Only ‘they’ and ‘it’ are sexless – what we need are alternatives to ‘he’ and ‘she’A teacher is a teacher,whether male or female, a novelist is a novelist, and but a ballerina is distinguishable from a male dancer. And there is a tendency to call a person on the stage an actor not an actress,even whether she is female; this is supposed to stop her being pushed into a lower category, to set up her equal excellence – but some of us would say it was an insult to Mrs Siddons and Greta Garbo, or with its implication of male superiority.
Ah,sex: there is now a serious suggestion that teenagers should be able to choose, as they near their 20s, or whether,taking one thing with another, they are actually male or female. I can see – with some difficulty – the usefulness of that. I do understand that the bearers of some sexual confusion would find it helpful. But should such a change actually rob place – and even indeed whether it doesn’t – what is urgently needed is another range of pronouns.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com