braingame said:
I remember reading somewhere once when I was in High School that in the English language, “they” and “their” were grammatically correct for hundreds of years until (fairly) recently when a declaration was issued from a certain church changing this status. I have been out of school for over 15 years and therefor cannot remember where I read this or the church, etc. I only remember that it was in England around the 1700s. I am searching the internet for this info, so if anyone knows, please contact me!

The article I linked to my post from damininteresting.com covers this very well. And it wasn’t the Church, it was the English Parliament (lets not get religion into it!)

I only need it so I have better ammo, if you know what I mean. In the meantime, continually using she and her will have to suffice to prove my point. It’s amazing how the same people who deny that it is sexist get so angry when you use she instead. They are usually the same people who get angry when a woman says a male celebrity is super hot. I guess they are oblivious to the 10,000 images a day of naked, seductive, FM women we all look at, however I digress.

Luckily I don’t get angry at using “she” instead of “he” nor do I get angry/jealous-whatever when a woman says they find Mr. Actor-dude hot. I think that men and women are different (“men are from mars… women are from venus… etc. etc.”) In my previous comment I pointed to an article about the difference between “subtle racism” and “overt racism” and it’s effect on people. I think the same thing is true here. When a woman sees “he” used exclusively, it will have a greater impact on the woman than the exclusive use of “she” on men.

However I think it does nothing to either side of the argument to use “she” exclusively just to prove a point. While most good men will change their ways when it is pointed out they are doing something sexist that they didn’t realise, trying to paint them as overtly sexist (when they are not but simply unaware) wins no-one points. It angers one side and embitters the other. As writers we should simply try to rise above it. IMHO as a man.

My current writing project, I’ve found that using “their” and “they” works exceedingly well, without detracting from writing. But this sort of stuff can be a field of land-mines because I only discovered halfway through that I had been using the term “God” as a gender-neutral term for “Gods” and “Goddesses”. (I always thought of “God” as gender-neutral). I know male readers wouldn’t have an issue with this, but I know it will cause a disconnect with female readers, so I’ll have to fix it.

Oh and yes, I am a snarky individual and I am aware of it.

Well, thanks for dropping by. I hope I haven’t done anything to get on your snarky side!

Hi there,
I, too, despise this sexist language. I remember reading somewhere once when I was in High School that in the English language, “they” and “their” were grammatically correct for hundreds of years until (fairly) recently when a declaration was issued from a certain church changing this status. I have been out of school for over 15 years and therefor cannot remember where I read this or the church, etc. I only remember that it was in England around the 1700s. I am searching the internet for this info, so if anyone knows, please contact me!
I only need it so I have better ammo, if you know what I mean. In the meantime, continually using she and her will have to suffice to prove my point. It’s amazing how the same people who deny that it is sexist get so angry when you use she instead. They are usually the same people who get angry when a woman says a male celebrity is super hot. I guess they are oblivious to the 10,000 images a day of naked, seductive, FM women we all look at, however I digress.
Oh and yes, I am a snarky individual and I am aware of it.

Hi Alec, it seems Spam Karma thought your comment was bad because of the wikipedia link. Very strange.

On a side note, my wife is French and I’m desperately attempting to learn the language as my three year old toddler will soon be able to secretly converse with my wife right in front of me! Arg. But yes, other languages certainly do have protections. In French at least, every noun is either female or male, so that makes it easy to speak about Game Masters generically, though I do wonder if GM is female or male in French?

I think using “She” isn’t as bad as using “He” exclusively. I saw this article on digg recently about “Subtle racism” as compared to “Explicit Racism”.

“Subtle racism interferes with black people’s mental function even more than overt racism does, a psychological study shows.

For whites, who are much less often the targets of prejudice, overt racism interferes with mental function more.”

Perhaps the issue is the same here. The use of “he” over “she” (or vice versa) is a form of “subtle sexism” that effects women more than men as they have been exposed more to sexism than men have. Using “she” might have less impact on men. Maybe.

Surely non-fiction, the use of he/she isn’t an issue? I mean you refer to characters who are either male or female? Or is there another aspect of this issue I’m missing?

Hey Mark! I talked a little about this in my comment thread in response to your comment, but I figure I can chime in here, too.

The problem, of course, is that our language is inherently sexist in that we don’t have a gender-neutral personal pronoun. Some languages actually do, but we just don’t have one in English. “It” doesn’t fly, and I’m with you that many solutions just plain suck. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to bring myself to use “s/he” or, worse, “ze.”

In both fiction and non-fiction—and, yes, technical writing, the only kind that actually pays the bills—I usually go with the following three strategies:

1. Try to rewrite the sentence so a singular neutral pronoun isn’t needed.
2. Use “he or she” for boring technical documents. I find it isn’t too bad there, because I can rewrite most sentences not to need singular pronouns, so the few that do crop up are hardly noticed amid tedious menu descriptions and step procedures.
3. Alternate between one and another, so section or chapter uses “he” and the next uses “she.” You mentioned that you find it disconcerting. Personally, I don’t mind it when it’s done well. Doing it well requires that the examples are obviously quite separate. Switching from one to another between chapters doesn’t bother me. Switching every paragraph—or worse, every sentence—does.

I do think it’s worthwhile for RPGs to take a look at their styles. I agree that the GM=”she”, player=”he” seems a little silly and is probably sexist too. (I don’t mind that the Buffy games use “she,” a nod to the source material.)

I guess every solution is imperfect, but in the end I feel that ignoring the issue is worse that some of the patches.