English lacks a gender-neutral pronoun, causing frustration for those who don’t identify as male or female. Attempts to create one have resulted in varied options.
A gender-neutral pronoun is one that does not associate a gender with the person or creature being discussed. Some languages, such as English, do not have a truly neuter third person pronoun available, and women in particular have criticized this, as many writers use “he” when referring to a generic individual in the third person, and some activists for equality do not like this. Furthermore, the dichotomy of “he and she” in English leaves no room for other gender identities, a source of frustration for the transgender and genderqueer communities. People who are limited by languages that don’t include gender-neutral pronouns have attempted to create them, in the interest of greater equality.
A pronoun is a word used to replace another noun or a proper noun. For example: “Henry ran to catch the bus, but it was too late.” In this sentence, “Henry” is a proper noun, and is replaced with “he” later in the sentence, to avoid repetition. However, a pronoun can also be used to talk about an anonymous or generic person, as in the sentence: “If anyone calls me from the doctor’s office, tell them I need to reschedule.” Until the late twentieth century, the use of “he” in the preceding sentence would have been proper English usage and probably would not have elicited comment.
However, writers are increasingly inclined to include women in their sentences, thus leading to awkward constructions such as: “When someone goes to the store, he has to bring money to pay for the goods he buys.” Even worse, some writers create sentences that are grammatically incorrect, such as: “That vet must be advertising a lot. I hope they’re as good as the ads say,” in an effort to keep the phrase gender-neutral. Some writers simply resort to awkward-sounding, though technically correct, phrases such as, “When going for a walk in San Francisco, you should wear layers, as the weather can be quite changeable.”
In English, the word “it” is used for objects and is considered offensive in reference to people. Therefore, some activists have rallied for a truly gender-neutral pronoun to be used instead of him/her, or in conjunction with these pronouns. In English there is actually a precedent for a neuter pronoun; both “ou” and “a” were accepted pronouns in the English language, but they died out in the 1400s. Among the suggestions was “sie,” opposed by German speakers, since “sie” is a gender pronoun in German used for refer to women, “aunts”, to avoid the “sie”, “hir” and “per. All of these pronouns could be used like “he, his, him, him” and so on, but without assigning a gender to the person under discussion.
Integrating a gender-neutral pronoun into an existing language might prove difficult, but not impossible. Many gender activists already use neutral pronouns, although, unfortunately, they have not agreed on which pronoun should be used, resulting in “zirs”, “sieself”, and “for” scattered throughout the gender neutral literature. If a single pronoun were to be agreed upon and used widely, it could enter common English usage and at least stimulate a discussion about equality, gender, and the potential value of gender neutral pronouns.
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