I’ve thought a little bit about gender pronouns (and other gendered language.)
There are circumstances where using “he” to mean “indeterminate gender” is misleading. To say, in 2007, “Whoever wins the US election, he will be a wartime president” is inaccurate because Hillary Clinton was a candidate for president. The writer is referring to a small group of people, that is known to include women, as if there were no women. That’s using language to obscure the truth. (Another example: addressing an audience that visibly contains women as “Gentlemen.”)
There are examples where using male words for humans in general is much better for language flow. “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” I like the sentence just fine like that. It’s obvious that it means humankind, but the language has a deliberately historical feel.
Everything else is intermediate. If hypothetical examples are given as “he”, I generally don’t have a problem with it—it’s understood to mean “he or she.” If nobody, ever, gives female hypothetical examples, though, I might start to worry that it’s spreading the impression that there are no female rationalists. My own preference is for a mix of hypothetical “he”s and hypothetical “she”s, instead of the clunky “he or she” or the ungrammatical “they.” If your post has more than one hypothetical example, make some male and some female.
But aren’t most rationalists male? Aren’t most scientists? Entrepreneurs? etc. Isn’t it appropriate to assume a male norm when there actually is a male majority? Isn’t it just “PC fantasy” that a hypothetical individual in any group is female? Well, how much you decide to treat the majority as if it were the norm is a judgment call. My own perspective is that where women are a minority, it does not mean women are absent or anomalous.
Everything else is intermediate. If hypothetical examples are given as “he”, I generally don’t have a problem with it—it’s understood to mean “he or she.” If nobody, ever, gives female hypothetical examples, though, I might start to worry that it’s spreading the impression that there are no female rationalists. My own preference is for a mix of hypothetical “he”s and hypothetical “she”s, instead of the clunky “he or she” or the ungrammatical “they.” If your post has more than one hypothetical example, make some male and some female.
I tend to divide my constructed hypothetical actors approximately equally. I bias the distribution such that females are more likely to receive the more impressive sounding roles because that is more politically correct (and it also just seems more natural and polite to me to put the ‘other group’ actors into the more positive position.)
I’ve thought a little bit about gender pronouns (and other gendered language.)
There are circumstances where using “he” to mean “indeterminate gender” is misleading. To say, in 2007, “Whoever wins the US election, he will be a wartime president” is inaccurate because Hillary Clinton was a candidate for president. The writer is referring to a small group of people, that is known to include women, as if there were no women. That’s using language to obscure the truth. (Another example: addressing an audience that visibly contains women as “Gentlemen.”)
There are examples where using male words for humans in general is much better for language flow. “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” I like the sentence just fine like that. It’s obvious that it means humankind, but the language has a deliberately historical feel.
Everything else is intermediate. If hypothetical examples are given as “he”, I generally don’t have a problem with it—it’s understood to mean “he or she.” If nobody, ever, gives female hypothetical examples, though, I might start to worry that it’s spreading the impression that there are no female rationalists. My own preference is for a mix of hypothetical “he”s and hypothetical “she”s, instead of the clunky “he or she” or the ungrammatical “they.” If your post has more than one hypothetical example, make some male and some female.
But aren’t most rationalists male? Aren’t most scientists? Entrepreneurs? etc. Isn’t it appropriate to assume a male norm when there actually is a male majority? Isn’t it just “PC fantasy” that a hypothetical individual in any group is female? Well, how much you decide to treat the majority as if it were the norm is a judgment call. My own perspective is that where women are a minority, it does not mean women are absent or anomalous.
I tend to divide my constructed hypothetical actors approximately equally. I bias the distribution such that females are more likely to receive the more impressive sounding roles because that is more politically correct (and it also just seems more natural and polite to me to put the ‘other group’ actors into the more positive position.)
He who hesitates is lost. She who hesitates just asks for directions.