Making anthills out of, uh, smaller anthills.

I don’t know why, but for some reason I just can’t seem to get past this whole he/she debate. I don’t know if there will be enough literature about this topic (though Dr. Rogers has assured me there is, I remain skeptical), and I don’t even know if I can write a 500 word blog about it, so I’m a little nervous about doing it. I think it might interest me because I’m hoping that the various arguments reflect the English/American cultural attitudes toward women during the period that they were written in.

Also, I might be able to find some information about the nature of any debates about the subject. It would be kind of funny to come across examples of really heated arguments about this between the old, reluctant linguistic conservatives who want to keep everything the same and the emerging women’s rights activists. Maybe they got loud. Maybe there were protests. Maybe there were fist fights. Ok, the last one probably didn’t ever happen, but still, something interesting might have happened when this whole thing was a bigger issue than it is today.

Then there are all those weird compromises that I can look at, like “hir” and “s/he.” Were there other attempts at compromising besides these two? Heim? Herm? Himher?

Perhaps the essay could extend to cover not only this single issue but other gender related topics as well such as how writers have portrayed, or should depict, women and men in literature. For example, women have traditionally been cast as weak, stupid characters and men as intelligent and strong. Have there been specific movements to turn away from this practice, or has just happened sort of naturally as women gained more rights?

All of this so far has added up to a very “politically correct” atmosphere in writing that has a lot of people frustrated with how awkward language is becoming when it is burdened with all of these considerations. Have there been any counter-movements to return the language to the simple, old days of just calling everything “he” and “his?”

Another path that I might have to take could be examining any different cultural perspectives on including women in speech and, if these cultures are inclusive, how they do it as well. The little I know about Spanish might in might help in this area.

So there I have it, for now. I guess instead of just covering the he/she topic I can expand it to cover a few gender issues that have been debated in English and other cultures’ writing as well. I still don’t think that I have enough to go on here, but I hope that in researching this topic, more material will become available.