

Write Without Gender - arcb
https://medium.com/@arcb/write-without-gender-4738fa46aa1c
Our biases in writing English give gender unnecessary importance. Here’s a way to avoid it.
======
Nadya
_" Sally is working with Brian. They are working on a method to diagnose
cancer in lizards."_

Am I talking about Sally and Brian or only Sally? Does the context help at
all?

 _" Sally is working with Brian. She is working on a method to diagnose cancer
in lizards."_

It is now immediately recognized that I am talking about Sally's work. Perhaps
Brian is working on a way to detect clogged arteries in lizards and is working
on lizard-related research with Sally.

~~~
tacone
Yes, it's just ambiguous. Also, the post fails to understand the honorific
form: honorific it is used only when you're talking to a person directly:

"are they going to leave the house?" is correct only when you're asking it to
the subject itself. Otherwise you would just use he/she or a title name
(queen, king, lord etc)

If you're looking to replace he/she you should not use an honorific form. You
should either use "it", or invent a fourth third person (es, ish, woot, you
name it).

Still the problem stays: political correctness traded for ambiguity.

~~~
arcb
You're definitely on to something. Sweden's working on a neutral pronoun.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/04/01...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/04/01/sweden-
is-about-to-add-a-gender-neutral-pronoun-to-its-official-dictionary/)

To respond to the point on recognizing when to use honorifics - various
languages around the world conjugate singular third person honorifics to a
plural verb, and that's what I was referring to.

I wrote the article and will happily claim it's flawed - it tries to take on
an old, deep problem with not too many clear outs. It also tries to focus on a
specific problem many institutions around the world have with unnecessary bias
invoking writing styles. It tries to provide options that can be used
practically, while understanding trade-offs.

~~~
arcb
Additionally, this article does a good job of articulating the case for using
'they':

[http://www.copyediting.com/epicene-they-gaining-greater-
acce...](http://www.copyediting.com/epicene-they-gaining-greater-acceptance)

------
tacone
This is insanity at best. Genders exist, differences exist, accept them and
live with it.

And by the way, let's take two languages that use honorifics: french and
italian. In those language, the neutral third person does not exist at all.
Every being, and every thing is associated to a gender. Take the "sea": in
french is feminine, in italian is masculine, and nobody ever gave a dime about
it.

------
ohjeez
Oh god no.

Grammar still matters, dammit.

~~~
arcb
Grammar does matter. This article tries to isolate cases in which we can
remove implicit gender bias. Sweden's neutral pronoun may be the answer.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/04/01...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/04/01/sweden-
is-about-to-add-a-gender-neutral-pronoun-to-its-official-dictionary/)

------
paulhauggis
"Use the pronouns they/them/their."

No. We have gender differences and writing so gives a different perspective on
the subject at hand. Why are we trying to be the same when we obviously
aren't?

~~~
arcb
On this point specifically, let's think about what happens in a professional
context that actively tries to look past the gender of the subject and focus
on the outcomes delivered by the person. Would you agree that gender can add a
bias to a lot of cases where it shouldn't exist?

