turning the he into she into they
i found this article by Milla ahola and i am celebrating the gender diversity and inclusiveness that she has shared by electing to use the pronoun 'she' instead of 'he' throughout her blog, and the resultant dialogue to initiated on her blog helps me understand other realities besides mine and be compassionate and sensitive to them.
a few months ago while speaking with a friend who shared her intersexual friend's request to refrain from addressing to them as he or her, instead a request was made to be addressed as 'they', i had started thinking of referring to my friends as 'they' in their absence and so not to reveal their identity when i talk about a story where they were present or a part of. this i found greatly changed teh way people responded to teh story or my sharing... now i am feeling inspired to bring that diversity and inclusion in my own writing, with the use of the pronoun 'they' instead of 'he' or 'her'.
i found this article by Milla ahola and i am celebrating the gender diversity and inclusiveness that she has shared by electing to use the pronoun 'she' instead of 'he' throughout her blog, and the resultant dialogue to initiated on her blog helps me understand other realities besides mine and be compassionate and sensitive to them.
a few months ago while speaking with a friend who shared her intersexual friend's request to refrain from addressing to them as he or her, instead a request was made to be addressed as 'they', i had started thinking of referring to my friends as 'they' in their absence and so not to reveal their identity when i talk about a story where they were present or a part of. this i found greatly changed teh way people responded to teh story or my sharing... now i am feeling inspired to bring that diversity and inclusion in my own writing, with the use of the pronoun 'they' instead of 'he' or 'her'.
‘She’ & ‘Love’
by Milla. Most of the time she is used as a gender neutral word for third person singular in this blog.
It was a young woman in Finland who came up with this. In Finnish there is no s/hedivide. There’s only one word: hän. So she got really frustrated with having to make that difference in other languages, and came up with she.
I think it’s brilliant for so many different reasons.
1) It turns the current power system on its head: in most languages the gender “neutral” word is masculine. for instance in Spanish, where a group of women would be called “ellas” – feminine form of they – while a group of men would be “ellos” – masculine form of they.
a mixed group of men and women will always be in masculine form – “ellos” – even if there would be an overwhelming majority of women and only one man.
2) For the same reason as the above, it’s nice to question what feels “natural” (habitual!), by using she as the gender neutral. For most people it feels very strange and uncomfortable.
3) Woman is always pushed into second place, and made invisible. For this reason it’s nice to create a shift with more visibility towards the word she.
4) It’s about time we stop perpetuating the segregation between the (artificial) construct of male/female [human behavior separated in two categories - or: gender - expectations on a person's behavioral patterns from birth, mostly based on the arbitrary occurrence of cunt or penis]. We don’t use different words for brown or blond haired persons. So why should we think it’s important to know the sex (cunt or penis) of the one that’s being talked about? Unless we think it’s important to maintain this system called patriarchy.
5) The current bipolar (“One or The Other” – Two Options Only) system ignores the fact that many humans are born intersexed. If the word ‘he’ or ‘she’ is supposed to be areference to the biological sex of a person, then intersexed persons are excluded from existence within the current use of language.
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