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!

[AssassinatedBeauty]

We say the "green person" too. "Pedestrian" is probably too long and tricky a word for small children!

[AccidentallyOnPurpose]

[quote AssassinatedBeauty]@CBUK2K2 yep, people here are pointing out that the definition of mankind as synonymous with humanity is a bit shit, not that it isn't the current meaning of it. It leaves out half of humanity, after all. Consider how different it seems to use "womankind" as a synonym for humanity. [/quote]
It's not even an English language issue.


In my language we have a word for human , separate to man that is used in the same way as "man/mankind" in similar texts.

However if I said I saw two xxxx everyone knows I mean two men , because it is never ever used for women, despite it's meaning literally being human. Doesn't help that all the nouns in my language are gendered so the two would automatically become masculine because the noun is. But I'm waffling now...

[PlanDeRaccordement]

Linguistically, the English language has “he” for both male and gender neutral. So it’s grammatically correct to use “he” when you don’t know the gender of the animal you are referring to.

I don’t understand why this upsets you? Or other posters? Changing “he” to “she” seems just as bad to me. If anything, should be trying to add to English a gender neutral pronoun like “xe” or something.

[CBUK2K2]

@AssassinatedBeauty So should we remove and man from woman and human?

Some people have far too much time on their hands.

This is just as ridiculous as referring to mothers as "birthing parents"

[AssassinatedBeauty]

I would refer to an animal of unknown sex as "it" rather than "he". Is that grammatically incorrect? It's never been corrected or mentioned as an error to me.

[PlanDeRaccordement]

Mankind breastfeeds his young' and 'mankind carries babies in his womb' isn't an accurate use of the language

Correct, because if you used mankind as the subject, the pronoun would be they and their, not his. This is because mankind =humanity = plural not singular. As in

“Mankind breastfeed their young” and “mankind carries babies in their wombs”

Putting “his” in there scream cognitive dissonance because it’s bad grammar.

[PlanDeRaccordement]

@AssassinatedBeauty

I would refer to an animal of unknown sex as "it" rather than "he". Is that grammatically incorrect? It's never been corrected or mentioned as an error to me.

Depends if you want to objectify a living being or not.

[AssassinatedBeauty]

I don't think an animal would care that it might be objectified by my calling it an "it" if I didn't know it's sex.

Is it really objectifying (and so, a wrong thing to do) and grammatically incorrect to say something like "oh, there's a squirrel in the road! It had better move quickly otherwise it's going to get squashed!" ?

[PlanDeRaccordement]

@AssassinatedBeauty

I don't think an animal would care that it might be objectified by my calling it an "it" if I didn't know it's sex.

Is it really objectifying (and so, a wrong thing to do) and grammatically incorrect to say something like "oh, there's a squirrel in the road! It had better move quickly otherwise it's going to get squashed!" ?

No it’s not wrong. Both are grammatically correct.

It’s just that we tend to either anthropomorphise or objectify animals. If we use human pronouns and refer to an animal as a “he” we are anthropomorphising them. If we use object/thing pronouns and refer to an animal as an “it” we are objectifying them.

[Burnername101]

@CBUK2K2. In what way?

Not being sarcastic, BTW — this kind of guidance is something I have used on a daily basis for years, and it is interesting to observe what others see in it.

[ErrolTheDragon]

Linguistically, the English language has “he” for both male and gender neutral. So it’s grammatically correct to use “he” when you don’t know the gender of the animal you are referring to.

This usage note sums up pretty well:

Until relatively recently he was used to refer to a person of unspecified sex, as in every child needs to know that he is loved, but this is now generally regarded as old-fashioned or sexist. Since the 18th century they has been an alternative to he in this sense (everyone needs to feel that they matter), where it occurs after an indefinite pronoun such as everyone or someone. It is becoming more and more accepted both in speech and in writing, and is used as the norm in this dictionary. Another alternative is he or she, though this can become tiresomely long-winded when used frequently.

It's old fashioned and sexist. We don't need to add a gender neutral pronoun - 'they' has served this purpose perfectly well for centuries (earlier than 18th C, there are examples in Shakespeare) when the sex of the person (or animal) is unknown.

[Keke94LND]

@CBUK2K2

The reason there are more male characters in books is because there are significantly more male authors (roughly 75%) and most people write what they know.

Don't like it? Stop moaning and go out and write a book and get it published.

Do you think there might be a reason why there's more male authors though?

[midgemagneto]

Hint

Why jk Rowling not Joanna ?

[AuntieStella]

I was once reprimanded at work - we regularly discussed target groups, and I'd noticed that there was a default of using 'he'

So one day, once only, I said 'she'.

It was noticed and I was told off for making a feminist point at an inappropriate time