The problem of pronouns and gender

(See, below, the feminist distortion of language used by the “conservative” French president, Sarkozy.)

Sage McLaughlin writes:

In a story about another hate crime hoax, this one involving a student at George Washington University who painted swastikas on her dormitory room door, an editor at the Washington Times, Robert Stacy McCain, writes this sentence: “Everybody wants their 15 minutes of fame, and faking a hate crime against yourself is a quick shortcut to the limelight.” Am I the only one bothered by the fact that an editor at the Washington Times doesn’t know that words ending in “body” are singular?

LA replies

“Everybody wants their 15 minutes of fame.”

It’s not that McCain doesn’t know that “everybody” is singular. It’s that “their” is used as the singular third person possessive pronoun in place of “his” or “his or her.” People today don’t want to use the traditional generic male pronoun, “he,” because they think of “he” as meaning only males. So they often use “he or she,” but the awkwardness of using that expression repeatedly in the same sentence leads them invariably to switch back to “they.” So we end up with this ubiquitous construction: “Everybody wants his or her 15 minutes of fame, but they often do unethical things to get it.”

People try different alternatives to escape the generic male pronoun, but, given the nature of the English language, none of the alternative forms is sustainable. A person who writes, “Everybody wants his or her 15 minutes of fame, but they often do unethical things to get it,” is not thinking clearly, and as a result his thinking in general is not clear. It’s like looking at the world through a smudgy lens instead of a clear lens.

The only solution is to return to the traditional use of the generic male pronoun to mean both sexes. The generic male pronoun can be maintained consistently, and so the sentences we write hold together without contradiction, and as a result our minds are in focus as well. There may be particular exceptions, and also the rules for speaking (say you’re addressing a group of girls) may be different from the rules for writing. But these exceptions do not change the general rule.

Howard Sutherland writes:

Thanks for highlighting this linguistic atrocity—one of my betes-noires. And it is spreading—I noticed Sarkozy using deliberate “his and her” references in French speeches. No conservative he!

LA replies:

His or her would be impossible in French, because the possessive pronoun is determined by its object. For example, if you say, “Everyone should cultivate his own garden,” which would be something like, “Chacun devrait cultiver son propre jardin,” the masculine pronoun, “son,” is controlled by “jardin,” which is masculine.

HRS replies:

That’s true, and I wasn’t specific enough about what Sarkozy actually was saying. What he was doing was, instead of addressing audiences as “Francais,” he was addressing them as “Francaises et Francais,” and, instead of referring to the French as “les Francais,” referring to the French as a people as “les Francaises et les Francais.” (This computer won’t let me put in the cedilles right now.) That’s just bad French, and completely redundant, for the rule about the masculine serving as the unattributed personal pronoun is exactly the same as in English. The only purpose is feminist pandering; in every instance I noticed Sarkozy was careful to put the feminine form first.

It reminds me of trendy modernist Catholic priests (think of Roger Mahony) who, instead of saying “Pray, Brethren … “, are always careful to say “Pray, My Sisters and Brothers … ” They know exactly what they are doing. Of course, if the Church were healthier, they would all be saying “Orate, Fratres,” and that would be that.

LA replies:

Nothing good for our civilization can come from such a person. Once a person distorts language like this, and all for a specious and unsustainable sexual equality in language, it means he cannot think truly and clearly about anything. Or have an honest relationship with anything.

“Pray, my sisters and brothers.”

That sounds like something in a Communist state. It bespeaks a collectivist, broken down condition of society. Try imagining a priest during World War II saying “Pray, my sisters and brothers.”

Tiberge, the author of the Galliawatch website, writes:

You are both correct in your assessment of him as a politically correct “genderist” (I just coined a new term). His Minister of Justice (a Muslim female, and very close to Sarkozy) wants 50 percent of newly appointed magistrates to be women. Sarkozy has made many gestures along lines of feminism, etc….

BUT

The usage “Francaises, Francais” goes back a long time. I don’t know where it began, but I believe de Gaulle used it. Judgment on Sarkozy should not be based on that type of phrasing, since it is always used, but based on his actions that indicate he is aggressively pro-parity.

LA replies:

Genderist! Great term.

However, if the phrase, “Francaises, Francais” goes back decades, with the feminized consciousness that represents, doesn’t that correspond with the period during which the French have, in a most unmanly way, been progressively surrendering their nation to the EU and Islam?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 06, 2007 11:40 AM | Send