Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Gender Blending

Author:Neil J. McLeish
Posted:3/4/2000; 1:25:54 PM
Topic:Gender Blending
Msg #:15402
Prev/Next:15401 / 15403

I feel that these days, in written work, political correctness is still going round the twist.

The reason I say this, is that after reading Oliver's MacOSX article and several programming manuals (all of which were written by men), I find it somewhat puzzling why people are substituting he/she or s/he for she.

Firstly, please note: I am in **no way** having a go at Oliver; just using the article as an example.

The most logical method of not offending anyone is to say - they.

For example, a sentence in the third block of Oliver's article:(I hope you don't mind me quoting you Oliver)

'Macintosh Programmers understand that the User wants to get a job done that she already knows how to do.'

would be better written:

'Macintosh Programmers understand that the User wants to get a job done that **they** already know how to do.'

Although this is not correct grammatically, it makes no assumption as to sex.

The writing of 'she' instead of 's/he' or 'he/she' is the just as incorrect as writing he for everything as the gender assumption is still present.

In fact, my writing the word 'gender' is also incorrect because only nouns have gender. Creatures have sex. (Thankfully).

Just my tuppenyworth.

Regards to all,

Neil

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