February 10, 2003
He/She/Zie

I got a slap on the hand today from a professor I teach with because he didn't like my use of s/he as a pronoun. Should one be inclusive or should one strive to remove clunkiness? He thinks the latter. I think both. S/he is far more streamlined than the awful he/she, his/her bit. It didn't seem worth it at the time to get into a discussion about nonbinary pronouns - zie and vir, for instance. Those are the pronouns that would either denote all-inclusive-genderlessness or a third gender, depending on who you talk to.

I've been trying to forget about pronouns lately, since I spent a lot of last semester thinking about them in Queer Theory and Language Theory, and ended up with a paper that was (mostly) about queering pronouns. Despite that spate of overkill, the more I contemplate the topic the more interesting it is to me. Not to most normal people, though, as evidenced by the following exchange:

"Hey, what are you working on these days?"
"Well, there's this paper on queering pronouns..."
"Pronouns? Why? What can you say about that? Hey, look at that bird."

Anyway, here's a bit of what I'm thinking about:


The future of gender pronouns is hazy, and has been in question since the early feminist movement first began to question the use of “he” as a universal pronoun indicative of mankind as a whole. Since then, we've seen the advent of “his/her” and “s/he” as alternatives. But these are still hegemonic references to the traditional gender binary; what alternatives are available for transpeople?

keep reading »

Krista | 11:16 PM | ping (2)

Comments

I find beauty in the duality, but then, I don't feel particularly oppressed, suppressed, or repressed. I just don't see the art in a society void of gender-specific pronouns. I think respect--though more difficult to attain--would be the higher road.

comment by Ailina at 01:35 AM on 02.11.03 [ link ]

The long road, as always is being able to demonstrate why something so entrenched as the pronoun is worth changing. Just as it is hard to convince most people that gender is not either-or, and even transgender isn't as simple as 'becoming the other'. You might as well try using Derrida's "there is no is" to convince children that they aren't having a birthday when they know damn well they are having a birthday.

I agree, Ailina, that respect should be the goal, but it's hard to foster respect when something as basic and powerful in daily life as the very language we use to describe ourselves tell some people that they don't even exist. That, to me, is the need for breaking down binaries--it allows people to come closer in language to expressing the selves they actually experience themselves as. Which is exactly why so many women object to the use of "he" as a neutral pronoun: it writes their experiences out of our collective culture.

Whew... that was a rambliing comment! :)

comment by steve at 04:58 PM on 02.11.03 [ link ]

Ask someone who speaks Mandarin. "Ta" has no gender. Just don't try to tell them Mandarin has no art. :)

I'm with Steve. I'd rather see myself in language, whenever it's appropriate to do so. Either mark both pronouns or neither for gender. Or give me a grab-bag of pronouns to choose from.

comment by Dorothea Salo at 12:53 PM on 02.13.03 [ link ]

What's wrong with "they"? It's natural, it's supported by history, it's admirably sex-neutral. (If anyone thinks it's somehow "wrong" -- though that would be a tough argument to make if you're supporting "zie" or "shim" -- feel free to check out my linguistic discussion at:
http://languagehat.blogspot.com/2002_12_08_languagehat_archive.html#85947992 )

comment by language hat at 05:37 PM on 02.14.03 [ link ]