Let\u2019s call everyone \u201cthey\u201d: Gender-neutral language should be the norm, not the exception.<\/p>\n

So writes Silpa Kovvali, an exquisitely progressive she-person, in the pages of Salon<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

We are forced to\u2026 give in and refer to our co-workers, students and friends as \u201che\u201d or \u201cshe.\u201d The result is that our language caps our ability to be progressive in this realm, forces us to immediately characterise people as male or female.<\/p>\n

Which is only accurate and expected practically all of the time<\/em>. And so,<\/p>\n

We ought to revert to the gender neutral \u201cthey\u201d whenever gender is not explicitly relevant.<\/p>\n

You see, Ms Kovvali believes that gendered pronouns and honorifics are an \u201coutdated linguistic tic.<\/a>\u201d And not a useful, rather concise source of information, a signal of respect, and a way of clarifying who it is we\u2019re talking about.<\/p>\n

The effect of elevating gender\u2019s importance is felt by the cis-gendered as well. None of us fit neatly or entirely into a traditional gender binary, with all the expectations of masculinity and femininity that these buckets entail.<\/p>\n

And yet despite this claim, and the somewhat random mention of buckets, almost all of us seem quite happy to be referred to as either male or female, as if it were<\/em> in fact \u201crelevant,\u201d and the demand for gender-neutral pronouns remains, to say the least, a niche concern. I\u2019d even venture to suggest that some of us might feel slighted by the wilful omission of \u2013 diminishing of \u2013 our respective maleness or femaleness. However, Ms Kovvali feels a need to inform those less enlightened, i.e., the rest of us, that,<\/p>\n

The goal is greater inclusion\u2026 to be respectful to those we write about, and to be clear to our readers.<\/p>\n

By risking affront on a daily basis and introducing a clumsy and needless ambiguity. Because vagueness is the new clarity.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Readers may wish to pause for a moment and think back to any recent discussion involving spouses, siblings, parents or children \u2013 anyone you know well \u2013 and then try repeating that conversation stripped of gender identifiers. Said out loud by actual people, about people we know, gender-neutral language tends to sound contrived and its connotations are unlikely to be flattering. And then imagine the effect of this modish neutering on popular culture – say, the quasi-pornographic romance novel: \u201cThey looked at them lustfully and reached for their buttons.\u201d It would, I fear, be hard to keep track of the various theys<\/em> involved. And a great literary genre would be rendered incomprehensible.<\/p>\n

Ms Kovvali nonetheless insists,<\/p>\n

Gender neutral language is a matter of clarity, and of accuracy. Perhaps radical is sensible in this realm as well.<\/p>\n

That a tiny minority object to gendered pronouns, or pretend to object in the hope of seeming\u00a0morally fashionable<\/em>, is apparently grounds for the rest of us to be imposed upon, and possibly insulted, with a widespread and routine denial of our gender. It isn\u2019t clear to me why un<\/em>-gendering everyone<\/em> is hugely preferable to the highly unlikely mis<\/em>-gendering of one person, potentially, in theory. And much as I hate to be a bother, my<\/em> \u201cpreferred pronouns\u201d are masculine. Like almost all human beings, I am not alienated from my sex in psychologically hazardous ways. I am not of indeterminate gender. I am not a they<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Ms Kovvali<\/a> is a \u201cNew York based writer who focuses on social and cultural criticism.\u201d She \u201cidentifies as an Indian woman.\u201d\u00a0She was educated at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

Update<\/strong>, via the comments:<\/p>\n

Mike adds,<\/p>\n

[su_quote]Even by Salon <\/em>standards that\u2019s a badly thought-out article. Does anyone there proof-read this stuff?[\/su_quote]<\/p>\n

It is, it has to be said, something of a tangled mess. The gist seems to be that gender-neutral pronouns should be imposed on others, by people much like Ms Kovvali, whenever the gender of a person is deemed irrelevant by some \u2018progressive\u2019 sensibility, i.e., most of the time: \u201cGender-neutral language should be the norm,\u201d we\u2019re told. But gender may not be irrelevant to the person being written about or talked about. (As many transgender activists are fond of pointing out, of course.)<\/p>\n

Despite which, in Ms Kovvali\u2019s brave new formulation the person being written about doesn\u2019t get to deem their own sex of any relevance. Their preferences about themselves and how they\u2019re publicly identified are to be casually rescinded in favour of \u2018progressive\u2019 posturing, on grounds that \u201cnone of us fit neatly or entirely into a traditional gender binary.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, our Salon <\/em>columnist disdains a person\u2019s gender as merely a \u201crandom biological feature,\u201d as if it had no bearing whatsoever on how we think, how we see the world, who we are<\/em>. She seems to imagine that, freed from gendered pronouns, men and women would be psychologically fungible, differing only in their genitalia, and she appears to dislike anything that might suggest otherwise. For instance, she objects to the idea that proletarian rubes might \u201cassociate\u2026 aspects of their personalities with their sex.\u201d Which mustn\u2019t be allowed.<\/p>\n

So while transgender people are to be accommodated in every linguistic way possible, with a flourishing of mandatory neologisms and mannered grammar, the rest of us aren\u2019t supposed to mind having our preferences erased, even though almost all of us are contentedly male or female and may be quite attached to the customary pronouns and honorifics.<\/p>\n

If put into practice, we\u2019d be screwed over so that people like Ms Kovvali could indulge their need to appear enlightened and superior.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s such arse<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Readers will note that, as is the custom among such beings, Ms Kovvali has chosen not to engage with any of her critics. On any point raised, however apposite and politely. Perhaps due to the risk of bruising her pretensions.<\/p>\n

Except, that is, to tell her Twitter followers \u2013 in a sadly now-deleted tweet – that I, your host<\/a>, am a \u201cbro\u201d making a \u201ccunty manoeuvre.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which, to my ear, sounds terribly gendered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s call everyone \u201cthey\u201d: Gender-neutral language should be the norm, not the exception. So writes Silpa Kovvali, an exquisitely progressive she-person, in the pages of Salon: We are forced to\u2026 give in and refer to our co-workers, students and friends as \u201che\u201d or \u201cshe.\u201d The result is that our language caps our ability to be progressive in this realm, forces us to immediately characterise people as male or female. Which is only accurate and expected practically all of the time. And so, We ought to revert to the gender neutral \u201cthey\u201d whenever gender is not explicitly relevant. You see, Ms Kovvali believes that gendered pronouns and honorifics are an \u201coutdated linguistic tic.\u201d And not a useful, rather concise source of information, a signal of respect, and a way of clarifying who it is we\u2019re talking about. The effect of elevating gender\u2019s importance is felt by the cis-gendered as well. None of us fit neatly or entirely into a traditional gender binary, with all the expectations of masculinity and femininity that these buckets entail. And yet despite this claim, and the somewhat random mention of buckets, almost all of us seem quite happy to be referred to as either male or female, as if it were in fact \u201crelevant,\u201d and the demand for gender-neutral pronouns remains, to say the least, a niche concern. I\u2019d even venture to suggest that some of us might feel slighted by the wilful omission of \u2013 diminishing of \u2013 our respective maleness or femaleness. However, Ms Kovvali feels a need to inform those less enlightened, i.e., the rest of us, that, The goal is greater inclusion\u2026 to be respectful to those we write about, and to be clear to our readers. By risking affront on a daily basis and introducing a clumsy and needless ambiguity. Because vagueness is the new clarity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropology","category-politics","category-pronouns-or-else"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thompsonblog.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thompsonblog.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thompsonblog.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thompsonblog.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thompsonblog.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thompsonblog.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2681\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thompsonblog.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thompsonblog.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thompsonblog.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}