Any academics? Is this normal now?

[Herja]

I've just started a humanities arts degree. My first submission is in a couple of weeks, yesterday my seminar was based on essay advice.

My course tutor stated that we must not use gendered pronouns, that we should use 'they' rather than 'he/she' in our writing. I queried this and was told "well you never know, you mustn't make assumptions...".

So, is this normal now? If it's not I will either argue this, or just plain ignore it, but it seemes prudent to check if this is just standard practice now .

University of Bristol if you were interested, known for being woke eejits, hence the checking; I'm confident enough in my work ability to take the marks hit by pissing of the tutor...

If they meant use they instead of ‘he/she’ then okay although it’s often a feminist statement to use ‘she’ and specify that you are using it to denote a person of either sex. But personally, I hate reading stuff where ‘he’ is used to refer to both sexes so I think the singular ‘they’ is fine when you are speaking hypothetically. It’s not grammatically incorrect as it is recognised as referring to the singular when used in that context (as I have used it in this post when referring to this tutor whose sex I don’t know)

Agreed. I'm not an academic but I write articles regularly for my company's website. The marketing department told me this year's ago.

Okay Herja then I would ignore that advice fully. If you get pulled up on it, start a formal complaint.

This wasn’t the notorious Mx Nicci Shall was it? Maybe tormenting feminist fellow phd students wasn’t enough and she wants to ensure that the whole university changes its entire policies so that she never has to read the triggering word ‘she’ ever again (sorry, Nicci, I meant they/them, I really am such a fucking cunt).

(Runs off to Google Nicci Shall)

Kittens Nicci is the person who screamed ‘she? I am pronouns they you fucking cunt’ in a video filmed at a WPUK meeting where she was one of the protestors. She is also the person who subjected feminist student Raquel Rosario Sanchez to horrific abuse and harassment, which the U of Bristol dealt with appallingly. Really really nasty piece of work. I am guessing that as a PhD student she has access to undergraduate students, which is worrying.

Ah, I remember...they? They are not a very nice person at all. The idea of that kind of person having an influence on undergrads and potentially being able to harm the careers of additional grad students is indeed worrying.

You should ask your tutor what their (see what I did there?) view of the study of women's writing is? Are all the scholars who have published on women's writing guilty of making assumptions about the gender of the writers they have analysed? Should this entire field of literary analysis be scrapped?

The consequence of making extreme stupidity a protected characteristic in academia. It seems that the dumber you are, the more people will cheer you on, while any challenge is labelled as hate.

Yes, I would ask to see the tutor and bring in a huge pile of books and articles on women’s literature, replete with references to ‘she’. Maybe print some of them off and highlight the word she to show the tutor. Display faux-concern at how hateful these works must be and maybe ask if you could do the essay without using any sources at all and just double check with the tutor that you will definitely still pass if you do that. Maybe even find something by their revered leader Judith Butler where she uses the feminine pronoun (there will be lots) and seek a declaration that anything by Butler or anyone else who has referred to female writers as she will be removed from the syllabus forthwith.

It is not that person no. Nor is it a phd student, definitely academic staff as she (sorry, they) mentioned annual rather than permanent contracts meant not having a fixed office for consultation hours.

Well, this seems depressing. It is an English degree, so more conjecture, analysis and criticism than direct research. Sex is definitely relavent when writing about literature - not all, no, but definitely some. The Elliot example above being a perfect case.

I will go with ignoring this advice and making a complaint if it affects marking.

English is one of the most thoroughly colonized subjects, unfortunately, so you're in for a lot more of this. That having been said, your tutor really is laying it on a bit thicker than usual.

Herja good for you, stand your ground. I am against precarity in academia (ie where people only get hired for a year at a time) but the fact that this person is precarious means that she will have little clout in her department and that you can easily go above her head if she tries to make life difficult. Sounds harsh, I know, but people who say stuff like this to students, making out that referring to a woman’s sex is offensive, shouldn’t be teaching them anyway in my opinion.

you'd say "X (surname, date in brackets) carried out research, which proved.." and you'd make sure everything was like that, either referring to the research, or the researcher by their surname. So from the assignment, you would never know the gender of any researcher referenced, as it would be initial and surname only. I thought that was quite standard for academic text, and nothing remotely to do with what gender anyone defines themselves as.

And what about the second time they are the subject of your sentence? Which is going to happen when you are writing 5,000 words about Jane Eyre?

And come to that what about characters OP? Is Jane Eyre a 'they'?

Hope you get an essay on Orlando

Kittens, don’t I know it. I was at uni with a guy doing an English PhD and he was the biggest mansplaining twat you could imagine, as well as being a predatory creep. Discovered that he is now an academic and uses they/them pronouns apparently. Regularly tweets about wanting ‘TERFs’ to die. Shuddering at the thought of young female undergrads having to be exposed to him. He was and no doubt still is, so toxic.

No, not 'normal' in the sense of it being a blanket academic practice. But there is an increasing awareness of the dominance of white, male scholarship informing many programmes, and efforts are being made to decolonianise the curriculum and include many more female voices in teaching. This latter effort has meant increased scrutiny on written assumptions of the male as norm. It's clunky to write s/he all the way through a piece of work so some lecturers are advising students as you've been advised, but that's just as ugly to my eyes.

Best excuse ever to be a raging misogynist but in a woke way, innit?

Oh god! I'd not even considered the characters! These essays will read most curiously .

It sounds like they are preparing you for academic life and how to format essays so that they will get the widest reading. It's also a really good mind exercise to remove gender and see how that affects the way you think. Give it a try.

It sounds like these are recommendations of style as opposed to a prescription or threat of marking people down if they're not 'woke' enough.

The reasoning that we should use non-gendered pronouns when we don't know a person's gender makes sense. What other pronouns would you use if you didn't know the gender of the person?

I is likely this guidance is to avoid the use of 'he' as a default as opposed to appeasing some form of unstated lobby.

if you know the person you are talking about is male or female, by all means, use 'he'. But from a style perspective I think avoidance of pronoun is generally fair.

I wonder if you should write to your head of department asking whether the guidance is departmental policy and whether you will be marked less favourably if you don’t follow it. You can note the writer’s sex may be relevant if you are grounding your analysis in a historical context and you are concerned that the guidance you’ve been given will impede your ability to express yourself clearly and provide a clear analysis of the relevant context. It may be that you have a rogue academic who has gone off piste or overstepped. If you get confirmation it is policy, I’d be asking whether it’s been impact assessed (eg for students on the autism spectrum, students for whom English is not their first language). Any marking schedule that requires students to mangle language in this way is going to disadvantage some, especially in stressful timed assessments/exams where it’ll slow people down trying to remember the woke filter rules and to apply them.

Yes, OP, be a good, compliant little handmaiden like vickyjgo and do what the man tells you.

It sounds like these are recommendations of style as opposed to a prescription or threat of marking people down if they're not 'woke' enough.

Have you read all of the OP's posts, Hypathia? Because that's not what the tutor is asking. He wants Sylvia Plath, for example, to be referred to as "they".

Give it a rest Vicky. As with everything else, it’s only ever the word woman that’s offensive, not man.

include many more female voices in teaching. This latter effort has meant increased scrutiny on written assumptions of the male as norm. It's clunky to write s/he all the way through a piece of work so some lecturers are advising students as you've been advised, but that's just as ugly to my eyes.

This isn't what OP is talking about. She's talking about writing an essay about Emily Bronte and calling her 'they' all the way through.

Using neutrals is entirely appropriate for a person of unknown sex. It's better than s/he and way better than defaulting to he. If it's good enough for Austen...

Otherwise - why is this tutor making the massive and unjustified assumption, driven by mores operating in a very culturally specific time and place (Western elites in the 2nd decade of the 21st century, pretty much) that a person would prefer to be referred to by a neutral pronoun rather than the one which is in accordance with their sex? If anyone you're likely to be writing about has a known different preference then obviously use it.

Using 'they' for individuals of known sex is making assumptions.

I'm an academic though in STEM. I do get the odd student misgendering authors (and occasionally me) and 99% of the time it's female to male. I'd be inclined to change ALL author pronouns to "she" and say you are doing it to redress the balance from the time when female authors had to represent themselves as male. Or find the authors' own writing about themselves (I imagine Jane Austen and Simone de Beauvoir have written about themselves?) and use that.

I have no problem with the indeterminate "they" as Shakespeare used it.

Even if everyone is clear on the sex of the writer, still 'they' because you can never know...
Well if you can never know, you also can't know if he or she would find being referred to as "they" as ridiculous woke bollocks so it doesn't really work as a reason.

Or find the authors' own writing about themselves (I imagine Jane Austen and Simone de Beauvoir have written about themselves?) and use that.
Surely the would use "I" to refer to themselves. I can't really see that catching on!

ShesDressedInBlackAgain that's it exactly.