Strategies for avoiding gender-specific
pronouns
Regardless of what you may have been taught in grammar
school, the use of masculine third-person pronouns (he/ him/ his/ himself)
as generic pronouns is no longer acceptable to many people in business
communication. Whatever your own intentions may be, some readers will regard
this usage as insulting, insensitive, or at the very least, distracting.
By "generic pronouns" I mean the pronouns
we use when the gender of the person referred to is unknown or undefined,
a common occurence in technical writing. The problem is that most people
exclusively visualize a male "agent" when they encounter the
masculine pronouns in print, even when they are clearly meant to be taken
generically. In technical writing, you usually want your readers to visualize
themselves as the agent.
Since the purpose of business and technical communication
is to convey information with clarity and precision, anything that distracts
the reader's attention away from your topic must be looked upon as a problem
to be solved. In this article I survey some of the strategies for avoiding
"the pronoun problem" that have been suggested over the past
few years. The focus here is on the practical; none of these strategies depart
from English grammar as it is commonly used today. You can avoid the pronoun
problem without being "a linguistic pioneer."
Consider this passage from a machine shop "policies
and procedures" manual:
"The widget stamping machine (WSM) operator
is responsible for keeping his machine calibrated. If he detects a calibration
change of greater than .05%, he must notify his supervisor immediately.
The supervisor will inspect the WSM, and inform the operator whether he
can continue using the machine. "
Ouch! Among its problems, this paragraph contains
many examples of gender-specific pronouns. Let's see what can be done with
it.
Use compound pronouns
Lately, some writers have been using compound
pronouns like "he or she" or "s/he."
"The widget stamping machine (WSM) operator
is responsible for keeping his or her machine calibrated. If the operator
detects a calibration change of greater than .05%, he or she must notify
the supervisor immediately. The supervisor will inspect the WSM, and inform
the operator whether he or she can continue using the machine."
""The widget stamping machine (WSM)
operator is responsible for keeping his/her machine calibrated. If the
operator detects a calibration change of greater than .05%, s/he must notify
the supervisor immediately. The supervisor will inspect the WSM, and inform
the operator whether s/he can continue using the machine."
While this certainly solves the problem for the
writer, many readers will find this kind of writing confusing and awkward.
Try reading these paragraphs aloud to see why. How do you pronounce "s/he?"
The occasional compound pronoun may get you out of a rhetorical bind, but
if we are concerned with clear communication, we have not yet found a complete
solution to our problem.
Alternate masculine and feminine pronouns
A related strategy is to alternate using
masculine and feminine generic pronouns in succeeding paragraphs, sections,
or chapters. For example, always use he/him/his in odd numbered chapters,
and always use she/her/hers in even numbered chapters. This strategy does
promote balance and has sometimes been used to good effect in textbooks,
but it doesn't solve the real problem of distracting the reader.
Half the time you are asking your male readers to identify with a female
agent, and the other half, asking female readers to identify with a male
agent.
Even worse, the amount of background "housekeeping"
required to ensure that you've applied this strategy consistently is a
lot of work, and invites errors when you are doing high volume writing
on tight schedules. For this reason alone, I don't recommend using it in
the context of technical and business writing.
Use the dreaded passive voice
Some writers evade the problem by using
the passive voice. Despite the name, few topics arouse more passion among
writers than passive voice. The bane of scientific writing, passive voice
can be acceptable in technical and business writing when used sparingly,
but attempting to eliminate all gender-specific pronouns by using the passive
voice can result in some rather tortured prose:
"Widget stamping machine (WSM) calibration
is the responsibility of the operator. If a calibration change of greater
than .05% is detected, the supervisor must be notified. After the machine
is inspected, the operator will be informed whether it can continue to
be used."
I don't know about you, but reading this paragraph
makes me tired. I want to ask the writer, "are you talking to me?"
Be specific
One strategy that doesn't always occur
to writers is to mention specific people by name. Suppose the supervisor
is Dr. X, will always be Dr. X, and you know it and your audience
knows it. Why not say so?
"The widget stamping machine (WSM) operator
is responsible for keeping his machine calibrated. If he detects a calibration
change of greater than .05%, he must notify Dr. X immediately. Dr. X will
inspect the WSM, and inform the operator whether he can continue using
the machine."
This strategy may not work in a manual with a
long "shelf life, "but in day-to-day communications it is clearer
to write "Dr. Petersen," "Ms. Kochanski," or "Mr.
Chen," than "the supervising engineer."
Eliminate pronouns
Recasting the sentence to avoid using
pronouns altogether sometimes helps, depending on how many times they occur.
But you can't simply "cut and paste:"
"The widget stamping machine (WSM) operator
is responsible for keeping the operator's machine calibrated. If the operator
detects a calibration change of greater than .05%, the operator must notify
the operator's supervisor immediately. The supervisor will inspect the
WSM, and inform the operator whether the operator can continue using the
machine."
Hmm. Kind of repetitive. What if just we eliminate
the possessives, thus:
"The widget stamping machine (WSM) operator
is responsible for keeping the machine calibrated. If the operator detects
a calibration change of greater than .05%, he must notify the supervisor
immediately. The supervisor will inspect the WSM, and inform the operator
whether he can continue using the machine."
Now we're getting somewhere! And we can
probably assume that once Dr. X determines whether the machine is useable,
she'll inform the operator. How about this:
"The widget stamping machine (WSM) operator
is responsible for keeping the machine calibrated. If the operator detects
a calibration change of greater than .05%, he must notify the supervisor
immediately. The supervisor will inspect the WSM, and determine whether
he can continue using the machine."
Now let's combine some of the strategies
we've looked at so far:
"The widget stamping machine (WSM) operator
is responsible for keeping the machine calibrated. If its calibration changes
by more than .05%, the operator must notify the supervisor immediately.
He or she will inspect the WSM, and determine whether it can continue to
be used."
Not bad. Direct, concise, with just one wholly
appropriate compound, and a bit of passive voice in the last sentence.
Notice how much less distracting the compound pronoun "he or she"
appears when it is applied to someone other than the main agent, the WSM
operator. Try reading this one aloud – it works.
Use second person pronouns
The strategies outlined above make sense
if you are writing something like XYZ Company Policies and Workrules
Handbook. But when you are writing for an audience that is expected
to do something, why not write as if you were standing at their side, talking
to them? Using the second person pronouns (you, your, yours, yourself)
works well in instructional or procedural materials. If our sample paragraph
was meant to appear in the Widget Stamping Machine User's Guide,
I'd recommend recasting like this:
"As the widget stamping machine (WSM) operator,
you are responsible for keeping your machine calibrated. If you detect
a calibration change of greater than .05%, notify your supervisor immediately.
He or she will inspect the machine, and determine whether you can continue
to use it."
This paragraph also passes the "read aloud
test." Any WSM operator will know what to do, and again, the single
compound "he or she" is not so awkward as to be a distraction.
Use third person pronouns
The main reason generic "he"
persists, despite its distracting semantic properties, is that it is so
easy to apply. Sometimes you simply must use pronouns if your meaning is
to be understood clearly. When the gender of the agent is unknown or undefined,
I recommend using the third-person plural pronouns (they/ them/
their/ themselves) as generic singular pronouns. This usage is regaining
favor in recent years, and offers a single strategy that eliminates the
need to coin new forms (s/he) or passivize active sentences.
Here is one way our sample paragraph might be
recast using third-person pronouns:
"Each widget stamping machine (WSM) operator
is responsible for keeping their machine calibrated. If they detect a calibration
change of greater than .05%, they must notify their supervisor immediately.
The supervisor will inspect the machine and determine whether they can
continue to use it."
I say that this strategy is re-gaining favor,
for while it may sound a bit strange to those of us who were trained in
"traditional" prescriptive grammar, this usage has a long pedigree,
predating both the era of "political correctness" and
the era of "grammatical correctness" by some centuries. Influential
and educated writers in English through the ages have used this strategy,
from William Caxton, the first person to print books in the English language,
through Walt Whitman in the 19th and George Bernard Shaw in the 20th century.
Refer to the sidebar for historical and literary
examples, and examples taken from every day speech.
Language changes
It is not true that pronouns never change;
they just change very slowly. The second person pronouns you/ your/ yours
once were used only in the plural, with /thee/ thy/ thine being reserved
for the singular. Except in a small number of instances (you-all, youse)
the same pronouns are now used for both singular and plural in English.
All this is to say that the objections to generic
"they" seem no stronger than the objections to generic "
he. " The question is whether you will annoy those who are sticklers
for "traditional" grammar, or offend those who think that the
engineer/ technician /machinist /physician /nurse /patient you are writing
about might as easily be a woman as a man. In the long run, generic "
they" will probably become accepted by the majority of English speakers,
without causing a major upheaval in the English language.
Take the time
to avoid gender-specific language in your business and technical writing.
Given the consequences of being misunderstood, it is well worth the extra
effort. The strategies outlined here are simple, commonplace, and time-tested.
Remember, anything that distracts the reader, detracts from
your message.
© 1997 Scott Herron
Portions adapted from The Handbook of Non-Sexist Writing,
by Casey Miller and Kate Swift.