Some Notes on
Gender-Neutral Language General The practice of assigning
masculine gender to neutral terms comes from the fact that every language
reflects the prejudices of the society in which it evolved, and English evolved
through most of its history in a male-centered, patriarchal society. Like any
other language, however, English is always changing. One only has to read aloud
sentences from the 19th century hooks assigned for this class to sense the
shifts that have occurred in the last 150 years. When readers pick up something
to read, they expect different conventions depending on the time in which the
material was written. As writers in 1995, we need to be not only aware of the
conventions that our readers may expect, but also conscious of the responses our
words may elicit. In addition, we need to know how the shifting nature of
language can make certain words awkward or misleading. "Man"
Man once was a truly generic word referring to all humans, but has
gradually narrowed in meaning to become a word that refers to adult male human
beings. Anglo-Saxons used the word to refer to all people. One example of this
occurs when an Anglo-Saxon writer refers to a seventh-century English princess
as "a wonderful man". Man paralleled the Latin word homo, "a member of the human
species." not vir, "an adult male of the species." The Old English word for
adult male was waepman and the old English word for adult woman was wifman. In
the course of time, wifman evolved into the word "woman." "Man" eventually
ceased to be used to refer to individual women and replaced waepman as a
specific term distinguishing an adult male from an adult female. But man
continued to be used in generalizations about both sexes. By the
18th century, the modern, narrow sense of man was firmly established as the
predominant one. When Edmund Burke, writing of the French Revolution, used men
in the old, inclusive way, he took pains to spell out his meaning: "Such a
deplorable havoc is made in the minds of men (both sexes) in France..." Thomas
Jefferson did not make the same distinction in declaring that "all men are
created equal" and "governments are instituted among men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed." In a time when women, having no vote,
could neither give nor withhold consent, Jefferson had to be using the word men
in its principal sense of "males," and it probably never occurred to him that
anyone would think otherwise. Looking at modern dictionaries indicate that the
definition that links "man’ with males is the predominant one. Studies of
college students and school children indicate that even when the broad
definitions of "msn" and "men" are taught, they tend to conjure up images of
male people only. We would never use the sentence "A girl grows up to be a man,"
because we assume the narrower definition of the word man. The Pronoun
Problem The first grammars of modern English were written in
the 16th and 17th centuries. They were mainly intended to help boys from upper
class families prepare for the study of Latin, a language most scholars
considered superior to English. The male authors of these earliest English
grammars wrote for male readers in an age when few women were literate. The
masculine-gender pronouns(代词) did not reflect a belief that masculine pronouns
could refer to both sexes. The grammars of this period contain no indication
that masculine pronouns were sex-inclusive when used in general references.
Instead these pronouns reflected the reality of male cultural dominance and the
male-centered world view that resulted. "He" started to be used
as a generic pronoun by grammarians who were trying to change a long-established
tradition of using "they" as a singular pronoun. In 1850 an Act of Parliament
gave official sanction(批准)to the recently invented concept of the "generic" he.
In the language used in acts of Parliament, the new law said, "words importing
the masculine gender shall be deemed and taken to include females." Although
similar language in contracts and other legal documents subsequently helped
reinforce this grammatical edict in all English-speaking countries, it was often
conveniently ignored. In 1879, for example, a move to admit female physicians to
the all-male Massachusetts Medical Society was effectively blocked on the
grounds ’that the society’s by-laws describing membership used the pronoun
he. Just as "man" is not truly generic in the 1990s, "he" is not
a true generic pronoun. Studies have confirmed that most people understand "he"
to refer to men only. Sentences like "A doctor is a busy person; he must be able
to balance a million obligations at once" imply that all doctors are men. As a
result of the fact that "he" is read by many as a masculine pronoun, many
people, especially women, have come to feel that the generic pronouns excludes
women. This means that more and more people find the use of such a pronoun
problematic. Solving the Pronoun Problem They as a
Singular -Most people, when writing and speaking informally, rely on singular
they as a matter of course: "If you love someone, set them free" (Sting). If you
pay attention to your own speech, you’ll probably catch yourself using the same
construction yourself. "It’s enough to drive anyone out of their senses" (George
Bernard Shaw). "I shouldn’t like to punish anyone, even ii they’d done me wrong"
(George Eliot). Some people are annoyed by the incorrect grammar that this
solution necessitates, but this construction is used more and more
frequently. He or She---Despite the charge of clumsiness,
double-pronoun constructions have made a comeback: "To be black in this country
is simply too pervasive an experience for any writer to omit from her or his
work," wrote Samuel R. Delany. Overuse of this solution can be awkward,
however. Pluralizing-A writer can often recast material in the
plural. For instance, instead of "As he advances in his program, the
medical student has increasing opportunities for clinical work," try "As they
advance in their program, medical students have increasing opportunities for
clinical work" Eliminating Pronouns--Avoid having to use
pronouns at all; instead of "a first grader can feed and dress himself," you
could write, "a first grader can eat find get dressed without
assistance." Further Alternatives--he she or s/he, using one
instead of he, or using a new generic pronoun (thon, co, E, try, hash,
hit). Studies show that even when students are taught the broad definition of "man" and "men", they think of ______.