "You may also want to consider..." or "Use this when you've already done thus and such and now you want to move in the direction of doing this other thing..." or "For a fuller description of the larger set of problems for which this is a partial solution see:..." [Summary section. Discuss the greater context in which this pattern belongs, related patterns, and the specific relationships between those patterns and this one.]

GenderNeutral? Strategies:

SingularThey

An alternate, though often slightly more awkward, option exists. The use of they and them is available for those who desire to express themselves in a gender-neutral way. (e.g. "... or what they think of as BestSolutions". )

The use of 'they' and them is now second nature to many UK speakers. You will hear conversations like :

: "someone's coming to fix the coffee machine"
: "well I hope they have it fixed by lunchtime".

This usage does not seem to have much acceptance in the US. Maybe this is because UK English already had a wider use of the plural form than US. In the UK the plural form is often used for organizations and collective nouns, compare:

: "Asda are having a half-price sale" (UK)
: "Wall Mart is having a half-price offer" (US)

I seem to recall reading that this use of 'they' has actually been a feature of English for several centuries. Does perhaps someone have more solid information about this, one way or the other? I can personally attest that, in certain constructions (someone...they, anyone...they), 'they' feels quite natural to me, and 'he' feels forced - unusual for a usage aimed solely at political correctness.

But the use of 'they' when you are talking a singular person isn't correct either - it's imprecise and violates NounVerbAgreement? grammar rules.

Singular 'they' is theoretically a different word from the plural 'they', so doesn't violate any rules, though the only distinction between the two is grammatical function. Compare German 'sie' meaning 'she', 'sie' meaning plural 'they', and 'Sie' meaning formal singular 'you'.

SpivakPronouns

"Properly" using the 3rd-person plural PossessiveCase for a single person!?!!?? If you have such a problem with it, why don't you just speak like the alien you are and say 'An example can be made for the humanoid breathing unit which spends every night at its local pub.'?

What is the problem with that sentence in the first place? It is referring to a specific man, perhaps a proverbial one, and so the rest of the sentence agrees with that gender.

The 'he' and 'she' can be replaced by 'they'. The sentence would have to start with 'An example can be made for the person who spends every night at the local pub.'

I am strongly in favor of using GenderNeutralLanguage and of eliminating sexism. Removing assumptions about relationships between gender and professions/interests/skills/intelligence is a good thing. However, I don't think it's reasonable to insist that everything one says must be devoid of gender references. If someone explicitly uses a male character as an example of something, that person is not being sexist. Just because an example can be restated in a gender-neutral way doesn't mean the original statement was sexist. Does the example become easier to understand, or more generally relevant, if the "sexism" is removed? I think not.

To correspond properly, it should be "their local pub".

This represent a class of problems arising from the requirement for expressing in politically correct terms. The specific issue arises when one needs to express a statement that applies to the general population, in a gender-specific way.

For example, "A software developer provides BestSolutions or what He thinks of as BestSolutions". -- SalimNair

"This is a problem with using English with it's general gender. Many folks (MarioCuomo? was one of the most consistent about it) use the pronoun 'she' as the general gender."

For example, "A software developer provided BestSolutions or what she thinks of as BestSolutions".

This always reminds me of the anthropomorphization inherent in a statement like "English as she is spoke"

The gender should not be a problem in communicating here - the "flow of meaning" is to be understood, not as an attempt to introduce gender, but as one to present "the software developer presenting (personally preferred) BestSolutions". If, as in this case, the expresser is a man (he used) or is a woman (she used), why should the use of the word "He or She" limit my understanding of the main "flow of meaning"? The concentration on the use of a gender-specific pronoun interferes with the flow. So 'go with the flow - try to understand what "he" or "she" is saying!.

Everyone should grow up, read some Isaac Asimov essays, and get over it. (Asimov always used 'he' as a shorthand for 'he and she', always warned the reader that he would do so and never apologized for it. Neither do I.) If you don't like the way English works, speak another language; nobody stops you. -- JbRainsberger (an instance of GetOverIt?)

Agreed.... people don't sue the publishers of a King James version bible or get publicly enraged just because "man" is used to identify the human race.

"Some people do get publicly enraged. That's why they're other translations of the bible that use gender-neutral language."

Why is outrage required, or attributed? Isn't it possible that someone might provide an alternative translation because it's felt to be more accurate, or simply the right thing to do?

"However, English isn't static. Anyone who has tried to read Beowulf could tell you that. Read WilliamShakespeare, JaneAusten?, MarkTwain, and even IsaacAsimov. Some folks try to establish gender-neutral replacements. In fact it only took 30 years to establish "Ms." as a title. " -- SeanOleary

As opposed to some other recent changes in English (such as misuses of the apostrophe and quotation marks), there does seem to be a real need for a distinct third-person singular personal pronoun of indeterminate (not neuter) gender. We can all think of cases where meaning would be made more clear with such a prounoun rather than using "he." Never mind equality, it would just give you a slightly more precise way to express yourself. How can that be a bad thing?

My favourite example (It may have been IsaacAsimov again) is to use abbreviate "He or she/It" as H'or'sh'it? CianOkiersey?

English simply uses the male pronoun as a default standard usage. There is no implied bias in this practice and it is probably not the intent of the speaker that it be taken as any kind of statement.

It is interesting to note that English does seem to be drifting away from gender-specific language. A list of dying words could include waitress (replaced with something PC, I like FoodPerson?) and actress ( women are more commonly being referred to as actors). Many more certainly exist and not just in a trivial PoliticallyCorrect way. -- JoeYoung

Reworded: If we are to write using 1st person English usage, we need to spend the necessary time and effort to restructure the natural language (that is what we usually say or write) so that words like "he or him" used for non-gender-specific persons will have the appropriate genderproblem.com word used it its place. This is in order to allow those who have a cultural gender bias deprivation that requires the change in order to not inflict any intellectual or psychological anguish, or harm, and not be able to read the rest of the text. The author does want all who read to read all he writes. (the author in this case is a man (specifically)) so the reader can be enriched by the content and essence of the writing as well as the gender specificity. While we take the time to do this we should also not forget to treat each other with respect and dignity, regardless of gender. The later being immensely more important than the former. To do this one will handle both a perceptual problem and an real issue.

The act of the using words one way or another is not a substitute for real concern about gender issues. The words you use are what you say, the actions you do are what you are.

I am not sure what you mean. What about offending people who don't want to be offended?

I hope you understand now that those who are offended, are not offended by the word, but by the actions that have made them sensitive to use of words. I hope you are not offended either way. I do not believe that most writers have made choices of pronoun usage and noun usage with intention of showing gender bias, either consciously or sub-consciously. Writers just use the language and spelling they know.

The gender bias in the English (and others) language is not an isolated phenomenon. It merely reflects the widespread cultural gender bias of English-speaking peoples (and certainly others as well); a bias that is certainly less evident today than fifty years ago, but nonetheless still in effect. Some people believe that attacking a symptom (language usage) is a productive way to improve the culture; others believe that the symptom is on objectionable (??) (if at all) as a reflection of the cultural bias - and if that bias is removed, the language usage becomes harmless. Of course, there are others who remain (blissfully, intentionally, or otherwise) ignorant of the entire issue. In my experience, this latter group is often quick to dismiss any suggestions along these lines as 'PC nonsense', at the same time as being entirely incapable of describing the issue in any depth. The momentum of ignorance is the largest obstacle to overcome in many cultural changes.

Does this mean that anyone who resists changing the language is motivated by blissful or intentional ignorance of the issue. Or is it just that we recognize the seriousness of the problem but do not want to take potentially Orwellian steps to solve it.

There are other momentums at play than ignorance. There is long-standing purposeful gender bias that is the result of intentional deeds. To treat the symptom is to ignore the illness.

''The illness you speak of is what? Furthermore, what do you propose should be the method of dealing with illness? To me, it seems that one uses symptoms to identify an illness, and if treatment is available, to apply it, - to the one who is suffering the illness. Are you saying that the issue is one that assumes that people who use gender-specific pronouns are spreading a disease?

I suppose if someone cares about such things, she will choose words that are gender-neutral, and if she doesn't care, then she won't. :-)

One thing about the gender-neutral he, him, etc. is that the AngloSaxonLanguage words for they, them, etc. (already being used singularly, btw) merged due to language change with he, him, etc. - so we borrowed the Norse pronoun they.

Gender Problem in Other Languages

In most western languages, everything has a very precise gender, and it doesn't usually agree from one language to the next or make a heck of a lot of sense.

I never thought this is a specific problem of English language. I am yet to find a language with a gender-neutral expression for a singular third person pronoun. Many of the Indian languages derived from Sanskrit do have a gender-neutral expression for Man.

In Turkish, we use "o" for "he", "she" and "it". This sexist nature of western languages (especially French) is very confusing while learning them. -- SavasAlparslan

And in Finnish, we use "hän" for both "she" and "he". We do make a gender distinction between people and things: "it" is "se". In everyday usage, the word "hän" is rarely used, however; usually, people are also referred to as "se". And yes, the male/female/neuter gender distinction of everything in the world present in most (or at least many) indoeuropean languages appears weird to us, too. But what you find weird in a language is totally dependent upon what your first language happens to be: any introductory course in general linguistics will tell you that there are languages with as many as 14 different genders (with nothing to do with the males and females; there might be a gender for slender things and another for things to do in the middle of the night). -- JannePeltonen

One language that I know does have the WikiNameGenderProblem? exactly the same as WikiNamePluralProblem is Hindi. -- SalimNair

The Doctor Puzzle

I was strongly in the "no gender is implied camp" until I was stumped by a puzzle book:

"The father brings his son to the hospital, but the surgeon said: I can't operate on this child, he's my son!"

The unquestioned assumption that the "surgeon" is male blocks the solution.

And surgeon isn't even a gender-specific term.

Bet you that if postperson and the like settled into the language without further change, they would quickly assume the same connotations as before. In fact, the universal person would probably end up implying man most of the time, the same way the universal man used to.

Gender Neutal Forms

My favorite solution is the Greek suffix -on. In the 80s, I recall a lot of restaurants offering jobs for waitrons.

that is good for a number of reasons, one of which is that often I seem to get service staff who are barely one step above Racter in processing power. -tron captures that robotic behavior perfectly. -- PeteHardie

So we should be known as programrons, rather than as programmers and programmeresses?

Ad Absurdum

Perhaps Some Person who is Gender Sensitive should start a page - ItsTimeToDumpEnglish? & ItsTimeToDumpSpanish? etc.

How about using "it" instead of "he" or "she"?

I'm a big fan of "it" - eventually we'll be communicating with non human persons, so why not lay the groundwork now?

I don't like "it" so much - it sounds as if it doesn't fit for humans (I'm not a native English speaker though, so I might have gotten the wrong impression). Maybe we should make up a new word, that behaves like "it" but will be used for anything: it should be one-syllable, with an 'I'. Perhaps "yib" is good. -- AmirLivne

I've seen "co" used. "cos" for the possessive. It doesn't really roll off the tongue though, does it?

Change the GettysburgAddress to:

"Fourscore and Seven years ago our forepersons brought forth a new nation....???"

Sure, let's RefactorEnglish so that the preceding reads:

"Eighty-seven years ago, our ancestors instantiated a new nation."

Remember, in English grammar, "he," "him," "his," "man," etc. all can refer to either the male gender or be gender neutral based on context. This has long been accepted practice, until people started to try to use grammar to make a point about other areas of society. Unfortunatley, the point was lost, it never became an effective means of creating change in society, and has left us with a grammarical void. Go ahead and use "he" for gender neutral expressions and get back to concentrating on the message and not the format.

The counter-argument is that this leads to the subtle inference that generic people are male, and that females are somehow different from "typical people". (I know a man, who identifies as strongly pro-feminist, who feels that this represents a very anti-male bias--suggesting that men are "plain" people and women are special.) And it is often unclear from context whether the speaker is using "man" generically or specifically, so listeners might make incorrect assumptions. Most gender-neutral statements can be easily changed into a form that does not use he/him/his/man, so if one can do so, then one should do so to eliminate such confusion.

There are two issues here: Should wiki pages be GenderNeutral?, and refactoring strategies to accomplish that. GenderNeutralLanguage seems to be a generally accepted term for this sorta thing. I think I'll be moving this page there soon... I'd like to move the strategies to GenderNeutralLanguagePatterns?. -- SeanOleary

When I want to write deliberately GenderNeutral? material, I shift to the less personal "one" as in "one can appreciate profanity when ..." or "if one's hand becomes stuck in the keyboard then ..."

I have never found a context where the use of "one" in this way did not adequately communicate. One can readily see why.

I can't. Here's the sentence: "When the manager got really annoyed, one rose quickly from one's desk and told one's employees to 'Ship Up!' ". Ugh. "When the manager got really annoyed, he/she rose quickly from his/her desk and told his/her employees to 'Ship Up!' " Ugh again.

I see your point. In reality, such a sentence probably involves an actual person of non-neutral gender. If I truly needed to express genderlessness (!) in that way, I'd wind up refactoring the sentence. (However, if I had to coerce a word into the gender-neutral 3rd person singular, I'd still probably lean toward "one" rather than "they") -- gh

"One" is, of course a lot more flexible than other structures, in that it can be used in an implied first person sense (I think you'll get better. || Yes, one hopes.) or in implied second person (I'm really unhappy. || Well, one could go to the boss.) or the obvious third person.

I think this is an incorrect use of one but I lack the understanding of english grammer to explain why.

However, there's a slight irony here. In the Norse languages (Danish, etc.), from which English descends, the word for "one" is "man" (which does not mean "man" in its English sense). -- GarryHamilton

The main objection an english person might have to one is that it has become a bit of a joke after its overuse by PrinceCharles? :-)

Gender is not the same as sex. Gender is a linguistic notion. For example, in English it is correct to refer to boats as "she" - "She's overloaded" not "He's overloaded" or "It's overloaded." This does not imply the boat has a vagina.

TalesFromTheTrenches?

Once I was in a scientic convention. The speaker was an middle aged American male. He asked if the "Chairperson" (a woman of some age) would help him in something. From the audience, an older English man required to talk and was a bit rough on the American, that was in some way confusing political correctness and politeness. He demanded that, at least, the woman was addressed as a "Chairlady".

I believe this anedoct speaks much about Americans, Britishs, different ages and exagerations.

I'd say the English man was more correct. As a general principle, politeness trumps political correctness. -- LayneThomas