Back in 1884, Charles Crozat Converse decided that English needed a new pronoun, a singular and gender neutral pronoun. He proposed it be called
thon, apparently a blend of
that +
one. In 1971, Casey Miller and Kate Swift proposed that we introduce three new pronouns -
tey,
ter and
tem (to operate as singular versions of
they,
their and
them). In 2005, Dr Richard Neal applied for intellectual property rights over two similar pronouns
hesh and
hir (the former being an alternative to he and she or s/he, the latter her/his). None of these really caught on, as
this 2007 OUP blog post by Ben Zimmer explains in more detail.
So, are all such attempts doomed to failure? If new words as varied and inconsequential as
jeggings,
upcycling,
bromance and
mankini can be readily accepted, why not new pronouns? Clearly these terms haven't entered standard usage, but there has been an increase (at least, anecdotally and in my own experience) in attempts at gender neutrality through
s/he,
he or she and the use of
they.
Perhaps these words are harder to change because they are so common. Research a few years ago
suggested that our most commonly used words are the most resistant to change, despite often being the most irregular. So, while we're happy to adopt
jeggings as a word (although the day I wear the actual clothing is the day I die) but slow to adapt our pronoun use.
Perhaps we should all just give up and accept that English was historically built by men, written by men and is probably destined to reflect an imbalance that favours men? Perhaps not.
While prescriptivists will no doubt cry that changing or inventing pronouns to avoid gender bias is "PC gone mad", and pedants will argue that the current best-placed alternative
they shouldn't be used for singular subjects (because it's always been a plural pronoun), we know from academic research that gendered terms (including pronouns)
do matter.
Words have a huge impact on how gender is constructed and words can often hold the key to how we define ourselves in so many different ways. Just have a look at a catalogue for children's toys and how gender roles are not only differentiated by colours and activities but by words and phrases.Then have a look at this piece of research from 1972:
In 1972… some three hundred college students were asked to select from
magazines and newspapers a variety of pictures that would appropriately
illustrate the different chapters of a sociology textbook being prepared
for publication. Half the students were assigned chapter headings like
“Social Man”, “Industrial Man”, and “Political Man”. The other half was
given different but corresponding headings like “Society”, “Industrial
Life”, and “Political Behavior”. Analysis of the pictures selected
revealed that in the minds of students of both sexes use of the word man evoked, to a statistically significant degree, images of males only
— filtering out recognition of women’s participation in these major
areas of life — whereas the corresponding headings without man evoked
images of both males and females…. The authors concluded, “This is
rather convincing evidence that when you use the word man generically, people do tend to think male, and tend not to think female” ([Miller et al. 1980, pages 19-20], quoted by Spertus; emphasis added).
(source: http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/grammar-and-syntax/gender-neutral-language/ )
Swift and Miller (referred to both in the first paragraph and in this quote) later went on to write their influential
Handbook of Non-Sexist Writing which played a significant part in drawing attention to the systematic derogation (or outright denial of the existence) of women in some aspects of language. But in an earlier book,
Words and Women, they set out to - in the words of Swift
in this illuminating interview with the writers - draw attention to the imbalance in language:
All we wanted
to do was to point out to people that ours was a male-centered language.
We all have this male-imposed view when we first acquire language, and
it gets reinforced in the recess of using language. We wanted people to
think about this and then try to come up with their own ways of solving
the problem. There is no set solution such as every 'man' should become
'person,' so we refused to make this a how-to-do-it book.
When it was released, it garnered favourable reviews and in the words of Benjamin DeMott of the New York Times was...
...a complacency shaker. It convinces
you, if you need convincing, that belief in the inconsequentiality of many
of the customs and conventions under examination is, in fact a species
of complicity in the continual humiliation of half of the human world.
So, why come back to this 2012?
Hen, that's why. Swedish writers have now taken up the cause and produced their own new gender neutral pronoun,
hen, which is explained in
this Slate article. There's an interesting take on it from
this blogger too, who argues that "
It is simply another form of domination and since it lacks substantial support among grass roots it will not succeed".
Will
hen catch on as
thon,
hesh,
hir,
tem,
tey and
ter failed to? God knows and hesh ain't letting on yet.
