"It" is impersonal.
"He" is sexist.
"She" calls attention to and thereby reifies the sexism.
"S/he" is unpronounceable.
"Xe" is nonsensical.
"One" is awkward.
Why not just do what we do in regular speech and say "they?" Sure, "they" signifies plural, but so does "were," and we have no problem saying "if I were."
Besides, with the construction of "were" for the singular, we seem to implicitly acknowledge that the individual subject is not one but many, an irresolvable composite of countless contradictory and multiple identities, discourses, cultures, and personalities. We don't just form multitudes, we are multitudes, as Walt Whitman would say.
Hence, far from being contradictory, I believe nothing could be more consistent, honest, and true to real life, than to use "they" in the singular for gender-neutral pronoun situations.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment