Fine-Tuning 16, The Generic "He" and How to Avoid It

The concern was never whether grown men and woman would or wouldn't understand that manmade or mankind refers to both sexes. The concern was for children. Consider how little girls might be conditioned by hearing a language that is male-oriented.

As I mentioned earlier, when I was little girl and heard the generic "he" or "men" or "mankind," I wondered, "What about me?" Was I the only one who wondered?

At the moment, English does not have a satisfactory solution to the problem--that is, for those who think there's a problem. Obviously, if you don't think there's a problem, then you don't need a solution.

Welcome back, Roberta! I've ben trying to keep this thread going in your absence.

I must admit that, as a male, I find it hard to identify with this problem. But I'm certainly willing to consider the fact that the problem must exist, else why would anyone be concerned? You don't think that a little more emphasis on language education, rather than language alteration, might be the answer?

Did we lose R's post? It was about the children being confused on the use of Man and Men in classrooms, and that being stronger than that we adults get it re manmade, or not....and MA saying isn't the answer education.

I remember being confused as a child about All Men are Created Equal and other sentences. More confused when I walked into burgeoning adulthood unready for all the things I couldn't do that my parents intimated I could (um, be a doctor...) and yet totally personally behaving as Miss Hanbury's most polite child. I did wear gloves, I was at the cusp age where women wore gloves.

I did not finish reading Betty Friedan's book, Feminine Mystique, because I argued at something like page 26 (gee, I should look that up) that Women Should Obey The Husband. She was saying they didn't need to and I said they should. That is how I felt in 1962 or whatever it was.
I was certainly brought up that the man is the dominant wise one.

What has happened over a bunch of years is that I think men and women have, individually, some wisdom and some dumbness, and we should all listen.
I don' obey nobody.

As we speak, there is a thread here that deals with whether it is a good idea for a woman to contradict a man in front of his wife or children. (within a certain context.)

I know men in western civ now feel just about as much misunderstood as women ever did.

But re the english language...it would be useful, as there is still some great pro and con re women's place, to take care where children are.

For me, it is ok if you say manmade lake if your kids know women engineers own construction companies.

Andy, Thanks for minding the shop, so to speak. You said, "You don't think that a little more emphasis on language education, rather than language alteration, might be the answer?" Andy, language education is an answer, but to a different question. We should all have a solid background in our own language.

Try to imagine yourself as a little girl. Okay, it's a stretch, but bear with me. You grow up reading and hearing about firemen and policemen and mailmen. When people talk about people in general, they say "he." Historical documents refer to men and don't mention women, even if they're implied by the generic "he." You hear, "the doctor,he," "the lawyer, he," "the judge, he." You hear the "nurse, she," "the teacher, she," and "the mother, she." None of this is taught to you. It's just there. A constant in your life in an inconspicuous and unemphatic way. It's the way things are. Don't you think that this would affect your self-image, your aspirations for your life, your sense of where you fit into the world?

Fact it, I was never all that ardent about this subject. I had to deal with it because the publishers I worked for insisted that I deal with it. But the more we discuss it here, the more strongly I believe that we need to address the problem and resolve it. And, until we can come up with a fitting solution, we are stuck with awkwardness and convoluted language. Ultimately, the choice of how you express yourself is individual. We each gotta do what we each gotta do.

Dupre, sorry I misinterpreted your discussion of the generic "she." I couldn't see your "tongue in your cheek." This form of communication is decidedly imperfect.

S'all right.

I, too, think the matter needs to be resolved.

In fact, I think both pronouns, he and she, need to be tossed out almost entirely on their respective fannies.

I am more than a particular sex. Why emphasize my sex repeatedly when referring to me?

What if our language habits were different and everytime a person were referred to their race had to be included? How offensive would that be?

A person might be a particular race, and might be such a mixture that their race is unclear. Some people don't even believe that there are different races.

Some people recognize two sexes, some four including hermaphrodites and androgenous people. I once read an article that recognizes about twenty sexes. The concept of only two sexes is highly debatable.

I propose "the person" to replace third-person sex-specific pronouns. Or how about restating whatever noun was used. If the article is about students, restate students.

I like the indefinite "you" as well, and also "one."

I would reserve "he" or "she" for use only when the person's sex actually needed to be emphasized for clarity, as in medical or sociological documents and the like.

So what if it takes a few more words to be polite.

Manners always takes a few more seconds.

Any Neanderthal can grunt along through life with "yep" and "nope" and spouting orders instead of politely asking for a favor.

"Thank you," "Please," "I beg your pardon," "Excuse me," "Would you mind . . . ?" "I yield the floor to the learned legislator from Tennessee."

All of the above takes time and makes for a more pleasant life.

My beef is with contrived 'soundings' but I agree that words saying what humans can do (etc.) should be inclusive.

I am not against the use of he and she, even though I agree, or at least will listen to the idea, that sexuality is some continuum.

Funny thing about man-made, one could substitute manufactured which, although it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, is a bird in the hand and not a gender reference.

"Womanufactured" would be better.

Dupre, you are kidding, not? I thought you were for obliterating these labels..no, not to jump that you are for that.

Ok, ok, geez, you ARE kidding. I should relax.

Lakes are interesting as a fulcrum for a discussion like this, in that it takes a whale of a lot of effort to do the work to do for one of these, should you think them wise, and I blow hot and cold on this myself, more recently, colder, as I tend to get less intervening as a landscape architect as I age. But given that we make one as a group, you want the words "manufactured lake"? Manmade is what is (to my knowledge) in use, and it tends to convey the idea - Erosion didn't do this.

Gee, on second thought, I might not be so against the word
manufactured...

I am with McTag and MerryAndrew here. If "one" works in the sentence, fine. Otherwise, "he" has signified inclusive mankind, the world of humankind, for centuries. The term "man" meaning mankind, and including women, is inclusive of both genders. If only we would fight the significant battles and forget the edge-side skirmishes, our common causes might be furthered.

That is true, Kara, in the larger world, or is it the smaller, where people who have read a lot reside? Mostly we mean things now as inclusive. Except outside of some cities..

Ah well, I hope myself to speak inclusively, and thus sound like someone trying to speak inclusively, icko.

I am fine, myself, with "one", except it sounds phony in a bunch of instances.

Of course I'm kidding. Well, I thought it was funny.

I think the "man" in manufactured is derived from "manua" for hand and not from "man" anyway. Just a guess.

Hi Kara, I'm sure I said on another thread how glad I am to see you. In case you missed that, I'll say it again here. I'm glad to see you.

I do understand your point of view and that of McTag and Merry Andrew. But (you knew that "but" was coming, didn't you?) it's also true that for centuries women were barely citizens--unable to vote, own property, have a true say in their lives. Little by little, this has changed until women in most, but not all, countries have achieved a measure of equality. I can't accept that the language is immune to changing times and values.

Roberta, thanks for the welcome. I am delighted to be back.

I know, of course, that language is heavily weighted with political implication (and I would take nothing from women's battle for equality -- not sameness, but equality) and perhaps it is impossible to disavow the contortions of she/he or the alternate use of the feminine and masculine articles in a piece of work -- both of which artifices disrupt one's reading and destroy the hope of seeing work as a whole -- but I really have nothing but scorn for fixes like herstory rather than history, except as a joke.

If our goal is to attempt to undo centuries of ignoring women's contributions, we need to take a different tack.

Right on, Kara. It seems to me that, rather than helping the women's movement, the strides that women have made over the past half century get trivialized by a strident insistence on language reform. Language does change over time, quite spontaneously, without any need for politicizing such change or initiating it for politically correct reasons.

Kara and Andy, You both make good points that will require some thought before I respond. For the moment, I would like to say that every publisher I work for has guidelines for sexist language. I doubt that this applies to fiction, but it does apply to nonfiction.

Roberta, I'd be interested to know some of those guidelines and how one publisher might differ from another.

Kara, At the moment my apartment is in complete disarray, and I can't find anything. (I'm in the midst of a major purge.) I will continue searching for the guidelines. I think I have two or possibly three on hand.

Kara and Andy, I've finished ruminating. The fact is that I think the war to remove sexism from the language is over. Considering that all major U.S. publishers have established criteria for avoiding such language, no new textbooks will contain it. Children will not be reading the generic "he" or manmade or workman's comp or policeman or any of such expressions when they are in school. Granted, many people still use these expressions when they speak, but I think that Andy is right when he says that the language will change over time. And I think that future generations of English speakers will be less likely to use such terms as mankind or men when referring to both sexes.

For now, some folks care about such things and make the effort, however convoluted, to avoid the generic "he." And some folks don't. I think we should say what we like and how we like, and this is far more important to me than the generic "he."