The default male

[Insertfunnyname]

I’m getting fed up with “he” being the default pronoun for every animal/bird/bug/Teddy/toy

My friend was showing his young child our hens (who all lay eggs and are obviously female) and was pointing each one to his child as “look at him!” “Oh he is pecking the grass” etc.

It’s not just men who do it unfortunately it’s every woman I know too. “I love your Teddy what’s he called” or “look at the slug he is leaving a trail” or “wow that bird in the book is collecting sticks for his nest”

I just had an argument with my husband as he is also programmed to do this. We have 3 sons and he defaults everything to male when talking to them. He says “what’s the harm. I’m male so that’s my default” he even argued that our friend ‘misgendering’ the hens didn’t matter as the hens don’t speak English.

I can’t articulate how horrible it is to have my sex constantly “othered” and I don’t want my children to grow up with male as the default. I try and use she/her as the default about toys/cuddly animals/t-Rex figurines etc and usually people overhearing are surprised. If I say “look at the snail don’t stand on her” then friends will say “oh that’s interesting how do you know it’s female?” Whereas nobody EVER says that when people use “he”

My husband says women are welcome to default to she and men can default to he but frustratingly ALL the women I hear talking to their children use he(!!) even women talking to daughters.

I can’t seem to make my husband understand the problem with this. He truly sees it as a non issue and says I’m sending the feminist cause backwards by caring about such a ridiculous thing that makes no difference. Ie save my breath for the big problems.

Does anyone else relate? Any words of wisdom to make my husband understand why I’d rather not bring my sons up as the next generation of “he/him-ers” I think he’d get it more if we had daughters which we don’t.

As an aside please join me in using she/her for everything to try and combat it!

[GrumpyTerrier]

Yeah I was in a language class where all the examples used the masculine gender as a default. They told me I was wrong when I was using the feminine gender sometimes out of principle, and then they were baffled when I explained why I felt we should mix it up rather than always do the masculine. Also annoys me Google translate always defaults to masculine gender!

[MumUndone]

I've noticed this too and completely agree that it does matter.

[BlueRaincoat1]

I recently bought Chris Packham's book Amazing Animal Babies for my nearly 3 year old - he's really likes knowing the proper names for mammy animals, daddy animals and baby animals. It's really good, lovely picturs and cool animals, but it also is all about mothers fathers, parents, male and female. It's very clear and he loves it. It's really refreshing to have a book that isn't defaulting to something- its just being correct about who looks after the babies and feels really balanced. Really recommend it.

[Insertfunnyname]

Thank you for the recommendation

[SummerBreeze1980]

I have to say I recently realised I do this I'm now trying to make the conscious effort to say 'she'.

It reminds me of something I learned in my A level English Language class. It was that men often have no problem with a word like 'mankind' reasoning that of course it refers to men and women. But when women hear those kind of words they don't feel it includes them. Language is important!

[KimikosNightmare]

@SummerBreeze1980

I have to say I recently realised I do this I'm now trying to make the conscious effort to say 'she'.

It reminds me of something I learned in my A level English Language class. It was that men often have no problem with a word like 'mankind' reasoning that of course it refers to men and women. But when women hear those kind of words they don't feel it includes them. Language is important!

Really? I don't think "mankind" excludes me. It's a synonym for " all humanity" "humankind"

I get the point about not thinking about the default but this is over-egging the pudding.

Re cats and dogs I tend to assume small cats are female and larger are males. With dogs it's often obvious and I do try to say "what a cute/ lovely dog , what's their name"?

For children’s teddies would say "what's Teddy's name?"

[TheArtfulCodger]

@SourAppleChew

Misgendering of chickens. 🤣 Sorry, I think you need to get a grip. Others may disagree.

Ffs chickens don't have a gender they have a sex. The only living organism with a gender is a human, as gender is a social construct!

[DillonPanthersTexas]

Ffs chickens don't have a gender they have a sex. The only living organism with a gender is a human, as gender is a social construct!

Maybe the cockerels self ID'd and became hen's?

[NewlyGranny]

But would a man be expected to feel included as part of womankind? I have always done the female default thing and assumed the doctor, bank manager etc are she until told otherwise. It's easy once you get started. Some creatures you know are female like honey bees and dairy cows or hen blackbirds by their plumage, but gulls all look the same, and fish, too.

It's 50:50 in most species, so when we say she, we're just redressing the balance!

[justwondering21]

Yep completely agree. I default to female a lot when talking to my children.
When crossing the road a couple of months ago my 5 year old DD said "mummy, why is it all green men, why are there no green girls?"
I thought it was amazing yang she's noticing.

[MemoryGame]

My school always used to send letters to Dr and Mrs, when my mum is the Dr. They must have known it should be Dr and Mr, as they would only know that either of them was Dr through the original form filling, but they never got it right.

[NumberTheory]

I notice this, unfortunately in myself as well as everyone else even though I try not to do it. I tried really hard with my kids (as did DH) and they still default all their soft toys to "he", even the ones with female names.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Reminds me of this conundrum which I'm ashamed to say stumped me when I first heard it as a teenager in the 1970s.

A father and his son are in a car accident. The father dies at the scene and the son is rushed to the hospital. At the hospital the surgeon looks at the boy and says "I can't operate on this boy, he is my son." How can this be?

[BlaBlaSmthSmth]

@BunnyBerries

Absolutely, earlier Julia Donaldson books (like the Gruffalo) irrationally annoy me for this reason, (she later made the Gruffalo's Child book female) as well as other books like "Dear Zoo" which are all male animals "He was too... He was too... He was too... so I sent him back". Even books written by women seem to do this, and the side characters in books - cats are always female and the dogs always male - especially if not a main character). Why not use some imagination and depict a female dog? Or a male cat?

I found myself changing the books to say "she" and then questioning myself as my husband would read the book another night as written "he" and it might confuse my children how they were imagining the character. But I keep doing it anyway, it has started to pervade other things I see out and about!

I noticed this too, when reading books by the author who wrote 'Barry the fish' 'Doug the bug' and 'Norman the slug' etc it's so weird to have all male characters!

[Aroundtheworldin80moves]

Dont you know female animals have massive eyelashes and bows on their tails? That's how we can tell they are female. No bows... must be male.

[ErrolTheDragon]

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

Reminds me of this conundrum which I'm ashamed to say stumped me when I first heard it as a teenager in the 1970s.

A father and his son are in a car accident. The father dies at the scene and the son is rushed to the hospital. At the hospital the surgeon looks at the boy and says "I can't operate on this boy, he is my son." How can this be?

DDs (girls) school did a session for pre gcse pupils and parents with a 'learning methods' bloke in which this came up - it didn't work as a 'conundrum' for many any more. He had another more subtle and less well know example of 'default male' assumption which did catch people but I've unfortunately forgotten what it was.

I managed a memorably bad 'default male' moment, which shocked me how deeply ingrained outdated attitudes can be.
DD had a new chemistry teacher, who she mentioned as 'Dr S...'
I asked if he was ok. "She's fine"
Now, what makes this particularly bad is that I've got a chemistry PhD myself, and while we're still outnumbered I know loads of women PhDs. And yet, there it was - I heard Dr and 'chemistry teacher' and defaulted to male.

[ShadowInVain]

Slightly off-topic but tradition has some objects as default female, e.g. vehicles. A ship, train, car, lorry is always 'she'. I'm not sure what that says!

[orangejuicer]

@ShadowInVain

Slightly off-topic but tradition has some objects as default female, e.g. vehicles. A ship, train, car, lorry is always 'she'. I'm not sure what that says!

Something to be steered, controlled, ridden?

(Sorry).

[ErrolTheDragon]

@ShadowInVain

Slightly off-topic but tradition has some objects as default female, e.g. vehicles. A ship, train, car, lorry is always 'she'. I'm not sure what that says!

Objects men may find beautiful but which they are in control of, maybe?

Here's what the imperial war museum says:
Another tradition is to consider ships as female, referring to them as ‘she’. Although it may sound strange referring to an inanimate object as ‘she’, this tradition relates to the idea of a female figure such as a mother or goddess guiding and protecting a ship and crew. Another idea is that in many languages, objects are referred to using feminine or masculine nouns. This is less common in English which tends to use gender-neutral nouns, however referring to ships as ‘she’ may refer to far more ancient traditions. Interestingly, Captain Ernst Lindemann of the German battleship Bismarck referred to his ship as ‘he’, in view of its awesome power. In popular parlance, the tradition of naming ships ‘she’ has now become less common. It's worth noting that the shipping industry newspaper, Lloyd's Register of Shipping, now calls ships ‘it’.

[WorriedWishingWell]

I recommend The Very Busy Spider, by Eric Carle (the Hungry Caterpillar author). The spider is a she.

[ShadowInVain]

The commentary from the Imperial War Museum is interesting, Errol. I suppose historically, sailors were very superstitious, so the goddess idea would fit for ships, and ships obviously pre-dated other types of vehicle so might have set a precedent.

Anecdotally, women I know who have named their cars tend to give them a male persona (and to treat them with exasperated affection). Our cars have only ever been 'it' though.

[BlueRaincoat1]

Another book is Wow Said the Owl by Tim Hopgood about a little owl discovering colours. I remember being pleasantly surprised that the owl was 'she' without there being a ' reason' - my surprise me realise that it is still quite unusual.

[Taswama]

I hardly think it is sending the feminist cause backwards, how ridiculous.
I remember reading a study that one of the commonest words in print in the English language is 'he'.
Where women are mentioned in newspapers, the majority of the time the fact that they are a mother or grandmother is also mentioned, whereas men can just be.
I actively try and find books for my dc with strong female characters and/or female authors. DS1 did Harry Potter in year 7 and I was a bit annoyed to learn that they have changed the curriculum and DS2 will be doing Sherlock Holmes instead. Not a lot of female characters in that one. DS1 mostly reads /listens to non fiction now and it's hard to find popular non fiction written by women. He enjoys Mary Beard but in economics / geopolitics / science I've yet to find a good female author and audible won't let me search on that basis.

[ShadowInVain]

DS2 will be doing Sherlock Holmes instead. Not a lot of female characters in that one.

But on the plus side, the only person to get the better of Holmes in the whole series is a woman (Irene Adler).