PERSONAL PRONOUNS
WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUSwww.hesheittheyi.com
As a public service, I'm devoting this fortnight's blog to typing up an excellent essay -- not otherwise locatable on the internet -- and passing it on to you. Many thanks to Professor Kathleen Stevens for describing the pronoun dilemma so sensibly.
This essay somehow came into my hands during the few semesters that I taught at the Community College of Philadelphia (1995 - 1998), yet two decades later, the need for awareness remains
just as pertinent.
"Burying the hypothetical 'he'
changes expectations for women"
by Kathleen StevensHere is a passage in a recent Newsweek: "The more stimulation a baby receives, the better off he will bee . . . A toddler's vocabulary reflects how much her mother talked to her."
"Baby . . . he. Toddler . . . her." Twenty - five years ago, that gender alternation wouldn't have occurred. English grammar require masculine pronouns after every noun naming a hypothetical human being. every generic baby, toddler, teenager, adult or old person was "he" -- every astronaut, brain surgeon, carpenter, dentist, engineer, foreign correspondent, straight through the alphabet.
Then feminists objected. In a 1972 New York Times essay, feminist writers Casey Miller [1919 - 1927] and Kate Swift [1923 – 2011] called the practice "a semantic mechanism that operates to keep women invisible" [Words and Women, 178]. Opponents retorted indignantly that generic nouns referring to human beings had always included both sexes.
The argument was fierce, but feminists prevailed. Today, grammar books recommend strategies to avoild pairing generic nouns with "he" and "him." Writers employ such strategies and editors red - pencil manuscripts when they don't. The hypothetical "he" has almost vanished from contemporary print.
In most cases, the change has been easy. The most obvious option -- using "he or she" -- is too clumsy for careful writers. Sometimes they pluralize the generic noun. When "people" replaces "person," "he" becomes "they," and both sexes are included. Direct address offers a second option ("the student . . . you" in place of "the student . . . he"), involving the audience while eliminating the masculine pronoun.
When both writer and reader belong to the group discussed, the editorial "we" makes sense. In place of "man . . . he," a writer may choose "human beings . . . we." Occasionally writers simply avoid "he" after a noun by repeating the noun or using a synonym, And when the text calls for a series of examples, many choose the strategy used n the Newsweek article above -- alternating male and female examples.
Has this grammatical change improved English, or is it political correctness run amok? Clearly, the change is an improvement.
The old usage was confusing. Encountering male pronouns following a generic noun, the reader had to decide repeatedly whether "he" meant "he" or "he and she" -- an unnecessary obstacle in the decoding process. Then there's courtesy. Why consign half the human race to linguistic limbo when the language offers options?
Finally -- and most important -- the old usage was a fraud. Who could seriously believe that readers see women as well as men when a text pairs "the person" ("citizen," "mayor," "bus driver," etc.) with "he"? Ask a child to draw one of these hypothetical individuals. How many would create a female image? Words reflect reality. They also influence cultural expectations. For hundreds of years, every hypothetical person mentioned in print in English was "he." This grammatical pattern reflected social reality and encouraged certain gender - specific expectations.
The subconscious tilt toward maleness in the use of "he" sometimes surfaces in texts that purportedly include both genders. In a 1969 children's book on semantics and communication, author Stuart Chase* refers to human beings with many generic words: reader, person, child, baby, homo sapiens, individual. Each time, the noun is followed by "he." Also generic, right?
But when repeated references to "a typical 6-year old" grew clumsy, Chase christened the hypothetical child "Jerry" -- and the generic child became a boy. Chase called teachers "schoolmasters" and stated that language transmitted knowledge "from father to son." Arguing that patterns of language usage shape patters of thought, Chase had failed to notice the linguistically influenced male bias in his own thinking.**
Eliminating the hypothetical "he" didn't produce the female biologists, basketball players and investment bankers we see today. But it helped. Shannon Lucid's chances of becoming an astronaut improved when science texts began to speak of "scientists .. they" in place of "the scientist . . . he." And Madeleine Albright's confirmation [on January 23, 1997] as secretary of state surely came more easily to senators no longer accustomed to seeing every reference to a hypothetical government employee matched with "he."
The widespread use of the masculine pronoun with generic nouns has ended. May "he" rest in peace.
* Just a guess:
Danger -- Men Talking!: A Background Book on Semantics and Communication, not that it's a children's book, but it was published in 1969 by
Parents' Magazine Press.
** But at least Chase gave it a try. I've never gotten over
Bruno Bettelheim's introduction to
A Good Enough Parent (1988), in which he goes to great lenghts to justify why he is not even going to bother with inclusive pronouns, the other half -- or more! -- of the human race be damned! With a straight - face, he writes:
Throughout this book, I have referred to a parent as "he" or "him," unless an example clearly refers to a mother, although I had mostly mothers in mind when I was writing and assume that mostly women will read it. Moreover, since slightly more than half of all children are female, it will also be difficult to decide how to refer to them. I am convinced that while both parents contribute significantly to a child's being raised well (or not so well), it is the mother, particularly during the early years, who is apt to play the considerably more important role in the process. One way to handle this semantic awkwardness would be to refer to parents always as "she" and "her," while referring to children throughout as "he" or "him," in this way making it easy for the reader to know whether I am speaking about a parent or about a child. But I found it as difficult to think of all parents as female as it was to think of all children as male. Another solution would be to refer to parents and children as "he / she" unless I specifically had a male or a female in mind, but this is not at all in mind with my old - fashioned way of thinking or writing.
But my main reason for shunning these ways of writing was that in writing this book, I felt I was speaking to my readers the way I have been talking all these many years to mothers, to staff members of children's institutions, or to mixed audiences of professionals interested in child - rearing. In speaking to such groups I could never make myself say "she / he" or circumvent the problem by speaking only about "persons." These expressions did not permit the kind of direct personal contact I value, so I have found it wiser to stick to the old - fashioned generic "he," whether I am referring to female or male, child or adult. The generic seems more natural to me, at least so far as children are concerned, because I was raised and spent nearly half of my life in Vienna, where in line with German custom, all children were spoken of in the neuter gender. I wish this were possible also in English, not only for children but also for adults, to make it obvious that one is not just referring to one sex only. But since this isn't possible, I feel it best to use the traditional language, with which I am most comfortable.
How shameful -- or should I say shameless -- to admit that you prefer the old exclusive ways because they suit you! Of course they do if you are part of the included group. Bettelheim could have broken some ground outside of his comfort zone and helped advance the language and the position of women, but instead he actively chose to be part of the problem instead of part of the solution.
And don't forget that Bettelheim was writing sixteen (16!) years after the great strides taken by Miller and Swift:
"The stated goal of . . . mutual respect and equality between boys and girls . . . was being undermined by the English language. . . . it hit us like a bombshell . . . It was the pronouns! They were overwhelmingly masculine gendered.”
As they wrote in the preface of Words and Women: “ . . . everything we read, heard on the radio and television, or worked on professionally confirmed our new awareness that the way English is used to make the simplest points can either acknowledge women’s full humanity or relegate the female half of the species to secondary status.”
In 1997, building on the foundation of Miller and Swift, Professor Stevens recommended eliminating the hypothetical, singular "he" by consistently using plural nouns along with the gender neutral plural pronoun "they."
Contemporary options go further, allowing the more flexible use of plural pronouns with singular nouns -- a useful shortcut, though I still strive for pronoun agreement whenever possible. However, as my son Ben and friend Rebecca continue to enlighten me, inclusive pronouns are more important than the occasional plural / singular
inconsistency. Best not to be "
on the wrong side of history and "
on the wrong side of English"! If only Bruno Bettelheim's editor had advised him in 1988:
"It takes time to adjust to new ways of speaking and thinking. Personally, I would much rather my friends and family mess up than give up entirely" (see Desmond Meagley).
Welcome, Singular “They”
In closing,
my quest in progress to connect with Professor Stevens:
December 17, 2019
Dear Moorestown Library,
RE:
Finding Pleasure in Poetry with Kathleen Stevens
I realize that this event is past, but it is the only reference I could find online to Professor Kathleen Stevens, and I was hoping to contact her about one of her previous, admirable essays that I occasionally use for teaching purposes: "Burying the hypothetical 'he' changes expectations for women."
Do you have a professional address for her? Or could you kindly pass my email on to her so that she might possibly contact me concerning her work?
Thank you so much for your kind attention,
Kitti Carriker, Ph.D.
**************
Hello Dr. Carriker,
Professor Stevens retired a number of years ago, so there wouldn't be a professional address for her. However, she is one of our library patrons, so I can forward your email to her.
Sincerely,
Joanne Parra
Head of Reference and Adult Services
**************
Dear Joanne Parra,
I greatly appreciate your note and thank you so much for helping me get in touch with Professor Stevens.
Sincerely,
Kitti Carriker
**************
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