Re: S/he discussion

Subject: Re: S/he discussion
From: "Knox, Phebe" <pknox -at- CADMUS -dot- COM>
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1995 09:17:49 EST

Colleen Dancer says at her shop they finesse the gender
problem by using examples with people's names, and just
switching genders that way. That sounds like a good
practice, if the material lends itself to the "story"-type
of examples.
But I wanted to bring up my least favorite way of dealing
with the problem, even worse than s/he: I just read a book
in which the author simply switched pronouns every few
paragraphs. No attempt at a write-around; just referred to
psychologists, psychiatrists, etc. as "he" for awhile then
as "she" for awhile. It had the effect of my never being
able to forget about the gender/language issue and
concentrate on the subject of the book, because I was
constantly wrenched back to the issue of "fairness." I'd
recommend we don't follow that route, anyway.

Phebe Knox pknox -at- cadmus -dot- com


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