My recent article on Unleashed prompted some of the most inane commentary I have ever read. I really didn't think the article was that complicated, but the point seems to have eluded most of the commenters.
One person even chided me for using the feminine pronoun in this paragraph:
The scholar with this sort of claim - and believe me, they aren't modest about it - imagines herself sublimely objective in this, uniquely capable of divesting herself of all vestiges of her home culture and its variety of faith.
This was, she claimed, further evidence of Sydney Anglican misogyny. Because I had chosen the feminine pronoun to describe a generic person who I was viewing negatively, ergo, I am being chauvanistic. She said 'gender-neutrality' is the only way forward here.
I accept the diagnosis that gender-specific langauge is problematic and needs to be changed as far as possible, especially in cases where no specific gender is meant. Consistently to say 'he' when I mean 'a person' is not a pratice I wish to continue. I cannot fathom why people insist that their Bible translations continue to display a gender-specificity not found even in the original languages.
However, I don't think gender-neutrality is desirable or even possible. Human beings are gendered! Added to which, the gender-neutral options (h/she, they etc) are clunky. So, my solution - and it is certainly not my original solution - is to alternate 'he' and 'she'. That means that sometimes a 'she' will be a villain. Fair enough?
I have seen this practice in academic writing all over the world, though not universally.
I don't think this will work with 'Man' as a generic term, however. It is still the case that if you said 'Woman' when you meant 'Humankind' you would miscommunicate. And I note that Germaine Greer recently said 'mankind' on TV!
BTW, my absolute pet hate when in comes to prescriptive changes in linguistic usage is the word 'Godself' as the alternative to the reflexive pronoun 'Himself'. It makes me want to barf with the self-conscious holier-than-thou political correctness of it.
14 comments:
I like 'they' as the singular gender-netural pronoun. I don't think it's clunky.
I can't help but read 'she's as a political, and, to be honest in a slightly lame way like 'police-person', 'chair-person', 'fire-person' sort of way.
I don't mind 'they', but try using 'they' in the offending paragraph and see how it flows...(as in, not very well!)
Nah. It's fine.
Merry Christmas, Michael.
When people make this sort of criticism I would like them to keep in mind the fact that the situation is intrinsically difficult — English is not built the same way as the source languages as far as genders and generic words are concerned — and so almost any choice is open to some criticism. This ideological habit of discerning a strong agenda in any particular choice got old a few decades ago ... but in some cases it just won't survive an engagement with the data.
I've never liked the alternating-gender thing, finding it laboured; I'm a "they" man. Seems perfectly sensible to me, but some people find it intolerable, either in style or in grammar...
... just now read Mikey's and your comments. I take the point that "they" is awkward in that particular sentence: I guess I would have rendered the whole thing in the plural. Which is also to the point: it's unrealistic to suppose that in general, sentences or even paragraphs can be kept as-is, with a single substitution slotted in. Translation doesn't work like that, so why should a reform in usage?
Another point in favour of "they": I would prefer to be pilloried for bad grammar while making a deliberate linguistic choice, than accused of misogyny: 'cause there's no good escape from that one, as you're finding.
I've come across alternating she and he in various places as well, and it always seems forced anywhere outside of kids' books. I'm a 'they' man.
On 'Godself', you'll love this.
Well it is great to have a better level of comment than you get at the ABC!! Thanks Bruce, Mikey and Ben!
I choose the alternating option because I am, yes, being political, I guess. In two directions: firstly against the move to neutrality. The genderedness of persons seems like (theo-)anthropological truth we do well to keep reminding people of.
And secondly, in a church sub-culture which is so determinedly complementarian, it behoves us to bend over backwards to eradicate any hint of sexism. Woe to us if we suffer because we are actually doing the wrong thing (to borrow from 1 Peter). Complementarian theology has been a front for all kinds of dreadful behaviour. Doesn't mean its wrong, but it does mean that the onus is on complementarians to show how their theological stance is NOT merely an excuse for being a pig, yeah? So, if alternating does lean a little towards making a statement, I am not too unhappy.
..but the aesthetic is the chief reason!
Michael I agree with you.
I think women are generally over-sensitive to gender language both in this instance and in Bible translations.
I agree with you about Bible translations too. I think that instead of changing language that we don't like we should be seeking to understand and teach it better. Once we understand the context in which it was written and the importance of concepts such as all of us (male and female alike) being 'sons' of God, I think we will start to have less of a problem with the language.
katierae: I tend to agree, in that trying to get (apparent) gender out of some expressions results in intolerable strain, and can't substitute for teaching. Replacing "one like a son of man" with "one like a human being" (later referred to as "him"!) only succeeded in making the NRSV look silly, in my view.
The sensitivity to this issue may be perverse, but I believe we're stuck with it for a generation at least; and for many people it is a matter of genuinely felt, rather than politically feigned, outrage. There may be deliberate choices behind it, but for the most part they were choices made by a previous generation and they have at least contributed to a genuine change in mood.
Michael: Not really with you on the aesthetics (you knew that already), or the concern to do the right thing as a "complementarian" (although granted the perspective, I honour the concern — it certainly beats the alternative), but I do get the point about genderedness. It just seems to me that you end up creating problems for yourself with this particular solution.
Individual people are male or female and this matters deeply: OK. A concrete example using a generic term — an attempt at shoehorning ανθρωπος into English, as it were — is thus unresolved in an important particular: likewise, granted. But an example with an explicit gender in it, especially if the subject is female, will register as making a gendered point. The interpretation may be ungenerous but you are setting yourself up for it.
Since you are honest enough to own the political motive, I will not chide: no point starting on an argument on temperament or style. But is this an effective form of political speech?
I might ask the same thing about the disavowal of "religion". There is a clear point to be made here about the heterogeneity of religion and the way in which throwing the word around can obscure, rather than illuminate ... and I thought you made that point well enough. The criticism of the "Studies in Religion" approach was clear and, I thought, potent. But in not owning the category for yourself, even as a concession, I think you were setting yourself up for difficulty. We both know that I'm more comfortable with being identified as "religious" than you are: together with the fact that I'm a congenital layman, while you're a second-generation clergyman, this will serve a sign of the peculiarity of the Sydney scene. So I'll concede it costs me nothing to make this point. But, well: you are a clergyman, and even setting that aside, your Christianity is one of the most important things to know about you. If you don't own the category of "religious", even as a concession, aren't you setting up some of your audience to take offence? And what point does that offence serve?
I read your article and the comments at that time (a good number when I read it). What amazed (but didn't surprise) me was how many people treated your article simply as a tangent to launch into tired inane sniping about religion, atheism, political correctness, and the like.
The gendered pronoun comment was too much to stomach. So far, no English language solution has emerged to the problems, and I do not foresee one in the near future.
Amen to your blog post MJ, and again I say, "Amen".
Michael, thanks for championing gender balanced language. As a female social scientist working in our diocese I wholeheartedly endorse it as academic best practice and as personally affirming.
As far as I understand it, the early church was radically counter-cultural in the way it upheld women, and I reckon we should be continuing to do the same. To use language I have heard oft repeated, surely we should aim to be ‘above reproach’ in the eyes of our non-Christian neighbours as long as it doesn’t conflict with Scripture.
This gender specific stuff is far too species specific for my liking. You should be aspecial in your generalisations.
"It" and "itself" would have worked aesthetically in the offending sentence.
Thanks Michael. Good stuff.
I wonder whether there is any sense in which the masculine is inclusive of the feminine in the way that the feminine is not of the masculine. In other words, is gender reciprocity total even at the linguistic level. I realise you have answered this already in your comments. Yet it seems there is much more work to be done in decidedly theological reflection upon language.
Also, I don't want us to fudge on the real issues. We can say 'sisters and brothers' and refer to all the good guys in our essays etc. as 'she' and still treat women dreadfully. Genuine love and humility doesn't stop at the language we use (even if it can't help but be expressed by the language we use)
Post a Comment