6.10.2 Gendered Pronouns
Consider how you use gendered pronouns. Using he as a generic pronoun shows a strong bias towards male individuals. Instead, you can use “he or she” (“his or her”) as the pronoun for a generic noun. It is now acceptable to use the plural pronoun “they” as a singular pronoun, to be inclusive and to avoid awkwardness by using too many “he/she” constructions. You can also eliminate singular nouns and use plural nouns and pronouns as appropriate.
For example, traditional rules of English grammar call for a singular pronoun to agree with a singular subject: “Someone will call you to further discuss the issue. He or she will call between 9:00 and 10:00 tomorrow morning.” Contemporary usage of English allows a plural pronoun in this case to avoid gender bias: “Someone will call you to further discuss the issue. They will call between 9:00 and 10:00 tomorrow morning.” Or, in this situation, you may want to omit the pronoun: “Someone will call you to further discuss the issue. You can expect the call between 9:00 and 10:00 tomorrow morning.” See a few more examples in Table 6.5.
|
Avoid |
Try |
|---|---|
|
Every employee should file his report by the end of the day. |
Every employee should file their report by the end of the day. |
|
|
All employees should file their reports by the end of the day. |
|
When filing the report, each employee should make sure he includes yesterday’s data. |
When filing the report, each employee should make sure they include yesterday’s data. |
|
|
When filing the report, employees should make sure they include yesterday’s data. |
This section is adapted from “Eliminating Bias in Language” in Communication for Professionals by Susan Oaks, licensed under CC BY-NC: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International, except where otherwise noted.
