Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!agate!Mark
From: Mark Ethan Smith
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Re: Language in a Requirements Specification
Message-ID: <12880@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 31 Jul 88 05:51:22 GMT
References: <12781@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
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In article <12781@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> bunker!rha@purdue.edu (Robert H. Averack) writes:
>     At the present time, I am writing a Requirements Specification for a
>new software product.  The spec is getting rather voluminous, and during
>the course of making references to Users, I have been using the pronouns
>"him" and "his" as generics.
>
>     My simple question is:  is this acceptable?  Will the appearance of
>male pronouns as generic pronouns cause any undue discomfort for a reader?


I once read a very witty response to a similar question.  It
appeared as a letter to the editor, sent in by a reader of the
British _New Scientist_ magazine, and, as best I recall, went
something like this:

>>Athough we were taught that the word he embraces she, it has
>>been the discomforting experience of many a woman, upon assuming
>>to have been embraced by a particular he, to find that the he in
>>question had no such intentions at all!

Although the word he has traditionally been used as the generic,
most men and women feel that it does not truly include women.
Therefore, to save women the discomfort of having to worry about
whether they are actually included or not, and to prevent men from
becoming too comfortable with the assumption that they alone are
referred to, it would be necessary to use both pronouns throughout.

One way of avoiding this is to refer to the user, the engineer,
the programmer, the computer operator, etc., but after a few times,
brevity will require a return to pronouns.  As far as I know, I
am the first and only woman to insist on and prefer inclusive
pronouns, while not renouncing my sex.  Should this ever become
more widespread, with enough women demanding inclusion for most
women to begin to feel included, and for most men to agree that
a generic he is not intended to exclude women, the need for
gender specific pronouns in nongender related literature may cease.  
Feminists have used she as the generic, to see if men would feel 
included, and many did not.

--Mark