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...

It’s well know what these authors’ pronouns were because if they had any objections to it they would have fucking said so at the time wouldn’t they? If Jane Austen and Sylvia Plath didn’t raise any objections to being viewed as women during their lifetimes, then we can assume no objections. The absolute sheer idiocy of all this. And the harm it causes in reinforcing stereotypes. It’s such a privileged white middle class neoliberal movement. Staggering that they think they are doing good through this.

We can also deduce from their writings about other people (real and their fictions) whether or not they supported the practice of using pronouns congruent with sex.

Hm, can anyone think of an author who didn't use pronouns matching sex? This tutor really is being arrogant if they're discounting they want you to discount the evidence of an authors own words. A sort of cultural imperialism - thinking that their thinking should take precedence.

So unless every person in history specifically announced their pronouns we're not allowed to name their sex? Is this a man or a woman instructing you to do this? Whichever, ignore them or ask them why they think it's important to erase women and go back to the default male (which "gender neutral" always is in our culture).

Women's writing and the study of it is hugely important. Kate Millet wrote Sexual Politics on the back of her PhD in English. Andrea Dworkin was also an English Lit undergraduate. Erasing the female from female work can only be the work of male supremacists.

When I was at Bristol Uni in the 80's one of our elderly law lecturers didn't think women should be at Uni so refused to acknowledge us/answer questions. How times have changed.

I am not up to speed with these 'gender' pronouns. Surely they aren't precise enough?

Almost looking forward to the next call from the Alumni telesales students asking for money.

If you write to the head of department and find it is required.... well I’m not sure what I’d do. Tempting possibilities include using she/her throughout, or using “they” but set it in language that would be grammatically correct for he or she. Add in the realisation that we can no longer mention men or women (because Mr Darcy very likely felt like a woman inside). It’ll be a lovely essay...

Jane Austin was an author who had a vagina. They was very much engaged in noting power differentials between penis people and vulva people.

Honestly, if faced with having to do that, I would genuinely be looking to transfer to a different subject or university.

I will give them the benefit of the doubt here, that they are referring to the use of “he or she” vs “they” when discussing a hypothetical person.

For example,

“When a person eats spaghetti, he or she must twirl it first”

Versus

“When a person eats spaghetti, they must twirl it first”

In which case both are correct - the question is about which is preferred. Personally I prefer the second because it is shorter and to me less clunky. I would hope that you would not lose points for choosing the first however.

FWRLurker no, sadly they didn’t just mean hypothetically (in which case singular they is fine) but in relation to individuals where the sex is clearly known.

I would write the essay referring to pronouns of the sex of the person you are discussing where necessary. If you get even the sniff of anyone marking you down for it, unleash hell by emailing the HoD and threatening to take it higher. They get shit scared of that. Also, unless this is written in official course documentation then it’s very likely that this tutor just made it up.

Wasn’t this person was it OP? Trying to think of the woke people I know in Bristol English...

twitter.com/joanpassey/status/1148890773557010433?s=21

It's also a really good mind exercise to remove gender and see how that affects the way you think. Give it a try.

The OP isn’t concerned with some made up ‘gender’ bollox, just about being able to use the correct pronouns in order to differentiate the ‘sexes’. I love the fact that you’re basically trying to get the OP to brainwash themselves. No, *Vicky’, this OP is too smart to try to gain woke cookies.

And also studies have shown that when you don’t mention or remove gender, everyone assumes the person is male. Which is why it’s essential to note female writers. So what Vicky is suggesting is awfully regressive.

I don't think you have to worry about characters OP. Just checked my copy of Pride and Prejudice and Lizzy is referred to as she/her throughout....surely Austen wouldn't have mis-gendered her? ....But then maybe Austen was a TERF

Hmmm, I think that most authors probably used sex-based pronouns as was usual when they were writing (and still is except for a few areas of uber-wokeness). I think you should ask your lecturer / lecturers to provide evidence that the authors of your set texts were not happy with sex based pronouns if they expect you to jump through unnatural hoops to write essays.

I also second the suggestion that if they're going to require the use of non-sex based pronouns, they need to do an impact assessment of the impact on students who will find this more difficult (e.g. English not first language).

I’d argue that we've had to fight long and hard to get women's writing recognised and onto the curriculum (and women's contributions to science, music, art,... You name it) and I'm damned if I'm going to "invisibilise" their contributions

This.

Feminist academic here - I publish (a lot) on the history of women’s writing.

And I think it’s pretty easy to assume Sylvia Plath’s sex and to indicate that. Anyway, literary critics long ago cast off the requirement that we take the author’s view of him or herself as the only way to interpret the work. Ask your tutor about the biographical fallacy.

So even if Sylvia Plath thought she was a fucking non-binary transman pansexual unicorn, you are entitled to ARGUE, with appropriate EVIDENCE that she was a biological woman whose lived experience was both invested in the prescribed gender roles for her SEX in the 1950s, and at odds with them. And that much of her writing came out of that tension. and that she BIOLOGICALLY conceived carried, birthed, and breastfed two babies.

Many women wrote/write of their lived embodied experiences and battle a patriarchal literary canon which would silence them and try to make them invisible.

You could also ask your tutor what “they” understand about “presentism” and ask them if they think it’s an historiographically sound theoretical model.

“When a person eats spaghetti, they must twirl it first”

Perfectly reasonable. You don't know the person's sex. You don't assume it.

OTOH

“When Karen eats spaghetti, she must twirl it first”

“When Steven eats spaghetti, he must twirl it first”

These also assume nothing, as, culturally, Karen is a female name and Steven is a male name.

Were you, however, to be talking about Karen White or Steven Whittle, you might be obliged by censorship rules to deny your perceptions. You might therefore find using 'they' easier than the cognitive dissonance of using what you perceive to be the wrong pronouns.

3rd person pronouns describe your perceptions, not the perceptions of the person to whom you are referring.

It's also a really good mind exercise to remove gender and see how that affects the way you think

Feminist critic and literary historian Dale Spender commented once in a seminar back in the 1980s (when I was an EngLit PhD student) that she found it interesting that at the very time when we were rediscovering and celebrating a wide range of women writers as authors worthy of study, the trendy critical theory was proclaiming the “death of the author.”

Plus ça change.

By the way, everyone should read Spender’s Mothers of the Novel, and Reflecting Men at Twice Their Size (that title riffing in Virginia Woolf).

What pronouns would you use when referring to e.g. Robert Galbraith?

She. It’s a known pseudonym for Joanne Rowling.

It's known if you know it... Would it be an awful crime to refer to RG as 'he' if you didn't know? I guess the standard would be to introduce "JR, writing as RG"

How much responsibility is reasonably expected to find out the author's real sex, and/or true gender?

I suppose you could refer to 'Robert Gailbraith' as 'he' in the sense of being a fictitious male created by Rowling.

I went to brighton university and it was wall to wall this shit. I'm amazed I managed to graduate.

I suppose postmodernism had to have material consequences in the end. A lot of people warned against this, but academics still embraced it enthusiastically. Women are being kicked out of reality.

I work in academia. I use 'she' for any instances of unknown gender and have never been questioned on it.

@Methyl I like your style and will be emulating you.

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 sad

No, it's not normal at all......my daughter is currently studying for an Eng Lit degree - and her tutor actually despises these sorts of post-modernist de-constructions......

My son has just completed an MA in international Relations......never heard of such nonsense.

Just ignore. It is your academic work, and you must own it.

It's a grammatical headache referring to everyone as "they".

Boris Johnson walked into a bar. The bar was full of people. They felt uncomfortable.

Who am I talking about???