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I know this sounds weird but I've been noticing a lot of texts on the Internet like this one:

"Any citizen is concerned with her well-being ...". The word in question is "her". To me it seems like in this case "her" is being used as a gender-neutral pronoun. Is this really the case or is it something else?

tchrist
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Gukibus
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2 Answers2

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It is indeed an attempt to use "her" as a gender-neutral pronoun. It is likely that the author is trying to even out gender bias, by using "his" and "her" with equal frequency, when a gender-neutral sentence is desired.

It is a problem in English. "Their" is not really a satisfactory word for the purpose, yet the standard "his", used universally, gives a huge male bias to English writing.

slim
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    To be fair, the more common use of "his" in linguistics is unrelated to social questions of gender equality. – tenfour Dec 16 '11 at 16:16
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    Try telling Andrea Dworkin that ;) – slim Dec 16 '11 at 16:18
  • Ok, I understand now. I asked because I found it confusing. – Gukibus Dec 16 '11 at 16:26
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    @Slim: why do you suggest that "their" is not satisfactory? – tenfour Dec 16 '11 at 16:43
  • To jump on, why is 'their' not satisfactory? I"d really like to know the justification. – Mitch Dec 16 '11 at 16:46
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    @tenfour because traditionally "their" is only used in the plural. It is a relatively recent development to attempt to also use it as a singular gender-neutral pronoun (because English doesn't have one), and it sounds unnatural to many people. – slim Dec 16 '11 at 16:47
  • @tenfour,Mitch: Most likely many of the people who object to "his" will be the same people as don't like "their" - a nitpicker is a nitpicker, regardless of which particular usage he/she/they happen to be banging on about at any given moment. – FumbleFingers Dec 16 '11 at 17:07
  • @slim: "They" sounds unnatural to non-native English speakers. BTW, English isn't the only language lacking a singular gender-neutral pronoun when referring to people, but it's the language having the most satisfactory solution of "they". – Irene Dec 16 '11 at 17:11
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    @slim: Singular "they" has been around a long time. Objecting to it now is almost as odd as objecting to singular "you" and insisting on "thou". – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Dec 16 '11 at 17:16
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    @Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 it was considered novel enough to be a debating point when I studied Natural Language Processing ~10 years ago. It usually feels forced to me; as if the writer wrote "his" then substituted "their" as a correction. – slim Dec 16 '11 at 17:21
  • @slim I am pretty sure an extremely small number of native English speakers would agree with that. "They" is appropriate in this case. – tenfour Dec 16 '11 at 17:51
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There is a trend to mix up the gender of pronouns, alternating between masculine and feminine, rather than to use the awkward gender-neutral formulations like "his or her", or, worse still, "s/he".

JeffSahol
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