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From: steven@boring.uucp (Steven Pemberton)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: "he or she" - a grammatical problem solved
Message-ID: <6827@boring.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Mar-86 12:24:39 EST
Article-I.D.: boring.6827
Posted: Wed Mar 12 12:24:39 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Mar-86 22:35:40 EST
References: <2859@amdahl.UUCP> <830@cylixd.UUCP> <978@h-sc1.UUCP>
Reply-To: steven@mcvax.UUCP (Steven Pemberton)
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 12
Apparently-To: rnews@mcvax

In article <978@h-sc1.UUCP> breuel@h-sc1.UUCP asks:
> Why is 'he' for a person of unknown gender likely to offend the reader?
> Why don't you just consider 'he' the singular pronoun of unknown gender?

There are two objections that immediately come to mind. Firstly it lends
credibility to the lie that men are superior to women (an attitude that,
alas, one still comes across), and secondly because even among people who
support 'he' as gender-unspecific, you hear the use of 'she' when speaking
about nurses, secretaries, etc., which to my biassed mind demonstrates that
'he' is too gender-specific for them to use.

Steven Pemberton, CWI, Amsterdam; steven@mcvax.uucp.