By Write(H(ers participant Erin Sweeney, T'13
Lately, I’ve been paying more attention to how people (myself included) use pronouns. I’ve noticed that more of my peers are using gender-inclusive language like using him or her, as well as gender-neutral language, such as using the third-person plural pronoun “they” as a singular pronoun, to my AP English teacher’s chagrin.
Jill Filipovic, our first Write(H)ers guest writer of the semester, Editor of Feministe and columnist for The Guardian, called my attention to our society’s overreliance on gendered, male-dominated language when she apologized immediately after referring to our group, which was made up of fifteen women and one man, as “you guys.” Not only the feminist bloggers are being more deliberate about their use of gendered pronouns. I notice when my professors use gender-inclusive language, and pay particular attention when a professor continually inverts the classic order of “men and women” (as if the inclusion of “women” was added as an afterthought) to “women and men.” The order may seem inconsequential, but when your political analysis professor, who happens to be a white man, begins a lecture with “The next woman or man elected President…” instead of the classic, tongue-in-cheek version, “The next man—or maybe (maybe!) woman—elected President…,” I feel encouraged, inspired, and powerful.
Perhaps they are just following President Obama’s lead. In his most recent inaugural address, he mentioned the words “woman” and “women” eight times, compared to five total mentions of the male equivalent. The only times he mentioned women without including men were when he said “women have proven under fire that they are ready for combat,” congratulated the Senate for passing the Violence Against Women Act, and encouraged Congress to pass to Paycheck Fairness Act this year. These instances highlight when it’s necessary to use gendered language—when you are advocating for equality in the forms of equal recognition of military service, equal protection against violence, and equal pay for equal work.
The question I ask is: Has the corporate world caught on yet? I’ve been attempting to masquerade as a real person these last few weeks: networking over stale crackers and tasteless cheese, frantically visiting the Career Center each time I revise my résumé, and traveling to Washington D.C. for an interview last weekend. Every company and organization I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with thus far has had a male CEO, and although the underrepresentation of females in the most influential positions within a corporate hierarchy is a huge problem in itself, I don’t think it’s fair to criticize each individual organization solely on that criteria. What I can critique is the trend I see across companies: a consistent referral to CEOs, Vice Presidents, accountants, and clients as exclusively male. Today in an information session for a company that shall remain nameless, a young woman asked the female recruiter about the feasibility of switching to another division once you’ve been assigned to one of the company’s four. The female recruiter responded, “Oh, you just ask one of the guys who is leading a particular team within the division that interests you if he could request you to work for him,” she responded, apparently not seeing my eyebrows shoot up my forehead in surprise.
I know that “guys” has a adopted a certain flexibility that permits it to occasionally function as a gender-neutral term, but when people use it in a context that has historically only referred to men, I can’t help but feel alienated. Hopefully, my increased awareness of my overreliance on gendered or even anti-feminist pronouns will also heighten my awareness of using language that is—and I am guilty of this too—homophobic, racist, or classist.