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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mhacdebhandia" data-source="post: 2890445" data-attributes="member: 18832">If a sufficiently large number of people find the gender-neutral "he" suggestive of normative masculinity, then that is a factual problem. Considering that in the past English spelling has been altered to suit the Francophilic tastes of certain influential individuals - "programme", anyone? - I would suggest that altering English grammar to eliminate that perceived suggestion is a pretty reasonable course of action, considering that no-one ever felt excluded or marginalised by "program".Besides which, the indisputable age of the gender-neutral "he" doesn't mean it's not sexist; it just means it's more evidence that the development of the English language was informed by the assumption that one of the defining attributes of humanity is masculinity.You can't suggest with a straight face that "he" as the gender-neutral pronoun has nothing to do with "he" as the male pronoun. That the collective contributions of the individuals whose speech and writings shaped the English language settled upon the same word to indicate an unknown person as the word for indicating a male person is not coincidental; it's indicative of a deeply sexist mode of thought concerning the nature of "people".Now, there are male-dominated societies whose languages don't distinguish between the genders of their pronouns - the Mandarin Chinese ta, for instance. Gender-bias isn't all down to pronouns!But to suggest that there's no possible effect upon individuals and upon society from constantly using the same word for "person of unknown gender" and "male person"? That's frankly laughable, and demonstrably incorrect in the former case.You can put it down to people being "ignorant" of the "real meaning" of the gender-neutral "he", but the perception by many of its being gender-biased is real and, I think, more important than the technically correct interpretation.After all, we're only talking about some women feeling socially marginalised in comparison to some people being irritated that grammar is being "misused".</blockquote>

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