AIBU - girls' school wants to use 'their' in the school vision

[Dinosaurhearmeroar]

Hi everyone,

I feel like I am so far down the rabbit hole that at times I wonder if I am overreacting to things I wouldn't used to. Case in point - we had a school meeting about our school vision (the thing that goes on the website and parents read etc.). The meeting was about editing and amending etc and one of the amendments suggested was "their" instead of "her" e.g 'fulfil their potential" not "her".

This really rankled me but I remained quiet as perhaps we are just using the gender neutral (not really any reason to - we are single sex).

AIBU or is the school showing fealty to a gender ideology that I personally don't believe in (like saying "and we believe in Jesus Christ.")?

Thank you.

It depends on the purpose of the statement and how they word it; if they originally wanted to make a statement that girls could identify with, and they said 'we want to help every girl meet her full potential' then I'd be annoyed if they were changing it. Changing 'her' to 'their' in that context makes it less personal. Grammatically it only makes sense if they are talking about a group of girls.

'we want to help every girl meet her full potential'
'we want to help the girls meet their full potential'

One of the things needed for a girl to reach her full potential is for her school to respect her sex.

I would raise it. It is a school of girls for girls.