I used to not care about gender exclusive language at all. I would get a little annoyed when people pushed for gender inclusive language – switching pronouns was confusing, “he/she” was unattractive, “he or she” was cumbersome to the eye, etc. I said that I wanted an equal paycheck before I would ever care about pronouns.
Then, I was at a college art show reading an artist’s statement describing how the artist intended the viewer to experience his painting. He used only female pronouns. I read it and felt, for the first time in my life, included into the default. Included into the hypothetical viewer. When I read hypothetical male-only pronouns, I understand intellectually that the writing is referring to any hypothetical person. But when I read the artist’s statement with female pronouns, for the first time I felt like it could be talking about me.
One of my friends and I had a long discussion about this topic. He had just used the word “man” to refer to all people, and I asked him to use gender inclusive language if he was in fact including both genders in his statement – to which he responded that he never really paid attention to such admonishments of gender exclusivity (exclusiveness?) because even though he was saying the word “man”, he meant “all people”. We had a long discussion, and part of what I told him about was my own experience with how much gender exclusive language affects the experience and thought of the reader, regardless of the intent behind the exclusive words. I also mentioned that in academia, gender exclusive language is not longer considered acceptable in published works at all. Because of that point, he stated that he would try to change his language because I had made a good case about how it can offend women and make them feel excluded from things that are supposedly referring to all people.
And I told him that that wasn’t enough for me. Yes, I think it’s fine to change one’s language to gender inclusive because one earnestly wants to avoid offending people, but I didn’t call him out just because his language offended me; I called him out because he was speaking inaccurately. I think that most people will eventually change their language because gender exclusivity will continue to be considered more and more offensive, and therefore less acceptable in more and more social circles. But if that was the only reason that anyone ever changed the way they spoke, then nothing would have ever changed in the first place.
During the conversation, one of my other friends pointed out to me that women’s rights (from a USA point of view) have come a huge way in just the 90 years since the suffrage movement. Sure. I am grateful for the rights I have, especially the rights that I wouldn’t have had just a century ago. But I’m not calling you out on gender-exclusive language because I’m upset about society being unfair – I’m calling you out because you’re being inaccurate.
I’m not insisting that all of society change right now – I’m insisting that individuals that I speak to speak accurately, and refrain from saying that they “mean” men and women when they only say the word for men. Because you can’t get past that. No matter what you say the words “man” or “he” etc. mean when you say them, you cannot get past the fact that the words themselves are referring to males only. Speaking with gender inclusive language isn’t something you owe to women or hippies or those annoying there-are-no-differences-between-men-and-women-at-all people; it’s something you will want to do if you have any desire to communicate accurately.
Culture War Reporters 
I appreciate the tone and effectiveness for your argument, Elisa.
And I feel pretentious for pointing this out, but I also like that you mentioned that this is progress in US history and language.
This discussion plays out very differently in other countries–I can only speak for the Romance languages, in which every noun has “gender” and the effect of the he/she pronouns is much different. The rules of Portuguese grammar, as I learned them, dictate that when you have a group or list of male and female nouns, you more commonly use the masculine plural form–but not always, and I forget the specifics. That must’ve been sixth grade. Still I think your argument fits into even that context. So, well said.
Thanks for noticing that 🙂 We can only be so aware of our contexts, and there will always be things that we miss, but I do try.
Well said. There’s been a lot of progress towards making language more equitable and accurate, but nowhere near enough. In a book I read recently, there was a line about “man” landing on the moon, and it really took me aback. At a single stroke, it ruled out roughly half the world’s population! And this was in a new book on linguistics.
Casey Miller and the late Kate Swift did tremendous work advocating more gender-neutral language; their book Words and Women shows persuasively the prevalence and damaging effects of this often-invisible bias.
Thanks for the book title and the link to the macmillan dictionary blog – a blog about words! hooray! (did that read sarcastically? I am completely serious)
I think the move towards gender-neutral and -inclusive language is going well, but I really do hope that people realize why it’s necessary, instead of the majority of people just accepting whatever becomes the social norm for convenience’s sake. But I’ll take that too, in the end.
You make a good case. I’ve been rewriting this comment for the past hour because I’m not satisfied with my response.
“Man” is a pet peeve-word of mine. It only has its current place pigeonholed to the male gender because a millennium ago English speakers forgot to say the old word for an adult male and “man” replaced it. It used to be the English equivalent of Latin-derived “human.” I’m a rebel. I like to dredge up the old contexts for old words and use them. I think it’s healthy for the language. Not that I really think I can justify using the word “man” for humanity in an academic setting these days. I’m just not going to be quiet about it.
And Stan, unless I’m mistaken, no woman has set foot on the moon. So especially in the limited modern sense of the word, it’s literally true that “man” landed on the moon. 😛
I lament that English doesn’t have a gender-neutral pronoun set, and I also see the use in trying to push the language in directions that allow for clearer communication. However, gender inclusivity remains clunky in my experience. Maybe people I know haven’t sorted out the tricks: “firefighter” instead of “fireman”/”fireperson”; “police officer”, not policeman; the like. Then there’s the confusion over “waiter” and “actor”, both gender-neutral words which have been given the same treatment as “man,” leading to “waitresses” and “actresses.”
I’ve got enough complaints, qualms, and quaint anecdotes for my own blog post about gender in the English language, but I won’t squander any more of your time, consider this comment is already ten days late. Arguing for accuracy is the way to get the hardheaded folks like me coming around. Not saying I have, but again, you make a good case.
it’s true that the first person on the moon was a man; the phrase “when man landed on the moon,” though, that Stan referred to, is I think attempting to refer to humankind, or else they forgot the “a”. So your smiley-faced response to Stan’s point made no sense.
Sometimes being inaccurate is easier and less clunky than being accurate. Inconvenience is not an argument.
If gender exclusive language has to be gradually removed from polite society de facto because of it not being acceptable in academia, then I will settle for that. But I’d prefer the conscious decision.